The Chinese fashion icon, qipao, was born a century ago in Shanghai. However, the dress made its way through history from the hands of old craftsmen and is deep-rooted in Chinese culture.
“Qipao used to be so popular,” Leung Long-kong, 89, a well-known qipao craftsman, says, adding that the dress was an everyday outfit among women, from the less well-off to women at the highest levels of society. “Now, nobody is wearing them except on grand and happy occasions.”
To carry on the tradition, fashion designer Mary Yu, 41, who has been attending classes teaching knot button-making techniques, is trying to renew the design of qipao by taking symbols from Chinese history and literature.
“I feel I should look into Chinese culture and learn more about the past. People should have an in-depth understanding of their culture in order to move on. Fashion design requires a profound knowledge of one’s culture before visualizing it. After a period of wearing foreign brands all the time, there will be a day when one looks back to traditional Chinese culture. It is about finding the stuff that exists in your genes and suits you best,” Yu says.
Yu set up her own qipao brand in 2016. Most of the clothes were made by tailors based in Shenzhen and Hangzhou, for their lower cost and more traditional work.
In the constantly evolving fashion industry, qipao is catching up with the times. Zippers, digital print patterns and new materials such as lace and denim have been introduced to a new generation. More daring ideas like 3D printed qipao have also become a reality. Yu believed that with the help of these new technologies, qipao will find its way back to the daily life of Chinese people in the near future.
1. How popular was qipao in the past?| A．Every Shanghai woman wore qipao. |
| B．Various women wore qipao as an everyday outfit. |
| C．Only women of the highest rank wore qipao every day. |
| D．Every woman wore qipao on grand and happy occasions. |
| A．She is teaching knot button-making techniques. |
| B．She is seeking ways to cut down the cost of making qipao. |
| C．She is taking inspiration from Chinese history and literature. |
| D．She is attempting to break away from the influence of foreign brands. |
| A．Cautious and persistent. | B．Patriotic and conservative. |
| C．Innovative and passionate. | D．Considerate and ambitious. |
| A．Qipao: Where to Go? | B．Qipao: a Treasure Lost |
| C．Qipao: When to Wear? | D．Qipao: a Symbol of Wealth |
相似题推荐
【推荐1】Last September, Dobbs Ferry School District joined a small but growing number of schools around the US that have started pushing back their middle and high school start times in an effort to prevent students from being groggy.
Dr. Lisa Brady, the head teacher of the schools, tells Business Insider that in the past 2015-16 school year, middle school started at 8: 15 a.m. and high school at 7:30 a.m. Under the new policy, each school now starts and ends 45minutes later. Both schools have benefited a lot, Brady says.
Following a survey at the end of the school year, Brady says “it was clear from both the parents and the kids, that the mornings were just less stressful.”
Many of the kids reported having more time to eat breakfast and get ready for school, while parents said they didn’t have to drag kids out of bed or yell at them to hurry up. Once students got to school, they felt more active. At night, they tended to go to bed at the same time, even though the new schedule leaves them an extra 45 minutes.
Tony is also a math teacher, and he says, kids seem more relaxed now in the campus and his students already produce better work steadily, even though the schedule just a month old. Around the campus, kids seem more relaxed now and they are doing better in their subjects.
Negative responses to later start times are rare, but they do happen.
Brady says some parents at Dobbs Ferry have found it harder to complete the necessary morning routines and get to work on time. Meanwhile, Tony says the problem for school is finding enough buses for kids. And some students say once they finally get home, many say they have less time for all the homework they’ve been assigned.
1. Why did Dobbs Ferry decide to push back their school start times?| A．To stop their students from being ill. |
| B．To prevent their students sleeping late. |
| C．To prevent their students from being weak. |
| D．To keep their students from being sleepy. |
| A．7:30 a.m. | B．9:00 a. m. | C．8: 15 a.m. | D．8: 05 a. m. |
| A．Confident. | B．Objective. | C．Positive. | D．Negative. |
| A．Health and Education. | B．Literature and Art. |
| C．Science and Technology. | D．Society and Environment. |
【推荐2】A boy shivers in the harsh Oslo winter, wrapping his arms around himself on a bus stop bench. He isn’t wearing a coat and temperatures in the Norwegian capital regularly plunge to -10℃ during winter.
A heartbreaking scene, but the actions of the ordinary people who witnessed the dilemma of 11 year old Johannes Lonnestad Flaaten are both joyous and inspiring.
