yesterday was pure brightness, an important chinese traditional festival, on which day our traditions in north China was to eat boiled eggs. Just the day before Pure Brightness is a time when people go to the graveyard to Clean Tombs---pay tribute to our dead ancestors. People will burn papers and incense before their ancestors' tombs and meanwhile say some prayers to the ancestors living in another world to beg them to bless their offsprings. Burned papers are believed by the chinese folks to be used as money in another world where their ancestors are living.

We can have a 3-day holiday for pure brightness festival, but in fact we can only rest for about 2 days. Teachers were not allowed to leave until 7:50 am when the morning class was over yesterday. I stayed in the classroom for a while after most students gone, chatting with three students about their studies and waiting for my wife to bring me some boiled eggs, which my wife had prepared beforehand for those students whose home is far away and thus decided to remain at school during this short holiday. After that, i hurried back home and made a preparation to go back to my hometown to see my parents; i haven't seen them for more than 5 weeks since the new school term began because as a headteacher i am always kept busy with so much work to deal with.

At about 9:00 am my younger brother came to pick us three up and so we were on the way home. So many cars on the road, and we met with 2 traffic jams on the way. we didn't get home until 10:30 am. Father was out with his interest group to give a drama show in Gao Ya so we eat with mother and brother only for lunch. we ate stewed chicken and fried eggs with tomatos, my son's favorite food. i drank a tin of TsingTao Beer, which i had not tasted for two weeks. after lunch i felt a little sleepy and so i went to bed for a nap. i slept for one and a half hours until wife woke me up and asked me to go out for a fresh air. so i suggested that we go climbing the low little hill west of our village digging wild vegetables and herbal medicines for spring is the time when all plants begin to come up and grow, and is the best time to  dig wild vegetables.

We didn't harvest a lot of wild vegetables or herbal medicines but we really had a great time climbing hills. we went to the Frog Spring(蛤蟆泉) where people were standing in a queue to fetch water, fresh and sweet water. my son enjoyed playing water flowing out from the spring as in his mind he believes there's a big frog hidden in the Spring according to what the Spring is called.

We didn't went back home until the evening almost fell. We really enjoyed that leisure time.