Where do the colors of your clothes come from? The answer is dye（染料）. The clothes we wear these days are mainly dyed with chemicals in factories. But in the past, people did this by hand and the dyes often came from plants. In 2006, the tie-dye technique（扎染技艺）was added to China’s national intangible cultural heritage（非物质文化遗产）list.

Yang Cheng, 52, is the inheritor（传承人）of tie-dye in An’ning, Yunnan. He learned the skill from his mother in the 1980s. And he has passed it down to his daughter.

Yang has known about all the old skills of tie-dye. To tie-dye, you first need to use threads（线）to tie your cloth together. Then you put the cloth into the dye. As the cloth is folded（折叠）and dyed, some parts become dark blue, while other parts have a lighter color. When you unfold the cloth, you’ll see beautiful patterns.

At the same time, Yang has studied tie-dye in other countries, such as Japan, India and France. He also tries to make some creative designs.

He once made two sets of tie-dyed wedding dresses. He used almost all the skills of An’ning tie-dye. Some patterns on the dresses are traditional such as small fish roes（鱼卵）, while others are modern. He added Dianchi Lake and eight popular flowers in Yunnan.

“Now, Yang teaches tie-dye in schools, communities and companies. More than 100,000 people have learned from him,” he said.

Some might worry that the machinery dyeing will take the place of tie-dye. But Yang is confident. “At the end of the day, machines can’t replace our creative hands,” Yang said.

The 24 Solar Terms, which are also called 24 jieqi, are on the List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity (人类非物质文化遗产).

The traditional Chinese lunar calendar divides a year into 24 solar terms, such as         , jingzhe and so on. They come from the farming culture of ancient China. Some of them are about the arrival of new seasons, some are about the weather and others tell changes about the living world.

Jingzhe falls on March 5th this year. In Chinese, zhe means the animals hide themselves without eating or moving and sleep during the winter. It means many insects are waking up and the earth is coming back to life. Jingzhe brings energy to insects. And Chinese farmers take insects seriously.

Jingzhe has been a key time for spring farming since the days of ancient China farmers become busy and start the year’s work. As the Chinese saying goes, “The whole year’s work depends on a good start in spring.” Other people are also ready to welcome the lively spring.

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The world is changing greatly and the lifestyle is very different from the past. With the development of the times and the progress of society, computers are becoming more and more popular. We can quickly type beautiful Chinese characters（汉字）through them. So people write less and less by hand. Many people even have forgotten how to write Chinese characters. What’s worse, students are paying little attention to it. So, should we spend time in practicing writing? Some people say that with computers we can write without a pen. Some people say that practicing writing is a traditional virtue（美德）of the Chinese nation and it should be carried forward. According to a recent survey in a middle school, more than half of the students have poor handwriting.

Do students still write by hand?

However, when the students were asked if they would like to improve their handwriting, most of them answered “No”, which is very upset. Here are their reasons.