A young blonde woman who sat next to the boy and noticed him rubbing his arms. She immediately asked him: “Don't you have a jacket?” “No, someone stole it”, he replied. She questioned him and discovered he was on a school trip and was told to meet his teacher at the bus stop. She asked him the name of his school and where he was from as she selflessly draped(挂上) her own coat around his shoulders. Later, another older woman at first gave him her scarf, then wrapped him in her large padded jacket. Throughout the day, more and more people offered Johannes their gloves and even the coats off their backs as they waited for their bus.
Johanne's dilemma was a hidden camera experiment by Norwegian charity SOS Children's Village as part of their winter campaign to gather donations to send much-needed coats and blankets to help Syrian children get through the winter. Many of the refugees (难民）have left their homes without winter clothing.
"People should care as much about children in Syria as they care about this boy," Synne Ronning, the information head of SOS Children`s Villages Norway, told The Local. She also noted that the child was a volunteer who was never in any danger during the filming.
1. According to the text, how can we describe the experiment?| A．Practical. |
| B．Dangerous. |
| C．Inspiring. |
| D．Voluntary. |
| A．She thought the boy was lying at first. |
| B．She was not sure of what the boy said. |
| C．She gave the boy a hand in the end. |
| D．She cared very little about others. |
| A．People have done much to help children in Syria. |
| B．The boy was only well protected in the filming. |
| C．There should be more volunteers involved. |
| D．Children in Syria deserve to be cared for. |
【推荐3】Who would have thought of creating a library in a war zone where danger surround people? But a few book lovers have built an underground library in Darayya, Syria (叙利亚), which provides learning, hope and inspiration.
Anas Ahmad is one of the founders of the library and he is a former civil engineering student. Many times he and his friends risk their lives to collect books from destroyed houses near the front line. That means they have to be extremely careful when they go through bombed-out buildings; they have to hide themselves from snipers (狙击手).
Since the library was built, its creators have collected more than 14, 000 books from abandoned houses and buildings. “We saw that it was important to create a new library so that we could continue our education,” said Ahmad.
People throughout the city have put the library to good use. Doctors in the town are using the books to continue their studies and treat patients; these books even help them perform surgeries. Teachers are using the books to prepare classes in the war town. Unfortunately, children will not be found in the library as it is too dangerous to walk there.
“You can read about everything in books,” said one reader in the library. “They provide hope to us and help us seek light in the darkness.”
1. The library in Darayya, Syria was built underground to ______.| A．make it more mysterious and funny | B．offer a quiet reading environment |
| C．attract more people to read in it | D．avoid the danger from the war |
| A．Anas Ahmad is a former civil engineering student. |
| B．Anas took risks in collecting books for the library. |
| C．People in Darayya are surrounded by the danger. |
| D．How to stay away from bomb and the snipers? |
| A．To continue the education in the town. | B．To inspire the people to fight. |
| C．To offer people a safe place. | D．To attract more kids to read books. |
| A．a former civil engineering student | B．a town of Darayya in the war |
| C．a secret library provides hope | D．the biggest library in the war |
【推荐1】A 5,300-year-old Chinese city that provides the earliest example of civilization in the country has been named China’s latest UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The Liangzhu Archaeological Site in Zhejiang Province was designated a “cultural site“ at the ongoing UNESCO meeting in Baku, Azerbaijan, bringing the total number of Chinese heritage sites to 55—surpassing (超过) Italy as the country with the largest number in the world.
The ruins, located in Hangzhou, sit on the plain of river networks in the basin of the Yangtze River and date back to around 3,300 BC. The site covers an area of 14.3 square kilometers and includes relics of 11 dams, cemetery sites (墓址), a water protection system and walls that give evidence to an early Chinese city civilization, with planting rice as the economic foundation.
The discovery of the site was of “primary importance” as it provides good evidence that Chinese civilization started around 5,000 years ago — 1,000 years earlier than previously thought. Colin Renfrew, a retired professor of archaeology at the University of Cambridge said, “So when we are talking about the origins of state society in China, we can think of the Liangzhu instead of the Shang civilization around 1,500 BC.”
The site was first discovered in 1936 when a team of archaeologists unearthed some pottery (陶器) and began searching for further evidence. A breakthrough came in 1986 when a cemetery site with around 1,200artifacts was uncovered. The walls of the city were discovered in 2007 and the surrounding water protection system was unearthed in 2015. Archaeologists think that it would have taken 4,000 people working for ten years to build the system.
The decision to add the site to the UNESCO list is the result of more than twenty years’ work, with preparations starting in 1994. The site is now open to tourists, but the number allowed to visit the site is limited to 3,000 a day and bookings must be made online.
