By Nancy Liu

Today (January 29, 2009 – editor's note) is the fourth day of the New Year holiday; yesterday my friends and I went to Chaoyang international spring carnival, and the day before yesterday we went to Ditan Park. So if you asked me how to spend New Year in Beijing, I would tell you that you need to go to a temple fair and eat traditional Chinese snacks, or go to a few museums to get a feel for the traditional Chinese New Year culture. So let's take a look at the characteristics of the ox exhibition in the capital museum.

Capital museum is always my favorite place to go during holidays. I like the grand black building and I like the different and varied exhibitions they put on. Today, before I even enter the museum, I can already feel the festive atmosphere. Red carpets cover the center stairs, and on both sides of the carpets are lovely figurines in a series of postures offering their greetings to visitors. Counting the figurines, we find ourselves in the museum; there are so many people in the lobby, and crowds are everywhere. Down in the basement is the exhibition that we are so looking forward to. The name of the show in Chinese is quite interesting; it's called "Niu Shuo Niu" – literally translated as "Ox speaks Ox". I think it means "Let the ox itself tell you about the culture of the ox", though the actual English name of the show is "Cattle in the traditional culture of China".