With his wrinkled fingers, Wang Qiming put traditional makeup on the faces of young performers before dawn, making final preparations for the shehuo parade.

The shehuo parade,     1     time-honored performance enjoying widespread popularity in rural areas across China,     2     (date) back to about 2,000 years ago when sacrificial (祭祀的) activities were performed to pray for a good harvest. Later on, as dancing and singing became part of the parade, it developed into a folk custom    3     (stage) during the Spring Festival and Lantern Festival     4     (sweep) bad luck and bring a fresh start in the new year.

Wangmazui is in Longxian county,     5     (previous) known as Long Zhou, which is famous for shehuo parades     6    (possess) authentic performances and simple yet delicate facial makeup. The county was named the hometown of shehuo performances by the Chinese Folk Literature and Art Association in 2013.

More than 100 shehuo festivals are held in Longxian every year, each of     7     involves dozens or hundreds of villagers.     8     (enthusiastic) usually perform on horses or pickup trucks, showing remarkable performances including stilt (高跷) dances and land boats.

Wang, 65, got close     9     (expose) to the annual performances when he was a child. “My family has been engaged in shehuo performances     10     generations,” he said. “I started to watch the show in my childhood, and now I joined them by making face-painting.”

Several thousand years ago, the silk trade first reached Europe via the Silk Road,     1     brought with it not only excellent silk clothes and decorative items, but also the ancient culture of the Far East. From then on, silk     2     (regard) as the symbol of Eastern civilization.

According to     3     ancient Chinese legend, it was the Yellow Emperor     4     ordered the fibers woven into cloth and made into silk clothes, which were     5     (extreme) soft and comfortable. Later generations worshiped the Yellow Emperor     6     the God of Weaving.

China is the birthplace of sericulture (养蚕). Sericulture, including planting mulberry trees, raising silk worms and     7     (produce) silk fabric, has been an essential form of labor in China for     8     (century). The Chinese ancestors had invented flat-weaving and figured -weaving techniques, and colored cloth using natural vermilion (朱红) dye.

With the     9     (improve) in loom construction and printing and dying methods, more varieties of silk were developed. China possessed the most     10     (advance) silk dying and weaving techniques of the ancient world.

Are you a tea drinker? If so, you're not alone. Every day around the world, millions of cups of this popular brew     1    (drink), and it's been that way for thousands of years.

The oldest discovered tea is from the Han Dynasty,     2    (date) from 206 BC to 220 AD. But it's thought that the tea trend really took off during the Tang Dynasty in the 8th Century, when it     3    (become) China's national drink.

Much of the early growing of tea in China was by small farms and plantations, many of     4    were tended by Buddhist monks, on the land high on the mountain tops. So the Chinese have always held the     5    (believe) that famous teas come from high in the mountains, and indeed, many of the     6    (fine) and best-known teas have often come from these mountain plantations

Today, China produces about 20% of the world tea exports.     7    great variety of teas are grown and produced in 16 different regions of China. There's said     8    (be) over 8, 000 different classifications, most of which are for green tea alone, with a few black and oolong teas     9    (include).

Many of China's finest teas are still made by hand, and the skills needed for their manufacture have been passed down     10    generations, from one to the other.