Every Saturday, Wang Weifang puts on a play with his friends in a small town near Xi’an. The audience (观众) can hear     1     (they), but they cannot see them. That is     2     they are putting on a shadow puppet play (皮影戏).

Shadow puppets are made of hard leather (皮革). The leather is cut out     3     the shape of a person, an animal or an object. Each puppet     4     (paint) in bright colors and put on a stick. Some puppets have movable arms and legs. During a shadow puppet play, Wang     5     (stand) behind a white screen with lights behind it. The audience sit in front of     6     screen. Wang and his friends hold the puppets very close to the screen so the audience can see the puppets’ shadows     7     (clear). Then they move the puppets around and do the     8     (voice) of the different characters. Shadow puppet plays are an ancient Chinese art. Now with TV and films, shadow puppet plays are not as popular as before.

Wang and his friends often work very hard for little money,     9     they do not mind. They want     10     (keep) this traditional art form alive.

Jinggangshan is known for both red and green resources. It’s China’s first rural revolutionary base（农村革命根据地）, but it’s more than that. Jinggangshan is rich in forest resources, which also attracts（吸引）many tourists. Located in Jiangxi Province, 86 percent of the city is covered by forest. In 2021, it was named as the fifth batch（批）of national forest and grass science bases.

Gutian, a village in Jinggangshan, is close to many red tourist sites, and has developed its own type of tourism. Research and Tourism Base Project offers students chances to get a taste of farming life while learning about red culture.

The number of students coming for research tours（研学旅行）in Jinggangshan keeps growing. And people aged 20 to 39 accounted for 57.3 percent of tourists on red-themed tours. Known as the birthplace of China’s revolution, Jinggangshan has become a famous tourist site. In the tourism industry, Mao Haofu, found his place years ago. He finished studying in Britain and returned his hometown Jinggangshan. After working as a museum tour guide for years, he opened his own tourism studio（工作室）. “Every family here has a red story. Everyone here is the successor（接班人）of the Red Army,” said Mao.

Have your mum or grandma ever made embroidered(刺绣的) clothes for you? People in the past often embroidered on handkerchiefs(手帕), bed covers and dresses. Girls would embroider on a sachet(香囊) as a gift for     1     (they) lovers.

Shu embroidery comes from Sichuan. It is the     2     (old) kind of embroidery in China. People began to make it during the Han Dynasty (206BC — 220AD). They     3     (sell) it to other countries along the South Silk Road.

Embroidery     4     (take) time. It may take as long as a whole day to finish just 10 cm. By the 1970s, Sichuan had as many as 5,000 embroiderers. But since today modern machines can make embroidery products(产品) more     5     (cheap), fewer people are buying handmade Shu embroidery products. Young people aren’t learning the     6     (skill). To protect this skill, Shu embroidery     7     (add) to China’s intangible cultural heritage(非物质文化遗产) list in 2006.

5 . In the last century, different natural disasters have robbed several cultural heritage (遗产) from us. On WeChat, some people say, “What a pity that we cannot see the damaged parts of the wonders anymore.” But people can see them in a new way—through a video game. In this game, the player can travel to one city after another and enter the buildings exactly like they are in reality, and see the wonders as they were before the fire.

Maybe digital technology (数字技术) could help protect cultural heritage better. This idea dates back to the 1990s and the necessary technology has continued to develop since then. By scanning (扫描) the ancient buildings, building 3D models, as well as measuring everything, scientists can make a copy exactly as the real one.

As computers and smart phones are popular, the digital copy has great value. First, it allows tourists to feel the cultural heritage without touching them, which helps protect them. The virtual tour of Dunhuang Grottoes (敦煌石窟) is a good example of this as tourists can view the paintings without standing near them.

Second, it can make the cultural heritage more famous by spreading information about them through the Internet. In 2000, a virtual tour of the Dunhuang Grottoes became very popular at the Hannover World Expo, which increased the number of foreign tourists visiting the site in the following years.

Last, it stores all the information of the cultural heritage. Even if the real ones are damaged one day, people can still know what they were like and can build a new one if wanted. Of course, however exact a model is, it is not the real one.

Maybe we will have better technologies in the future, but the digital technology offers a practical way to protect cultural heritage at the moment.

6 . There are about 6,000 languages around the world. But 43 percent of these languages are dying out, according to UNESCO (联合国教科文组织).

Languages become endangered for many reasons. One of the reasons is that fewer and fewer people speak these languages. These people sometimes leave their communities and move to cities or towns.

Once a language dies, it never comes back to life. Governments all over the world are taking action to stop this. In New Zealand, the government has said it wants more than 20 percent of the country’s population to be able to speak basic Maori (毛利语) by 2040. It plans to provide Maori lessons in all New Zealand schools by 2025, The New York Times reported.

China is also trying to protect its languages. About 130 languages are spoken in China. In 2015, the government started a project to record all the languages spoken in China. Universities like Minzu University of China have set up these language learning courses for their students.

Some people argue that language loss, like the loss of some animal species, is simply a fact of life on Earth. However, all languages are human heritage (遗产). When we lose a language, we lose the culture of the people who speak it. Language itself is often the only way to pass on a certain community’s history and culture, as well as its knowledge of things like math and geography.

9 . Every Saturday, Wang Weifang puts on a play with his friends in a small town near Xi ’an. The audience can hear them, (A)   __________ they cannot see them. That is because they are putting on a shadow puppet play.

Shadow puppets are made of hard leather. The leather is cut out in the shape of a person, an animal or an object. (B) Each puppet is painted in bright colours and put on a stick. Some puppets have movable arms and legs.

During a shadow puppet play, (C) 王站在白色屏幕的后面with lights behind it. The audience sit in front of the screen. Wang and his friends hold the puppets close to the screen so the audience can see the puppets’ shadows clearly. Then they move the puppets (D) around and do the voices of the different characters.

Shadow puppet plays are an ancient Chinese art. Now with TV and films, (E) shadow puppet plays are not as popular as before.

Wang and his friends often work very hard (F) __________ little money, but they do not mind. They want to keep this traditional art form alive.

10 . People, especially children, like comic strips（连环漫画）in newspapers and magazines. Who is your favorite superhero? Spiderman? Wonder Woman? These heroes have been around for a long time. But comics came out even earlier. In ancient times, people made funny drawings of animals on paper.

Modern comic strips came out during the 1800s and their style has remained much the same. These comics are drawn in connected boxes. The boxes usually show an interesting story. Some comic strips are printed in newspapers. They often continue from day to day. Some people even read the comics before they read the front page.

Comic books first appeared during the 1930s. It seemed that everyone wanted to read them. People loved reading about the adventures（冒险）of the Man of Steel and Batman. During the 1940s, the world was at war and some comic book characters, such as Captain America, reflected the times. Others, such as Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, made people laugh during this terrible time in history.

After the war, people became less interested in old comic book characters, so new superheroes had to be made. The new superheroes, such as Fantastic Four, X-Men and Spiderman, talked and acted more like real people. As time went on, comic books had to compete with TV because TV was offering people a lot of interesting things to watch instead.

Comic strips are usually good for a laugh. They take people away from their daily lives and into another world. In this world, the hero always wins, and failure only comes to the bad guys.