Song in a cup

It’s common to see a barista create coffee art,     1     it’s a whole different ballgame doing same thing with tea. Han Zheming has managed to perfect the skill, creating tea art in cups, or dian cha in Chinese, which used to be a ritual (仪式) during the Song Dynasty (960 — 1279).

Dian cha is a tea art from the Song Dynasty.     2     art begins with pouring water over fine powdered tea, creating a paste and then adding more hot water,     3    (constant) whisking (搅拌) it by hand with a bamboo whisk. “It’s like     4    (add) bells and whistles to tea and creating a special atmosphere for tea drinking,” said 40-year-old Han Zheming, a designer     5     has been fascinated by dian cha since childhood. Over the past six years, he     6    (use) tea and spoons to create nearly 200 patterns based on ancient paintings.

Creating patterns on the foam (泡沫) is cautious but quick work. Usually, the whole process has to be completed within 10     7    (minute). The ideal state is when the tea’s temperature is around 40℃ and ready for drinking. It was through trial and error     8     Han understood the art of dian cha.

    9    (spread) dian cha culture, Han put the process of tea-whisking and drawing on social media platforms. Speaking about his understanding of this tea art, Han said the art is “to increase the beauty” rather than change the nature of tea. “As well as poems, calligraphy and paintings that     10    (create) back then, I want more people to understand the tools used by people to drink tea, and the reasons behind the ways they prepared tea,” he explained.

Each year, thousands of people come to Shaanxi, China, to visit the Terracotta Army,     1     shows the life of Qinshihuang, the country’s first emperor.

As one of the most famous tourist sights in the world, the Terracotta Army is a form of funerary (葬礼的) art     2     (bury) with the First Emperor in 210 to 209 BC. It was designed     3     (protect) the emperor in his afterlife.

Since their     4     (discover), experts have questioned whether the life-size models of soldiers     5     (base) on real warriors or whether they came off a production line.

In October a BBC documentary (纪录片) the Greatest Tomb on Earth: Secrets of Ancient China, suggested the inspiration (灵感) for the Terracotta Warriors may have come     6     Ancient Greece, about which Archaeologist Li Xiuzhen said, “We now have     7     (evident) that close contact did exist between the First Emperor’s China and the West.”

On the 41st International Museum Day, it was     8     (official) announced that new technology has just made     9     possible for visitors to be guided. Thanks to an interactive 360-degree video, visitors can choose either to view the figures close-up     10     from a distance.

The best time to see beautiful lanterns is during the Lantern Festival, which     1    (fall) on the 15^th day of the first lunar month. This year it is on Feb.8, marking the end of Spring Festival.     2    , because of the COVID, we had to stay home this year.

As is known to us,     3    (watch) lanterns is a great activity. You see lanterns in any sizes and shapes you can imagine, from animals to plants and flowers. People usually paste riddles on the lanterns,     4     makes the activity more fun.

In some places, people like releasing sky lanterns, which are called Kongming lanterns. A sky lantern is a small hot-air balloon made of paper with an opening at the bottom where there is     5     small fire source. When the bright lights fly high in the sky, people bless members and make     6    (wish).

In old times, the Lantern Festival was also     7    (interest). At that time, young girls were not allowed to go out very often except during certain festivals. Therefore, looking at lanterns gave young people a chance     8    (meet) each other. A line from Xin Qiji, a poet during the Song Dynasty,     9    (show) this: “Restless, I searched for her in thousands, hundreds of ways. Suddenly, I turned, and there     10    (her) was in the receding light.”

【推荐3】Percy Shelley, an English poet, was born on August 4^th, 1792. He is     1    (wide) thought of as one of the most important     2    (figure) of the Romantic Movement in English literature. Shelley received early education at home and later, at the age of 12,     3    (admit) to Eton College, which has a long history of more than 500 years,     4    (date) back to the 15^th century. Then he attended Oxford University shortly after he turned 18.

As     5     romantic poet, some of his poems, like Ode to the West Wind and Ode to A Skylark, are among the most famous in English.     6    , in his own time, Shelley was very unpopular for his political and     7    (religion) views. Fortunately, he successively(先后) met Byron and Keats and befriended with them during his tour around Europe after he married Mary Godwin, his second wife,     8     later became famous as Mary Shelley, the author of the novel Frankenstein.

About a month before his 30^th birthday,     9    (welcome) his friend Leigh Hunt, Shelley sailed to Leghorn. During the stormy return voyage, his small boat sank and he drowned. It was not until days later     10     his body was washed ashore.