History

Dragon Boat FestivaL Cpmes Again!

Happy Dragon Boat Festival! Today in #China we are celebrating the Duanwu #端午 festival! It’s been a Holiday here for more than 2000 years!

It celebrates the Famous #poet #quyuan. Devoted to #China 🇨🇳, he wrote beautiful poems about its history, nature, and people. When the invading Qin armies approached, he chose to drown himself rather than see his beloved country fall. Although they sent out many #dragon boats to look for him, they could not save him in time.
So to commemorate his memory, every year they eat #粽子 (aka Zongzi), a sticky #rice #treat wrapped in banana leaves. And the big cities send out Dragon #boats for big battles and races on the lakes and rivers! Cool!

Visiting Gongyi Grottos

Gongyi Grottos – one of 4 Famous grottos in China. These are places where loyal monks have carefully carved out thousands and millions of buddhas and religious statues into the walls of nearby caves over CENTURIES! An amazing, awe-inspiring sight! Well worth the trip! Thanks to the #Henan Provincial Government Tourism Bureau for sponsoring us. It was a great day!

Glimpse into #China Past

Mural on the outside of an abandoned building

Japanese Wood Art

Treasure Trove of Ancient Human Footprints Found Near Volcano

by Michael Greshko via “National Geographic“

Nine miles from the volcano the Maasai call the “Mountain of God,” researchers have cataloged a spectacularly rare find: an enormous set of well-preserved human footprints left in the mud between 5,000 and 19,000 years ago.

The more than 400 footprints cover an area slightly larger than a tennis court, crisscrossing the dark gray mudflat of Engare Sero, on the southern shore of Tanzania’s Lake Natron. No other site in Africa has as many ancient Homo sapiens footprints—making it a treasure trove for scientists trying to tell the story of humankind’s earliest days. . . .