CCTV9英语新闻：腊八粥和大蒜的意义（在线收听）

And now for more on the festival, we’re joined in the studio by Hang Min, an Associate Professor at Tsinghua University. Welcome, Ms. Hang and thanks for being with us.

Q1. So for those of us who are not so familiar with the Laba Festival, can you tell us in a nutshell what the festival celebrates and what the purpose of the festival is?

Q2. The festival is one of the important festivals for Chinese people, partly because it is seen as a prelude to Chinese New Year, a time where people begin preparing for the celebrations of the Spring Festival. And like many traditions, food plays an important part symbolically - can you explain to us the symbolic significance of the Laba porridge and Laba garlic that we just saw in the report...Why do people prepare and eat this specifically?  

Q3. How do you personally celebrate the festival?

Q4. Does the Laba festival vary in meaning and practice from one place to another in China, especially in the north and south?

Q5. The Laba festival is perhaps lesser known among people...It seems that nowadays, Chinese people are trying to raise awareness or at least preserve such traditions by raising awareness through school and media - why is this so, and is it working? Are such traditions at risk of dying down? Especially since the festival is directly linked to farming/harvest, which is now a more secluded work sector in comparison to hundreds of years ago before industrialization...

Q6. Is the festival celebrated elsewhere in the world among Chinese communities or is it mainly just here in China?