Like reading? Interested in Chinese classical novels? Have a look at the following four books which are we known to most Chinese as Four Masterpieces.
The Water Margin
The Water Margin, also known as All Men Are Brothers in Pearl Buck's translation, Shui Hu Zhuan in Chinese, is along chapter novel with the Song Jiang Uprising in the late Northern Song Dynasty as the main background and type of heroic legend. It is an immortal (不朽的) novel and has inspired many storytellers. The author of the novel is generally regarded as Shi Nai'an (1296~1371).
Romance of the Three Kingdoms
Romance of the Three Kingdoms is the first full-length historical romance novel in China. Its author is Luo Guan zhong (about 1330~1400), a famous novelist in the late Yuan Dynasty and the early Ming Dynasty. Characters such as Liu Bei, Cao Cao, Guan Yu, Zhang Fei and Zhuge Liang have become household names among the Chinese.
Journey to the West
Journey to the West is the first romantic chapter novel about gods and devils in ancient China. There are 100 copies of Journey to the Westin the existing Ming Publications without the author's signature. Wu Yuxuan, a scholar of the Qing Dynasty, first proposed that the author of Journey to the West was Wu Cheng'en (1500~1582) of the Ming Dynasty.
The Dream of the Red Chamber
The Dream of the Red Chamber, also called The Story of the Stone, is said to be the greatest masterpiece of Chinese fiction. It is generally believed to be written by Cao Xueqin (about 1715~1763), a writer of the Qing Dynasty. With hundreds of persons and their stories, the story is very complex but also very interesting for its encyclopedic character(百科全书式的人物).
Ten originated in China over two thousand years ago. Today, the country owns over 2,000 varieties of tea, differing in taste, sweet and purpose. Some teas, such as Huang Shan, refresh the sense of taste with their special flavour, while others, such as spicy chai, are added with spices (香料).
China first started exporting tea during the Ming dynasty (1368-1644), and the drink has since come to lead humanity's drinking habits far beyond Asia. It is the most widely consumed drink on Earth today, aside from water and coffee.
In Chinese mythology, tea was first discovered by Chinese Emperor Shennong ("Divine Farmer") in 737 BC, when a soft wind carried some leaves into a pot of boiling water. However, the oldest dependable evidence comes from ancient plant remains found in 2016 in Xi'an and western Tibet, showing that tea was grown at least 2,100 years ago during the Western Han dynasty when it was most likely used as medicine.
Generation after generation of tea makers experimented with different brewing (冲泡) techniques, leaves, and ceremonies, resulting in today's tea culture full of life. There's no doubt that China's tea culture has become one of the most popular, diverse, and unique traditions in the world.
China is already the world's largest tea exporter. The inclusion of the country's traditional tea-making process on the UNESCO list will obviously generate practical benefits for tea makers in the country and across the world as more resources are given to protect and preserve such millennia-old tea culture and technical practices. As additional attention is brought to this traditional technique, the Chinese tea sector will further tap its potential and improve its growth.
As one of China's oldest cultural practices, traditional tea processing techniques show the spirit of modesty (谦逊), peace, and comity (礼让). No matter your preference for green or dark tea, with milk or without, Chinese tea isn't just brews. Instead, it is a bridge connecting different cultures and peoples.
What do you do when nobody is around to take your picture?You take a selfie(自拍照). But what about selfies in space?Last year, NASA astronaut Buzz Aldrin who famously became the second man to walk on the moon in July 1969, said that he took the first selfie in space during the Gemini XI I mission in 1966.
"For me, it needs to be digital to be a selfie, " argues Jennifer Levasseur, who is in charge of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. According to Levasseur, the idea of a selfie is directly linked to Internet culture and the human wish to interact(互动) on social platforms. "The thing that makes a self ie is sharing it, " she says.
Still, astronauts have been carrying cameras aboard space vehicles since the 1960s, and they've taken plenty of pictures of themselves along the way. Astronaut s had to pull the film magazines(胶卷暗盒) out and leave their cameras behind when they returned to Earth, because early space missions had a weight limit on the return trip.
A big change in space camera technology came after the sad loss of the space shuttle Columbus, which broke apart on its return to Earth in 2003. "Fearing that they would never be able to bring the film back from space and lose all that hard work quickened the pace for digital, " Levasseur says.
Today, astronauts can have access to the Internet and social platforms in space and post true space selfies taken by digital cameras. Taking selfies and sharing them on social media is a way that astronauts in space can participate in the same activities people on Earth do every day. The first astronaut selfie that went viral(网红的) on the Internet was one by Japanese astronaut Akihiko Hoshide in 2012.
A NASA-led international mission launched a radar (雷达) satellite from southern California. The satellite will be involved in a major project to research the world's oceans, lakes and rivers.
The satellite is called SWOT, short for Surface Water and Ocean Topography. It is designed to give scientists a never-before-seen view of the Earth's water, which covers about 70 percent of the planet.
About the size of a car, the satellite uses advanced microwave radar technology to collect detailed height and surface measurements of all bodies of water. The data will provide researchers with more information on the effects of climate change.
Data will be taken from radar readings of the planet at least two times every 21 days. The information will help study ocean currents, predict the weather, and control freshwater supplies in areas with little rain.
One major goal of the mission is to research how oceans absorb atmospheric heat and carbon dioxide (CO2) — the natural process that slows down temperatures and climate change.
SWOT is designed to measure small differences in surface heights around smaller currents, where much of the oceans' reduction of heat and carbon is believed to happen. And SWOT can do so with 10 times more accurate (精确的) details than existing technologies.
