In the Eastern Han Dynasty, a man ________ Sun Jing was a famous politician (政治家). As a young man, he studied hard and often forgot eating and sleeping. When he was reading, he tied his hair to the roof beam (房梁) with a rope. Therefore, when he slept, he would feel ________ and wake up as his hair was ________ upward by the rope, so that he would go on studying.

Su Qin in the Waring States Period was ________ example like Sun Jing. He didn’t have much ________ when he began to travel to many places. As a result, he couldn’t be in an important position because he knew little even if he had great goals. Finally, he made up his mind to study hard. He felt sleepy when he was reading, so he took an awl (锥) and stuck it into his own legs. ________ this way, the sudden pain would wake ________ up, and he could continue reading. ________, he became a great politician.

People were touched by their hardworking spirit and made the two stories into a Chinese idiom xuanliangcigu. These historical stories show that ________ you pay time and energy, you will get something. If you want to succeed, you must make up your mind and have a clear goal. ________ in the world is difficult if you put your heart into it.

You must have read or heard of the love story between Jia Baoyu and Lin Daiyu from the classic Chinese novel A Dream of Red Mansions (《红楼梦》). But can you imagine the singing opera (歌剧) in English?

Recently, the novel has been made into an English-language opera. After being performed in San Francisco, US, the performances came to Beijing, Changsha and Wuhan. It is welcomed both at home and abroad. Many of the opera’s creators have backgrounds in both Chinese and American culture. Their understanding of both cultures helped them to change a Chinese classic into a foreign-language opera. The opera writer David Henry Huang cut down the number of characters to just seven. Huang, a Chinese-American, focused on the love story between Jia and Lin instead of the rise and fall of the Jia family so that everyone would understand. The art director Timmy Yip tried to help foreign people understand the characters using costumes and stage settings (布景). He compared Lin to water and gave her a light green costume. When Lin shows up on stage, there is usually water around her on the stage.

It isn’t the first time that they have made an opera adapted from Chinese literature (文学). The creators consider it to be a meaningful job to introduce a Chinese classic to western audiences, spreading Chinese culture to the world. They are happy to have made a contribution to the land where their parents were born.