1. What does the underlined word “designated” in Paragraph 2 probably mean?| A．Cited. | B．Named | C．Developed. | D．Created. |
| A．It proves state society’s origins around 1500 BC. | B．It proves the existence of Shang civilization. |
| C．It proves China’s 5000-year-old civilization. | D．It proves China has the longest civilization. |
| A．A burial site was first unearthed in 1994. |
| B．The discovery proves China has the longest history around the world. |
| C．It took UNESCO 20 years to include the site in its list. |
| D．China is taking measures to protect the site. |
| A．In a novel | B．In a news report |
| C．In an art magazine | D．In an advertisement |
【推荐2】The Leshan Giant Buddha is a statue of Maitreya (弥勒大佛) in sitting posture. The Buddha is located in Sichuan Province, facing Minjiang, Qingyi and Dadu rivers. In December, 1996, the Buddha was included by UNESCO on the list of the World Heritage List (世界遗产名录).
The statue was begun in the year 713 in the Tang Dynasty, and finished in the year 803. The Buddha is 71 meters high. The 8meterlong instep (脚背) is big enough for one hundred people to sit on and the 28meterwide shoulder is large enough to be a basketball playground.
A monk called Hai Tong is connected with the Buddha forever. At that time, wild waters brought out many boat accidents and people just put the disaster down to the presence of a water spirit. So Hai Tong decided to make a statue beside the river thinking that the Buddha would bring the water spirit under control. After 20 years’ begging from door to door, he finally collected enough money for the plan. When some local government officials tried to get this amount of money, Hai Tong said that they could get his eyeballs but not the money raised for the Buddha. After he dug out his eyeballs, these officials ran away in fear. The project was half done when Hai Tong passed away, and two of his disciples (门徒) continued the work. After a total of 90 years’ hard work, the project was finally completed.
Having such a long history, the Buddha was nearly destroyed by the wind and rain. The Chinese government began the repairing work in 1963 under the instructions of experts from UNESCO.
1. What’s the main idea of this passage?| A．To explain the Leshan Giant Buddha briefly. |
| B．To tell us how the Leshan Giant Buddha was built. |
| C．To say where the Leshan Giant Buddha is. |
| D．To mention how the Leshan Giant Buddha came into the World Heritage List. |
| A．By calling for donation. |
| B．By working on the river. |
| C．By asking the government. |
| D．By selling his eyeballs. |
| A．To make his temple more famous. |
| B．To show respect to the water spirit. |
| C．To protect the safety of the local people. |
| D．To get more people to believe in Buddhism. |
| A．Generous. | B．Cruel. | C．Easygoing. | D．Longsuffering. |
【推荐3】At one time, the passing on of traditional drama was difficult. Many celebrities and big names went to communities to carry out public welfare performances of opera, and did everything possible to expand the coverage of traditional drama. In recent years, traditional Chinese culture and art has gained a foothold on short video platforms and attracted a large number of young followers thanks to the explosive growth of the short video industry. Relaxing and emotional, these video contents perfectly match the demands of the users. With the application of new technologies such as social communication and immersive (沉浸式的) experiencing, short video platforms are seeing more users, becoming a shining spot of new Internet media.
Recently, Huangmei Opera “Female Consort Prince” became a hit on short video platforms. The interactive platforms are expanding the charm of the traditional opera among young people. Peking Opera was also well-received on short video platforms thanks to a series of augmented reality (AR) effects. Users love to film short videos with a set of virtual facial makeup, headwear and costumes. Data indicate that these effects were applied by more than 18 million users, most of whom were young.
In addition to Chinese operas, intangible cultural heritage (非物质文化遗产) items, such as embroidery, paper-cutting, printing and dyeing, shadow play works, oiled paper umbrella making, and bamboo weaving are also actively promoted on short video platforms. In a word, short video platforms are becoming an important channel to display China’s intangible cultural heritage.
Short video platforms, offering a fun, popular and easy way to explore the traditional art forms, are receiving a lot of positive feedbacks from China’s young generations. The seconds, or minutes long videos, along with unlimited possibilities as well as richness of styles, have produced remarkable achievements in promoting traditional Chinese culture.
1. What mainly made the passing on of traditional drama difficult?| A．The difficult techniques of drama. | B．The slow growth of art industry. |
| C．The poorly-met demands of the users. | D．The shortage of good drama actors. |
| A．The social communication. | B．The set of virtual facial makeup. |
| C．The positive reviews from users. | D．The application of new technologies. |
| A．To prove traditional art forms are actively promoted. |
| B．To illustrate the charm of traditional Chinese culture. |
| C．To show the current situation of these cultural heritage. |
| D．To offer new channels to display China’s cultural heritage. |
| A．The Bright Future of Chinese Traditional Drama |
| B．The Explosive Growth of the Short Video Industry |
| C．The Simple Way to Explore the Traditional Art Form |
| D．The Creative Combination of Culture and Technologies |
