Riverside Scene at the Qingming Festival is a famous painting on ancient Chinese customs in the Northern Dynasty (960 AD—1127 AD). Known     1     one of the “Top Ten Famous Chinese Paintings of Ancient China”, it describes the life and landscape (风景) of the capital city Dongjing (now Kaifeng) and the scenes along the banks of the Bianhe River.

The painting, made of silk, is 24, 8 centimeters     2     and 528,7 centimeters long. It is said that there are 587 characters, more than 60 heads of livestock (牲畜), more than 20     3     (wood) boats and more than 30 houses. Unfolding it, what catches eyes is the early spring scenery in the countryside: the trees and the streams. Two people are     4     (drive) the donkeys forward along the village road. Among the villages, some travellers hurry on their way on foot and some on horseback. At the end of the quiet country road comes the middle part. A bridge     5     (cross) the Bianhe River. Several ships are sailing on the river under the bridge. The boatmen are busy     6     (perform) their duties. On the banks     7     many teahouses, restaurants and stalls (摊位) . The last part is the downtown street of Dongjing with a tall city tower in     8     (it) center. There is all the business you expect to find such as restaurants, butcher shops (肉铺), jewelry     9     (store), drugstores and so on.

Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival vividly shows the     10     (achieve) of business, handicrafts, architecture, transportation and customs in the Northern Dynasty, which provides valuable historic materials for future generations to understand and study the economic and social life in that period.

2 . While having Chinese classes, we are often amazed at how beautiful the ancient Chinese poems and articles are. However, these ancient texts can be quite difficult sometimes. It’s challenging for many of us to understand them.

Here is good news for us. Recently, a college research team from Nanjing have created “Xunzi” to help with the understanding of Chinese ancient books and research on them.

Xunzi is a large language model (LLM) which includes a great number of Chinese ancient books and documents, like the collections of the “Siku Quanshu”. It uses deep learning techniques and big data (数据) sets, and collects more than two billion Chinese characters and words.

This LLM was named after Xunzi because he was not only a famous philosopher (哲学家) during the Warring States Period, but also a pioneer in presenting and explaining theories of linguistics (语言学理论) in ancient China.

With the model, researchers can quickly summarize the ancient texts and know about the themes of the ancient books. It can also find key information from the ancient texts, such as characters, events and places. Besides, the model can help researchers translate the ancient texts into modern Chinese, so they can fully understand them without the help of other dictionaries or books.

“The research on traditional Chinese classics is hard work even for professors, let alone for common learners. We just hope Xunzi can help save some time and energy for people,” said Wang Dongbo, who led the research team.

The LLM has been published on websites like github. com and modelscope. cn, allowing users to download and use it for free.

“Although we spent great effort and money on it, we still share it for free to encourage more people to study and pay attention to traditional Chinese culture,” Wang added.

In 1974, farmers in Xi’an, Shanxi, were digging in the field. But to their surprise, they dug out an amazing discovery only five meters under the earth: the world-famous Terracotta Warriors.

The Terracotta Warriors are thousands of clay soldiers.     1    . The most interesting part of them is that each of them has their own personal face.

Depending on their clothes, hat and hair, they have different military ranks (军衔).    2    . Some hold weapons (武器). Others lead the horses.

These clay soldiers were built for the tomb of Qin Shihuang (259-210 BC), China’s first emperor.     3    . So he asked workers to build an army of warriors to protect him in the afterlife. It is believed that over 700,000 workers built the tomb in 40 years.     4    , but they believe that most of the Terracotta Warriors are still under the earth.

Today, the Terracotta Warriors are called the “eighth wonder of the world”.     5    .

9 . A girl who wrote Chinese calligraphy (书法) on her home curtains (窗帘) has become popular online. The pictures of her creations have ________ surprised lots of people.

The girl named Yating is from Quanzhou, Fujian Province. It took ________ three days to write the calligraphy. Yating decided ________ the calligraphy curtains because her old ones had cartoon pictures on them and they didn’t fit the style of her home. She wanted to make ________ change. Yating put “Four Treasures of the Study” (文房四宝) on the desk to match the calligraphy curtains.

According to Yating, the curtains ________ of thin etamine (纱) instead of common cloth or paper. “I have to be careful not to use too much ink ________ the etamine is quite thin, or the ink would spread to a wide area.” she said.

Yating said she loved writing calligraphy a lot. She ________ up the hobby about five years ago. “On the curtains, I copied the works ________ two famous ancient calligraphy masters Huai Su and Huang Tingjian. And I am quite ________ with my calligraphy works.” said Yating.

Yating took photos of her calligraphy curtains and shared them online. ________ amazing pictures they were! Many people thought they were not only beautiful, but also brought them peace in the heart.

10 . Exploring Traditional Chinese Herbal Medicine

Traditional Chinese herbal medicine is a very old way of helping people stay healthy. It uses plants, like ginseng (人参) and astragalus (黄芪), along with other things from nature to make special treatments. These treatments aim to make sure our bodies work well and stay balanced.

In this traditional way of helping, it’s believed that our body’s energy, called Qi, should move smoothly. Chinese herbal medicine helps bring balance and fix the root causes of sickness, not just the signs you see. These natural treatments are like special mixes chosen by doctors to help each person.

One well-known plant used in Chinese medicine is ginseng. It’s like a superhero herb that helps us deal with stress and feel more energetic. Another plant, astragalus, supports our immune (免疫) system and keeps us healthy. People often use these herbs in teas or powders.

Besides herbal medicine, there’s also acupuncture (针灸). It’s a practice where very thin needles (针) are put into special points on the body to help the energy flow better. Acupuncture and herbal medicine often work together for a complete way to make us feel better.

In short, Chinese herbal medicine is a big part of traditional Chinese medicine, and it uses natural treatments to keep our bodies balanced and working well.