【推荐1】Wearing a mask for confidence

You may often see young people in Asian countries wear their masks in public.     1     Asians often wear face masks to prevent one's own germs (微生物) or sickness from spreading in public places.     2    This means they will try their best to make contributions to their group. During the novel coronavirus outbreak, Asians will wear masks to prevent both themselves and others from being infected, which will eventually benefit the whole group.

Apart from physical protection, masks have evolved into social firewalls among young people in Asian countries as well.     3    They often want to keep a safe distance from strangers. But when they can't achieve it in public such as on a crowded subway, hiding their faces with masks can sometimes help them gain some privacy.     4    For example, they can avoid the embarrassment when they don't have enough time to do makeup.

    5    They wear them, along with audio headsets, to signal a lack of desire to communicate with those around them, according to Quartz.

Not only are masks used to prevent the spread of disease, they have indeed made their way into the mainstream and are here to stay in Asian countries.

A．What makes them do so?

B．Asians are subject to Confucianism (儒教).

C．In many Asian countries, people value collectivism.

D．They think wearing masks is not related to their freedom.

E．For this reason, wearing masks has become a fashion trend among young people.

F．For some young girls, wearing masks can give them confidence and a sense of security.

G．Young people are more concerned about their privacy than their parents and grandparents.

【推荐2】The Miao Sisters Festival is held every year in Guizhou’s Taijiang County, where 97 percent of the 168,000 people there are from the ethnic (民族) Miao group.It is an ancient tradition, which brings men and women together through food, gifts and music.

In the days before the festival, young women gather leaves and wild flowers, which they use to dye (给……染色) sticky rice with bright colours. This brightly coloured rice, known as Sister Rice, gives the festival its name. During the festival, the young women dress in beautiful traditional clothes with large amounts of silver jewelry.

The festival includes parades, horse races and musical performances. But the real focus is the interaction between the young women and the young men who visit from surrounding villages and sing songs.In one traditional type of song, a man and woman take turns singing to each other, and the first one to make a mistake loses the game.The loser must give the winner a gift, but the winner is expected to give a gift in return too.

After meeting the men, the women send them home with a bamboo basket containing dyed rice and hidden objects with special meanings. For example, a pair of chopsticks means she wants to marry the man, while garlic shows that she is not interested.

One of several stories is about the festival’s beginning of a girl and a boy who fell in love. The girl’s parents wanted her to marry her uncle’s son as it was traditional at the time. She refused, and the boy likewise refused to marry anyone else. For a time, they could only meet in a field and pass hidden messages to each other through rice in a bamboo basket. Finally, the pair overcame their parents’ opposition and were allowed to marry.

The Miao Sisters Festival is perhaps the oldest festival in Asia that encourages love.

1. What is the purpose of young women collecting leaves and wild flowers?

A．To decorate their rooms.

B．To sell them and make money.

C．To give sticky rice different colours.

D．To cover some objects in a basket.

2. Which of the following is NOT the activity taking place in the festival?

A．Water skiing.	B．Horse races.
C．Parades.	D．Singing songs.

3. What can we learn from the passage?

A．A woman often loses the game.

B．A hidden pair of chopsticks suggests good things.

C．The winner need not send a gift.

D．Often a man needs to sing songs to a young woman.

4. What does the story in Paragraph 5 tell us?

A．The boy’s parents didn’t like the girl.

B．They were not married in the end.

C．The boy refused to marry the girl at first.

D．The rice in the bamboo basket carried their love.

【推荐3】Chopsticks Taboos: Unholy Ways to Pick Up Your Food

The use of chopsticks to pick food up from the plate will earn you several complements from Chinese people. But over time, once in a while your close friends might remind you about some basic chopsticks etiquette(礼节) such as never insert chopsticks vertically(垂直地) into a bowl of rice.     1    , here are several rules to keep in mind.

Do not use chopsticks of different lengths. This will remind people of a Chinese idiom “three long and two short”,     2    , because a coffin without a lid is composed of five boards, three long, and two short.

Don’t use chopsticks to poke at each dish without knowing what you want or only one chopstick to fetch the food in the plate.

    3    . Chinese people believe that their ancestors are resting underneath the earth, and dropping chopsticks would disturb them.

Don’t make noise with chopsticks by hitting the side of your bowl,     4     .

While passing someone a bowl of rice or noodles, never insert the chopsticks vertically in the middle of the food for convenience.     5    .

A．Do not drop your chopstick on the floor.

B．because only beggars do that to get attention.

C．In Chinese culture, the sign of crossing is negative.

D．which is used as another name for coffin,

E．If you want to master the art of using this old tool

F．Do not drop food and liquid from your chopsticks to the table.

G．The action would remind people of burning certain sticks in the pot in memory of the dead.