If it had not been for Fan Jinshi and her team, the world cultural heritage of Dunhuang Mogao Caves in a remote Chinese desert might have long been destroyed by sand, weather or humans.

Born in Beijing and raised in Shanghai, Fan has spent half a century fighting an uphill battle to preserve the ancient Buddhist wall paintings at Dunhuang, in Northwest China’s Gansu Province. The 1,653­-year­-old Dunhuang Mogao Caves are a huge collection of Buddhist art—more than 2,000 buddha figures and 45,000 square metres of paintings spread among 735 caves. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Archaeologist Fan was sent to Dunhuang after graduating from Peking University in 1963. While in Dunhuang, a remote village in the desert then, Fan lived in an abandoned temple. At first, she did not even dare to go out to the toilet at night. To protect the treasures from sand and dampness, Fan and other workers put doors on the caves, planted trees and started monitoring temperature and humidity in the caves. They also controlled the number of visitors.

In the late 1990s, with tourism booming nationwide since national holidays were extended, the local government planned to go public with Dunhuang Mogao Caves, but found Fan firmly in_their_way.   “The heritage would have been destroyed if it had been listed，” she said.

Dunhuang Academy has now photographed and cataloged online all the sculptures and paintings. “Despite our efforts to minimise damage, we can’t completely stop them from being eroded. But the digital database will last.”

Fan was grateful when her husband joined her in Dunhuang in 1986 after 19 years of separation. Her two sons grew up seldom with her accompany. “I have not been a good mother or wife. With regard to my family, I’m full of guilt，” she said. Fan, 81, retired four years ago as the director of Dunhuang Academy but continues her efforts as a national political adviser.

The Chongyang Festival falls on the ninth day of the ninth month in the Chinese lunar calendar and people usually celebrate it by going mountain climbing.【小题1】. However, they are an important part of Chinese culture and we must protect and maintain them.

Traditional festivals teach us a lot about our nation’s history. The Dragon Boat Festival, for example, is celebrated in honor of QuYuan, a great poet living in the Warring States period of ancient China.【小题2】. Promoting traditional festivals helps spread knowledge about national history.

【小题3】. Many festivals, such as the Mid-Autumn festival, have a caring, family-centered message at their heart. The full moon on the festival is considered to stand for family togetherness and family members will come back home even if they live very far away. With the celebrations of these festivals, younger generations learn to honor fine Chinese values.

Finally, traditional festivals are a source of national pride and help shape our national identity. For example, we celebrate the Hanshi festival and the Laba Festival with unique customs, and these shared experiences bring us together as a people.【小题4】.

Traditional festivals have been passed down to us from previous generations.【小题5】.

It cannot be denied that Hakka earth buildings, or Kejia tulou, are totally different to traditional architectural styles both in China and abroad

Beyond their giant size, earth buildings are unique for their robust(坚固的)architecture. The multi-storey buildings were built with a mixture of earth, sand, glutinous rice , bamboo and wood chips, solidly tamped(夯实)into walls up to two metres thick. Each building could shelter hundreds of people——all sharing the same surname. If danger approached, the doors would be swiftly bolted(闩上)shut. Weapons would then be distributed among the men. Food would be stockpiled in advance and water drawn from the wells located within the building.

Though sometimes called roundhouses, not all earth buildings are doughnut-shaped. Oval square and rectangular ones can be found as well. Some earth buildings bunch up in picturesque clusters, but many stand alone

While some of the oldest existing earth buildings date back to the 12th century, the most recent examples were built in the last century. In a typical earth building, rooms are arranged in a ring-like formation, which face onto a circular central courtyard.

For anyone numbed by the impersonal nature of modern Chinese apartment blocks or the rapid pace of urban China, the earth buildings are charming reminders of what communal village life was like in the past. The Chinese frequently say, “A nearby neighbour is better than a distant relative.” The earth-building-living Hakka have the best of both worlds, as neighbours are also relatives.

Despite their sturdy defences, the earth buildings are falling victim to a gradual hollowing out from within. Like so many villages across China, grandparents and grandchildren can be found playing together, but there is often less and less indication of the presence of the labouring generation between the two. The young and the middle-aged have left to earn money in the country’s cities and towns, leaving many earth buildings largely depopulated.