The food commonly associated with Qingming Festival is Qingtuan, a glutinous rice dumpling dyed green with mug-wort juice or wormwood grass. The tradition of serving Qingtuan at Qingming Festival is believed    1    (date) back to the Zhou Dynasty more than two thousand years ago,    2    the food was a common ritual in memory of the ancestors.

Up till now, the practice    3    (stand) the test of time. Time-honoured brands of Qingtuan have struggled to show off     4    (they) inventiveness. In recent years, Chinese consumers have gone wild for time-honoured brands of Qingtuan. Before Qingming Festival, customers stand in lines stretching down city blocks,     5    (wait) to get a taste of these variations before they sell out.     6     their smallest similarity to the classic variety, many people still believe that the    7    (innovate) helps to keep the ancient food tradition alive by getting younger people interested in them. Time-honored brands need to stay fresh by evolution and novelty. Otherwise, they’ll get left behind by more     8     (creation) brands.

However, many Chinese people    9    (simple) aren’t interested in the debate about     10     these novel products are appealing or objectionable. Many are quietly used to eating Qingtuan the way they’ve been served for hundreds, or thousands of years.

In Japan, Chen Jianyi was a household name. He devoted his life to cooking and adapting the hot and spicy Chinese dish for Japanese     1     (customer). His career and life even inspired a Japanese artist     2     (create) Cooking Master Boy, a household cartoon     3     became a common childhood memory among the Japanese born in the 1980s and 1990s.

In 1952, Chen’s father moved to Japan. 6 years     4     (late), he opened the first Sichuan cuisine restaurant in Tokyo. Then he set up an “Institute of Chinese Cuisine”     5     the help of his wife. It has trained 15,000 chefs, making a great     6     (contribute) to the spread of Chinese food in Japan.

In 1990, Chen took over the Sichuan restaurant at     7     age of 34 after his father’s death. He improved their family’s signature dish (招牌菜) even further to give it a “spicy and     8     (slight) sweet taste.” In a cooking competition in 1993, he broke a record and     9     (claim) the title of “First Chef of Chinese Food” in Japan.

Sadly, chef Chen passed away in March, 2023. The news of his death made media headlines in Japan. It shows just how much the Japanese love the dish he cooked and Chinese cuisine, and how food culture has played an important role in promoting communication and     10     (culture) exchanges.

Unearthed from the depths of time, cultural relics (文物) are more than just a historical record or an artistic treasure. If only they could speak, what     1    (attract)tales would they share?

As we stand before these ancient relics, a sense of connection envelops us,     2    (go)beyond the boundaries of time and culture. It’s as if they whisper their secrets, revealing not only their age and material, but a profound message     3     resonates (引起共鸣) with our souls.

In the     4    (recent)published book, The Shape of Ideas: Chinese Philosophy in Cultural Relics, Zhang Xi, professor at the Department of Philosophy, Xiamen University,     5    (deliver)the core ideas of Chinese philosophy from 72 historical artifacts before the Ming Dynasty(1368-1644)displayed in public museums.

Using the simplest modern language, he digs into 18 themes to reveal     6     the ancient sages faced the most crucial spiritual challenges of their times. Their quest sought to answer fundamental     7    (question)such as：What is a human being? What position do humans occupy in the universe? And how can a person attain happiness in their lifetime?

    8    (base)on the structure of ”Cosmology-Ontology-Theory of Mindfulness“ for ancient Chinese philosophy, Zhang explores the achievements of recent years, and portrays the Chinese world of thought for     9    (it)vivid transformation from pre-philosophical period     10     early modern period and from elitism (精英主义) to popularized orientation (导向).