Born in the 14th century, Naxi ancient music is one of the world’s oldest music types. The Naxi ethnic group (纳西族) living in Yunnan created it with their own instruments. But today, few people can hear it or even know of it.

“One of my classmates is from the Naxi ethnic group,” Liu Yunong said. “When she talked about this endangered music, I thought maybe we could do something.” The 15-year-old from Tianjin TEDA NO 1 Middle School is a music lover and guzheng player. Together with other classmates, she set up a project to promote (推广) Naxi music among young people.

“How to attract young people in a fun way is the most difficult job,” said Liu. “So we thought of the idea of using comic strips to introduce Naxi music.”

In the comics that they created, the leading role is a girl named Su Xiaodu. Her name comes from sugudu, a musical instrument of Naxi culture. After a boy named Liu Nana visited a Naxi cultural museum, Su came into his life, and the story began.

“Many of our classmates loved this form of storytelling, and it successfully attracted 300 people to attend our online activity during the winter holiday, where we introduced some basic of Naxi music,” Liu said. “We also planned to invite a famous Naxi musician, Xuan Ke, to give us a talk, but sadly, Mr. Xu passed away at 93 in early January. His death made us realize the importance of protecting traditional music,” Liu added.

After the online activity, some young people recorded videos of themselves playing Naxi music pieces, such as Shan Po Yang (《山坡羊》), in piano or guzheng. “When we received the videos, we felt everything was worth it,” said Liu.

From Asia to America and everywhere in between, Swing—an energetic form of dance that includes six-step and eight-step rhythms (节奏)—has taken the world by storm. Making a recent comeback, swing dance floors have popped up all over the world. Many clubs makes fans of Swing happy by holding nights when swing music is played, and sometimes even offering classes to attract customers.

Though Swing is now popular worldwide, it first appeared alongside the jazz movements of the 1920s and 1930s in New York city. While listening to jazz, the young black people of that time developed the movement of the Lindy Hop—a style of dance that is best known for a break away or “swing out” move and sudden improvisation (即兴表演).

It was reportedly given this name when a reporter was interviewing a person at the dance hall who was watching other couples dance. When asked what that dance was called, the watcher looked at a newspaper next to him that had an article about Lindbergh—the first person to fly alone across the Atlantic—which was titled “Lindy Hops the Atlantic”. Then the watcher announced that the “Lindy Hop” was the name of the dance, and it has stuck since then.

In 1926, the Savoy Ballroom was the first large business to offer a place for people to listen to swing music and dance. With its huge dance floor, the savoy became a big success overnight, attracting some of the best dancers and musicians in the New York area Within ten years, the Lindy Hops was sweeping through the US and became a symbol of unity, as young people of all racial (种族的) backgrounds crowded into dance halls to swing the night away. Traditional dance teachers did not welcome it because the thought it was not even a real dance and were quite sure about its demise but Swing has proved them wrong; it continues to be one of the world’s most fun dances.