1 . Are you an eating-lover? Do you want to eat every delicious food in the world? Then do you watch the popular program A Bite of China? It’s a TV program on Chinese delicious food and is produced by CCTV. Is there any holiday that isn’t celebrated with special festival food? Here are several traditional Chinese food:

Noodles are a symbol of long life in Chinese culture. They are as much a part of Chinese birthday celebration as a birthday cake with its candles lit in many western countries. Since noodles mean long life, it is considered very unlucky to cut if off.

Although westerners sometimes may be very sorry see fish lying on the plate, in China a whole fish is a symbol of richness. In fact, at a party it is a tradition to serve the whole fish last, pointed towards the most valued guest. Fish also has a special meaning because the Chinese word for fish, yu, sounds like the word for richness or plenty, and it is believed that eating fish will help your wishes come true in the year to come.

A very popular dish during the Dragon Boat Festival is Zongzi. This tasty dish is made of rice dumplings with meat, peanuts or other delicious food in bamboo leaves. The tradition of Zongzi is meant to remind us of a great man Qu Yuan in Chinese history.

2 . China’s Double Ninth Festival falls on the ninth day of the ninth month of the Chinese lunar calendar every year. It is a traditional folk holiday focusing on good health and long life. Let’s take a look at some key words related to this festival.

Nine

Nine is an important number in Chinese culture because its pronunciation means “long” in Chinese. According to the Book of Changes (《易经》), the number six is considered yin while nine is yang. The ninth day of the ninth lunar month in the Chinese calendar features two nines, so the day is given the Chinese name “Chongyang”.

Plants

When it comes to the Double Ninth Festival, two important plants, the cornel (茱萸) and chrysanthemum (菊花), have to be mentioned.

Cornel, famous in traditional Chinese medicine, is widely planted in the north and south of China. Ancient people believed that wearing the cornel on this day could help prevent illness and avoid disasters.

They also believed that the chrysanthemum could drive away bad luck and prevent one from getting a cold in late autumn. So, drinking chrysanthemum wine has always been a traditional custom at this festival.

Elders

As times change, the festival has been given more meaning. In 1989, the Chinese government set it as a day for the elders, to encourage all to respect and love them, so as to build a beautiful, age-friendly society.

3 . Now satellites are helping to forecast (预报) the weather. They are in space, and they can reach any part of the world. The satellites take pictures of the atmosphere (大气), because this is where the weather forms (形成). They send these pictures to the weather stations. From the pictures, meteorologists (气象学家) can often say how the weather will change.

Today, nearly more than one hundred weather stations in over ninety countries receive satellite pictures. When they receive new pictures, the meteorologists compare them with earlier ones. Perhaps they may find that the clouds have changed during the last few hours. This may mean that the weather on the ground may soon change, too. In their next weather forecast, the meteorologists can say this.

So the weather satellites are a great help to the meteorologists. Before satellites were invented, they could forecast the weather for about 24 or 48 hours. Now they can make good forecasts for two weeks. Soon, perhaps, they may be able to forecast the weather for fifteen days or more ahead (提前).

4 . How many stars can you see in the night sky? If the answers are “just a few” or “none”, you might be living with light pollution.

Light pollution happens when too much man-made light harms nature and people. Scientists have found that it is especially harmful to nocturnal animals which sleep in the day and are busy at night. Animal scientist Christopher Kyba said man-made light is “the biggest change” humans have brought to these animals.

Small animals use darkness to hide from predators (捕食者). But, he said, cloudy skies near cities are now “hundreds of times” brighter at night. This means that, for example, cats can catch more rats. Then, there will be too many cats and not enough rats to feed them all.

Baby sea turtles are born on beaches in the nighttime. They find the water by the light of the ocean horizon (海平线). Man-made lights lead them away from the ocean. In Florida alone, “Millions… die this way every year,” said the US-based International Dark-Sky Association.

Also, birds that travel or hunt at night need moonlight and starlight. Man-made light can lead them in the wrong direction. Every year, millions of birds die by flying into brightly-lit buildings.

