What do you think of your Chinese? Is it good or bad? If you think you are good at Chinese, you can _____ the competition named The Chinese Characters Dictation Competition(《汉字听写大赛》)．The competition became popular _____ the teenagers. Let's know something about it.

More and more computers and smart phones are used by teenagers. They spend _____ time on the Internet in playing or chatting. They are used to _____ messages by computers and smart phones. Some of them forget how to write Chinese characters _____. The teachers and parents are very _____ it. What can they do?

Not long ago, they found an interesting game called The Chinese Characters Dictation. The program modeled _____ after the American show National Spelling Bee, where middle school students stand on the stage to write down Chinese via(通过) dictation. Over two hundred competitors who are from forty­six schools took part in it. The audience(观众) are interested in this _____ kind of competition, too. They would like to write down the characters _____ the competitors were writing them. But they found it was also difficult for them to write down all the characters.

Is it an interesting competition? Can you be the ______？

On December 24, kids around the world waited for Santa Claus(圣诞老人). They thought that the fat, white­bearded man would bring them gifts. But do you know that some people would rather keep Santa out of the door?

Last month, 10 doctoral(博士的) students from Tsinghua, Peking and Renmin Universities said Santa Claus wasn't welcome in China.

“Foreign holidays like Christmas are now very popular in China, while fewer and fewer people celebrate traditional Chinese festivals like the Dragon Boat Festival,” said the students in a public letter.

They asked people to stop sending Christmas cards and giving gifts to their children. Instead, they said, Chinese should spend more time on traditional festivals.

They have lots of support. In Hunan, several people went out on the street on Christmas Day. They made poems and wrote Chinese calligraphy(书法) .

“Rather than spending money on Christmas, we should care more about our own culture,” said one of them.

But others have different ideas. “Celebrations of foreign holidays help us know more about foreign cultures. It is good for us to make friends,” said Liu Yang, a 14-­year-­old boy from Shanghai.

Sun Long, 13, from Beijing, sees the celebration as a way to make people happier and closer. “My school held a big party on Christmas Day. We played games and shared gifts with each other. I think we have got closer,” he said.