Four unusual festivals around the world

Wife Carrying Competition—Sonkajärvi, Finland

Although the exact origins of the tradition are unknown because of its long history, but today, wife carrying is practiced around the world. Participants (参与者) are allowed to carry their wives in various ways— including piggyback or fireman’s carrying. The prize is awarded based on the wife’s weight in beer.

Monkey Buffet (自助餐) Festival—Lopburi, Thailand

You may consider how a monkey would taste, but this is a buffet for monkeys. The local monkeys in the Lopburi are gifted with a feast of tons of fruits, vegetables, cakes, and candies every November. After the monkeys are given their treat, youths dressed up as monkeys perform dances. The festival first occurred in 1989, run by a local businessman to drive up tourism in Lopburi. Luckily for him and the monkeys, it worked.

Mud Festival—Boryeong, ROK

The festival is not historic by any means— the first one took place in 1998— and it was originally created as a marketing event for Boryeong mud cosmetics (化妆品). The mud from the Boryeong is considered rich in natural minerals and is used to make beauty products. Popular activities include a mud pool, mud slides and mud skiing.

Tomato Festival—Bunol, Valencia, Spain

The festival has run annually in August during a weeklong celebration in Bunol since 1945, when a noisy crowd took the tomatoes from a vegetable stall and started a food fight. The hour-long tomato fight used up about 145,000 kg of tomatoes in 2015. Since 2013 it has been a ticketed event to limit participants to just 20,000.

Festivals and celebrations of all kinds have been held everywhere since ancient times. Most ancient festivals would celebrate the end of cold weather, planting in spring and harvest in autumn .Today's festivals have many origins: some are seasonal, some for special people and some for special events.

Dragon Boat Festival celebrations take place in China on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month. They are held in memory of Qu Yuan, a famous person who wrote poems in Ancient China. It was the first traditional Chinese festival added to UNESCO'S List of Intangible Cultural Heritage.

Thanksgiving is celebrated mainly in North America, in October or November. Traditionally, it was a chance to give thanks for a good year, Now. i is also a time for families to get together for a big dinner.

May Day s a festival to celebrate the start of summer, with celebrations held across Europe and in parts of North America. People prepare decorations with flowers and dance around poles.

The Spring Festival that is also called Chinese New Year is one of the most important Festivals in China.It stars with a new moon and ends 15 day later on the full moon, marking the beginning of spring .During this festival,people eat dumpling, fish and meat and may give children lucky money in red paper. Nowadays, more and more countries around the world are holding celebrations for Chinese Spring Festival.

Festivals let us enjoy life , be proud of our customs and forget our work for a little while.

Greasy spoon cafés or simply greasy spoons very rarely appear in guidebooks, but they are an essential part of life in the UK, especially for people living in the bigger cities. These small restaurants are so common — like baked beans or phone boxes — that they are barely even noticed, but if greasy spoons were removed, the country would be on its knees.

Greasy spoon cafés are so called because any cutlery ( 餐具) that comes into contact with the food on offer is immediately coated with a sticky layer of oil. It almost seems like an oily mist hangs in the air, as if fat drips (滴下) from the walls. More calories can be found in a cup of tea in a good greasy spoon than in a whole meal at a normal restaurant.

Greasy spoons are generally found slightly away from the main streets of most towns. They usually have large (grease coated) glass windows, a plastic sign with the café name and a huge menu offering a wide variety of foods. Inside they are generally clean and functional. You’ll see old wooden seats, tables and plain walls. Each table has on it a bottle of brown sauce, tomato ketchup and vinegar, and pots of salt and pepper.

In a typical greasy spoon, you will find people from all walks of life: poets, hurrying businessmen, students lazing around with huge cups of tea. Some read novels, some stare into space, and others catch up on the day’s news. At weekends there will always be large groups of friends, recovering from a night on the town. They are all united by one thing: the food. They are all looking for an absolutely substantial meal.

The meals are dangerously unhealthy, and absolutely delicious. All kinds of food can be bought for incredibly low prices. Greasy spoons have some devoted followers. Tapping “Greasy Spoon” into an internet search engine will bring up hundreds of entries — with pictures, reviews, menus and stories. But of course, nothing can beat going to a real one — especially on an empty stomach.