Anger is a kind of feeling.     1     When your teacher gives you too much homework, when your team loses an important game, when a friend borrows your favorite thing and breaks it, you may get really angry. When you get angry, maybe your breath faster, your face turn red, and you may break something or hit somebody.     2     In fact, it’s not good to hide your anger, and it’s normal for you to get angry sometimes. But anger must be let out in the right way, without hurting others or yourself.

    3     For example, talk with parents, a teacher etc. When you talk about anger, those bad feelings can start to go away.     4     You can talk to a good friend, count from 1 to 100, give someone a hug, go for a bike ride or think about good things etc. Remember that how you act when you are angry can make everything better or worse.     5    

6 . Dinosaurs (恐龙) have died out for more than 65 million years. They left no pictures, but libraries were filled with books about them. They live in the imaginations of people. We can only imagine them in our mind because we can not see real dinosaurs now. We have known about these strange living things for more than 200 years. Their fossil (化石) record was first discovered in 1818, and the word“dinosaur” was created in 1842 by a scientist.

What we know about dinosaurs comes only through the fossil record they left behind. We can get an idea of how they looked by building their skeletons (骨架) with fossilized bones and teeth. We know that they lived on land. Some walked on two legs. Others preferred four legs. Some were fast and others were quite slow.

However, there are many things we don’t know about dinosaurs. For example, what color were they? Nobody knows. Did they cry like lions, how can we know? The fossil record does not speak. Scientists said, “We need to do more research to know more about the color and sound of dinosaurs.”

Keep in mind that we just know a little about dinosaurs. More research should be done to find exact facts about them.

7 . During ancient times, children didn’t have smart phones, ipads or computers to enjoy themselves as the children today. Instead, they came up with interesting games to play in their childhood.

Kicking stone balls	During the Qing Dynasty, kicking a stone ball around was a popular game in the northern part of China. Stones were shaped into small balls and kicked along with feet. It was often played in winter to keep warm.
Playing hide-and-seek	Hide-and-seek is a traditional game for children, popular around the nation. There are two ways to play: covering a child’s eyes while other kids run around to tease (捉弄) him or some children hide and one child must try to find them.
Flying kites	The earliest kites were made of wood rather than paper. Nowadays, the three most famous kites are the Beijing kite, Tianjin kite and Weifang kite. Each has its own style. For example, the bird-shaped kite with long wings is a special kind of the Beijing kite.
Watching shadow plays (皮影戏)	The most similar thing to watching a film or television during ancient times was going to see a shadow play. The artists control puppets (木偶) behind the screen and tell stories along with music. Shadow plays were listed as a National Intangible Cultural Heritage (非物质文化遗产) in 2006.

8 . Hello, everyone. Welcome to CCTV. We have wonderful programs on different channels (频道). Here is some information for you.

On Channel CCTV-3, you can enjoy different kinds of art and music shows.

CCTV-5 offers (提供) sports news and games. It is a very good channel for sports lovers.

CCTV-6 is a movie channel. You can enjoy movies at home 24 hours on this channel.

CCTV-9 offers different kinds of English programs all day. News in English and English Speech Competitions are shown on this channel.

At 12: 35 every day, you can watch reports about law (法律) on CCTV-1. Law experts (专家) are invited to join the program to give their opinions on law problems.

10 . Pipa is one of the most popular traditional Chinese instruments. It first appeared in the Qin Dynasty in ancient China and has a history of over two thousand years.

The word “Pipa” came from two main skills needed to play the instrument. “Pi” means finger pushing, and “Pa” means finger pulling. In the Tang Dynasty, “Pipa” was used as a general name for all Chinese plucked string instruments (拨弦乐器). At the same time, Pipa was also introduced to other East Asian countries.

As to Pipa music work, most of Chinese people will remind of the classic Pipa work—Shimianmaifu. It’s one of the top ten ancient music works in China. It’s really a piece of great music. Sunny Spring and White Snow is one of the several traditional Chinese pieces for Pipa. It was said that the piece was created by either Shi Kuang from the State of Jin or Liu Juanzi from the State of Qi during the Spring and Autumn Period. Now, Sunny Spring and White Snow is also used to describe highbrow (高雅的) art forms such as classical music, painting and literature (文学).