After a long journey overseas, seven marble columns (大理石柱) from the ruins of Yuanmingyuan in Beijing were returning from Norway to their home site.

According to Xinhua, these columns were p    1     from the Western Mansion (Xiyang Lou) area of Yuanmingyuan, but not completely sure. And they are about 80 to 92 centimeters in h    2    . Some of their frontal facades (正面) are usual Western carvings w    3     the sides (侧面) of the columns show vases filled with t     4     Chinese flowers such as lotuses and peonies (牡丹). They are     5     to have been firstly set on roofs and by stairs.

They were robbed in 1860 when Yuanmingyuan was b    6     down during the Second Opium War. Since then, they have been transported to several countries, i    7     the US and Norway.

In 2013, Chinese businessman Huang Nubo visited a m    8     in Norway and found the columns. Later, he suggested r    9     the columns to China and a series of cultural exchange programs. The Norwegian government agreed the return of the marble columns in 2018. The columns f    10     arrived in China in June 2023. They were publicly on show on Oct 13.

4 . On Sept. 7, famous Chinese archaeologist (考古学家) Fan Jinshi, 85, was awarded by UNESCO for her contribution (贡献) to the protection of the Mogao Caves in Dunhuang.

Called the “daughter of Dunhuang”, her story with the caves started 60 years ago. In 1963, Fan, then a 25-year-old Peking University graduate, had the chance to work at the Mogao Caves, a place she had wanted to explore for a long time.

“Seeing Dunhuang for the first time was breathtaking. But only when truly staying here did I realize that inside the caves is a world of divine beauty while outside is a land of blowing sand and yellow earth,” Fan told Gansu Daily.

Back in those days, the Mogao Caves were almost completely cut off from the world. Fan and her coworkers had to live in mud houses and drink salty water. They stayed inside the Caves to copy murals (壁画) and do whatever they could to protect and restore them.

In 2011 after 40 years of hard work, a report on 10 Mogao Caves by Fan’s team was finally published. It was known as China's first professional report on cave archaeology.

As time passed. Fan found a serious problem. The increasing number of tourists visiting Dunhuang might harm the caves, causing the murals inside to fade. Something needed to be done to preserve Dunhuang’s heritage.

In the late 1980s, Fan stumbled upon computer technology by chance. She realized that this might preserve the Mogao Caves forever. After over 30 years of exploration, the Dunhuang Academy built a digital database to protect cultural relics (文物) there, allowing Dunhuang’s art to live forever and to step out of the caves to meet the world.

“In my whole life, I’ve only done one thing: protect and promote the world cultural heritage of the Mogao Caves,” she told People’s Daily. “My heart belongs to Dunhuang.”

Ancient books can take us back to the past. However, exposing (暴露) them in air does no good to the fragile (脆弱的) pages. Ding Feng, an ancient book restorer (修复师) of the Nanjing Library, made replicas (仿制品) to s    1     the problems.

Ding has made hundreds of ancient book replicas. They i    2     books from old temples (寺庙) and the imperial examination paper of Gao E. Gao is k    3     for writing the last 40 chapters of Dream of the Red Chamber (《红楼梦》). Gao’s paper also has the signatures (签名) of Ji Xiaolan and Heshen. Ding’s     4     (big) replica is a three meter long exam paper from the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). It’s of a first-place winner in the imperial examinations for military personnel (在科举考试中).

“We are one of the first     5     (library) in China to make ancient book replicas,” said Ding,“Many replicas are shown     6     different museums so more people can know about ancient books. They also help p    7     the original (真迹的) ones ”

Making a replica     8     (need) many skills. First, the restorer scans (扫描) the book pages one by one. Then they put them together and adjust (调试) the colors u    9     design software. Finding the right paper for the replica is not easy. Sometimes they even dye (染) the paper to get the best color and texture (质感). What’s more, restorers need to r    10     know the history and cultural background of the books.

A restorer brings old books back to life by making replicas.

How do you communicate with your family and friends? A lot of people choose to use Mandarin (普通话) over dialects (方言) in daily lives these days. As a result, some local dialects are in danger of disappearing. To save them, the Chinese government started the Chinese Language Resources Protection Project a few years ago.

This project looks at how people talk in 1,712 places. Their languages include 103 dialects that are almost gone. It has helped China to build the largest language resource library in the world. There’s an online library where people can learn dialects from over 5.6 million audio clips (音频) and over 5 million videos.

Scholar Zhang Hongming talked about his worries. “For about over 10 years, in the Wu dialect areas such as Shanghai and Suzhou, children aged 6 to 15 can understand but hardly speak the dialect. Meanwhile, young people above 15 years old sometimes speak it, but not very well. If this keeps happening, the dialect might disappear,” he said.

So how did China make this big library? A big national effort has been put into the project to make it happen. Over five years, more than 4,500 experts and more than 6,000 dialect speakers joined in. The project is now entering into its second part. This includes creating tools like apps and mobile dictionaries to help people learn dialects.

Language protection matters to all of us. For ordinary people, posting audio clips and videos of dialects can also help keep them alive.

Lan Lin is wearing an apron (围裙) with embroidery (刺绣的) patterns and bright colors. She is interested in embroidery.

“I always wear the old apron when I make a new work. It can make me do better in embroidery. Zhuang embroidery skills have a long history. They are popular in Guangxi,” said the 48-year-old from Guangxi.

Lan comes from an embroidery family of Zhuang. She has a talent for embroidery. At 16, she made her first piece of clothing. However, in the late 1990s, machine embroidery became popular, the traditional crafts (工艺) nearly got lost.

Lan wanted to keep the family tradition, so she built her own workshop with the help of her sisters and brothers. “If we couldn’t hand the craftsmanship down, it would be a great loss.” she said. Over the past 20 years, Lan has trained over 2,000 women. They work as craftswomen (手艺人) and make money by embroidery. They can embroider at home, and at the same time, ____▲____.

“It’s my lifelong dream to not only create Zhuang embroidery works but also bring the art into the daily life,” she said.

8 . ①Chinese characters (文字) are one of the oldest characters in the world, with a history of more than 6 thousand years. More than 1,600,000,000 people use them in the world, the number is larger than the other characters.

②“I fall in love with the shape of Chinese characters, it’s beautiful and it is a kind of an art-the art of calligraphy (书法), although it’s too difficult for me to speak it well, haha,” says Anna, from Thailand.

③“Chinese characters have the largest amount (量) of information. In the UN documents (文献), if we turn the same book into different languages, the Chinese version (版本) must be the thinnest of all,” says Robert from the UN.

④However, a piece of news reported ________. It also showed more than 24 characters aren’t right in the 400-word letter for a job. To wake up people’s love for writing of Chinese characters, the Ministry (部) of Education in China have asked people to spend more time writing Chinese characters six times. More and more people take part in it.

⑤Most of the school in China have calligraphy classes. Mr. Tan, a Chinese teacher from a primary school in Chongqing, has calligraphy classes for his students on weekends for free as a hobby. And he always writes Spring Festival couplets (对联) and sends them to his students. Some supermarkets in Wanzhou also started to do so last Spring Festival.

⑥Chinese characters show the beauty of Chinese culture. As Chinese, let’s improve our calligraphy ability together.