The world's oceans are estimated (估计) to have absorbed more than 90 percent of the extra heat trapped in the Earth's atmosphere by human-caused greenhouse gas emissions. Studying how that happens will help climate scientists answer an important question: What is the turning point at which oceans start giving off, rather than absorbing, huge amounts of heat back into the atmosphere?
The satellite will also be used to study the effects of rising ocean levels. And it will be able to measure all rivers wider than 100 meters, as well as more than 1 million lakes and bodies of water larger than 6.25 hectares.
As you get older, you'll meet a wider range of people from diverse cultures. If you haven't met many people from different backgrounds, it can be hard to know how to respect their culture. .
Know your own culture
One of the best ways to understand other people's cultures is to first consider your own. Most of us don't realize that our customs and beliefs might seem strange to someone else. Don't think of your own way of life as the only normal one and everyone else's to be strange. .
Learn about a different culture
Maybe you've recently met someone from a different culture, or you're curious about how different people live. When you meet people from a different culture, ask them about their lives. Also, you can read books, watch movies or listen to radio shows. The more you learn, the more likely you will get used to greeting cultural differences with curiosity rather than doubt.
.
Differences between us are what make life so interesting, so just accept the differences between yourself and your friends from different cultures. The best way to respect people from other cultures is to strike a balance between curiosity and appreciation: . Also, learn how to just silently observe and appreciate the differences that make us unique.
A. Respect other cultures.
B. Appreciate the differences.
C. Ask questions if your friends are open to it.
D. In this way, you may find it hard to know your own culture.
E. Otherwise, it's hard to approach those differences with respect.
F. Here are some tips for learning more about them and about yourself.
G. These will help you get an insider's view on a different culture.
Standing on the top of Mount Tai, I watched the sun rising through the cloud and appearing in the sky. I have seen many 1 , but I can feel that seeing one from the top of Mount Tai must be one of the best ways to 2 the beauty of nature.
When I left for China, the 3 of climbing Mount Tai had not even hit me. I was going to China to 4 its language, history and culture and have a better understanding of international agricultural trade between my country and China.
Now I have 5 in China for a few weeks. In Beijing, my group has 6 friendship with many Chinese students. Through our broken Chinese and their 7 English, we can still teach each other about our cultures. We 8 that we are all just students working towards the same9 of having careers, families and lives and trying to make the world better. Cultural differences seem 10 —even the language almost differs from our own. But their daily lives are similar to ours. 11 , people are concerned about the same things we do here. They 12 food safety and feel the effects of the economic markets.
This 13 makes me realize how many cultures my country has in common with other countries. More importantly, it offers me a sudden 14 for travel, and I'm looking forward to having more 15 to engage in cross-cultural communication and learning.
Speaking of China, many people would think about porcelains (瓷器) . Actually porcelain is a symbol of the Chinese culture, just as precision and antiquity (古典) of French architecture. However, can you guessit would be if these two kinds of cultural symbols are integrated into one thing?
There isold building of French style situated at No. 72 Chifeng Road of Tianjin. What's unusual about it is that there are more than 700 million ancient Chinese ceramic chips (瓷片) covering all over its outworn walls. You would never believe that the(design) of the art, Mr. Zhang Lianzhi, has never been in the classroom for design or architecture, and he built this "china house" out of his love for cultureart.
The building (it) is a French architecture with a history of more than a century. In 2001, Mr. Zhang bought the house(realize) his childhood dream. He had a great interest in china when he(be) still very young. He has a habit of keeping the pieces of porcelain articles that were broken for various reasons, (hope) someday they would beuse again. After 8 years of efforts, Mr. Zhang(final) created this legendary "china house"
1）时间、地点；2）参观内容：了解中国民俗文化，体验民间艺术等；
3.注意事项。
参考词汇: 中国民俗文化主题公园Chinese folk culture theme park
1）词数80左右；2）可以适当增加细节，以使行文连贯。
Dear Mike,
Yours，
Li Hua
When Marco was a boy, he tried everything to get his father's love and attention. He worked hard to earn good marks; he tried to be obedient (顺从的), he chose inspiring friends and always tried to behave well.
Sensitive and shy, he was so timid (胆怯的) that he always wore turtleneck shirts. He hid behind his hair, which he wore long around his face and ears. To make it worse, Marco was naturally shorter than the other kids. And because his good marks had allowed him to skip second grade — he was younger than everyone else. This added nothing to his already low self-confidence.
When Marco was eight his parents divorced, and Marco was sent to a boarding school. Six years later, he and his young sister Sandra moved in with their dad and his new wife in S-Leonard, a French Canadian and Italian neighborhood on the east side of Montreal, It felt to Marco that his father had little time for him and Sandra. Except for his demands around chores (日常琐事) after school, communication was nonexistent. It seemed to Marco the only time his dad ever spoke to him was to be demanding. He began to fear to come home from school every day.
Marco sank further into his low self-confidence, feeling unappreciated, inadequate, depressed and confused.
One day, his aunt called him. To Marco, this seemed like a miracle. Aunt Ginette usually only called once a year, on his birthday. She said she had just seen some young teenagers participate in a public speaking contest called Gala Personnalite sponsored by Club Optimiste — and she thought about him. She thought he, should give it a try. She told him she firmly believed he could perform on stage like the other kids.
Marco was greatly surprised. Him? Onstage? In a public speaking contest? To agree would be contrary to his entire shy, timid personality. But Aunt Ginette was so confident. She seemed really serious. She was sure it was something he could do. She truly believed in him. And feeling her strong belief, Marco agreed to enter the contest.
注意：
1. 所续写短文的词数应为150左右；
2. 续写部分分为两段，每段的开头语已为你写好。
Paragraph 1:
An energy flooded him, which he never felt before.
Paragraph 2:
When the big night arrived, his family were all in the audience.
