Jan, 19th, 2009 was the last day of this term in Du jiangyan Model High School. And we had the honor of having been invited to take part in the Teachers' Celebration and afterwards had a faculty reunion dinner. Upon this, the teacher in charge of the Teachers' Celebration hopefully asked us to prepare a show, which was expected to be vigorous and young because we are just in the state of youth.

     We felt happy about being invited to the Teachers' Celebration and meanwhile shocked by the show assigned to us, because few of us had ever put on a performance on the arena before lots of spectators. But we had to prepare one because we are standing for DOT and a team.

     Then we began an arduous and meaningful mission, selecting a song which should be suitable for each of the interns and our ISM. We once overworked for two hours after work, practicing the popular song "You Are Welcome To Beijing". Each of us sang one chapter of the song. Although we had a nice practice, song was no novelty and we should come up with something special.

We thought over and over again and finally we chose a love song named “You Will Marry Me Today”. A boy intern and a girl intern made a pair and as we sang, we would make some simple actions. At first, some of us felt timid and embarrassed and later everybody felt great, which proved a proverb that practice makes perfect.

And it was true that we put on a fantastic performance that day.

     The Chinese New Year is now popularly known as the Spring Festival because it starts from the Beginning of Spring (the first of the twenty four terms in coordination with the changes of Nature). Its origin is too old to be traced. Several explanations are hanging around. All agree, however, that the word Nian, which in modern Chinese solely means "year", was originally the name of a monster beast that started to prey on people the night before the beginning of a new year (Do not lose track here: we are talking about the new year in terms of the Chinese calendar).

     One legend goes that the beast Nian had a very big mouth that would swallow a great many people with one bite. People were very scared. One day, an old man came to their rescue, offering to subdue Nian. To Nian he said, "I hear say that you are very capable, but can you swallow the other beasts of prey on earth instead of people who are by no means of your worthy opponents?" So, swallow it did many of the beasts of prey on earth that also harassed people and their domestic animals from time to time.

     After that, the old man disappeared riding the beast Nian. He turned out to be an immortal god. Now that Nian is gone and other beasts of prey are also scared into forests, people begin to enjoy their peaceful life. Before the old man left, he had told people to put up red paper decorations on their windows and doors at each year's end to scare away Nian in case it sneaked back again, because red is the color the beast feared most.

     From then on, the tradition of observing the conquest of Nian is carried on from generation to generation. The term "Guo Nian", which may mean "Survive the Nian" becomes today "Celebrate the (New) Year" as the word "guo" in Chinese having both the meaning of "pass-over" and "observe". The custom of putting up red paper and firing fire-crackers to scare away Nian, should it have a chance to run loose, is still around. However, people today have long forgotten why they are doing all this, except that they feel the color and the sound add to the excitement of the celebration.