The Chinese Longtaitou Festival, or Dragon-Head-Raising Festival falls on the second day of the second lunar month every year. Chinese people believe that rainfall     1     (increase) after this day because the rain-bringing Dragon King has awakened from his winter sleep.

The festival celebrates ancient agricultural Chinese culture, and while some of     2     (tradition) ways to celebrate it are no longer practiced, others persist. The most famous tradition is getting     3     haircut. Some believe that going to the barber’s on this day gets rid     4     bad luck, while others believe doing that during the first month of the lunar calendar brings bad luck. Another saying warns that     5     (cut) your hair in the first month will cause your uncle to die in several months. Although today few pay attention to it, it was once a tradition     6     (line) up outside barber shops on the day of Longtaitou, having avoided haircuts for the previous month.

People eat toufu balls in Fujian province during the festival, and     7     (frequent) make tofu and vegetable balls to pray for family and business. Eating chengyao cakes,     8     are made of sticky rice, is a tradition in Suzhou in memory of the saying, “If he eats chengyao this day,     9     (he) waist won’t hurt all year.” Meanwhile other foods, like noodles, dumplings, and spring rolls,     10     (name) after dragon body parts to mark the day. Noodles are dragon’s beard, dumplings are dragon’s ears, and spring rolls are dragon’s scales.

Classical Chinese poetry is traditional Chinese poetry     1     (write) in Classical Chinese and typified by certain traditional forms and close connections with particular historical     2     (period), such as the poetry of the Tang Dynasty. Its existence     3     (document) at least as early as the publication of the Classic of Poetry or Shijing.     4     (variety) combinations of forms and genres exist. Many or most of these     5     (arise) at the end of the Tang Dynasty.

Use and development of Classical Chinese poetry     6     (active) continued up to the year of 1919,     7     the May Fourth Movement took place, and is still developed even today. Poetry created during this 2,500 year period of more or less continuous development shows     8     great deal of diversity-classified by both major historical periods and by dynastic periods.

Of the key aspects of Classical Chinese poetry, another is     9     (it) intense interrelationship with other forms of Chinese art, such as Chinese painting and Chinese calligraphy. Classical Chinese poetry has proven to be of strong influence     10     poetry worldwide.

China, which takes pride in inventions in ancient times, has once again demonstrated its     1    (able) to change the world with its “new four great inventions”: high-speed railways, electronic payments,     2    (share) bicycles and online shopping. The “new four great inventions” are all related     3     China’s high-tech innovation (创新), which has improved the quality of people’s lives. “My wallet is no longer in use. I can buy and eat anything     4     I want simply with a tap of my phone,” said Lin Jinlong,     5     overseas Chinese student from Cambodia,     6    (add) that “even pancake sellers are using Alipay (mobile payment). We can also order food at home, which is super convenient. If I were at home in Cambodia, I would have to go outdoors.”

The bikes     7    (they) are not new, but the operating model of bike-sharing is based on satellite navigation system mobile payment big data and other high technologies. It is     8    (increase) clear that China is innovating and no longer copying Western ideas. This is partly because China skipped over the PC age and went directly to mobile. China has the     9    (large) mobile use in the world.

In terms of the “new four great inventions”, Charlie Dai, principal analyst of American market research company Forrester, said “These products and services     10    (improve) the customer experience so far, improving national and global economy at the same time”.

Seal cutting or Zhuanke in Chinese is a comparatively independent traditional art form. It takes Chinese characters as its form of     1     (express), using carving knives instead of the writing brushes, and stone instead of paper. It is similar     2     inscriptions (碑文) on ancient bronze and stone tablets (石碑)    3     it can be viewed as a pocket edition of tablet inscription.

The seal has many names in history. It was called Xiyin (玺印) during the Warring States period, the Qin and Han dynasties, and the Wei and Jin periods. The Ming and the Qing dynasties were     4     (universe) acknowledged to be the two golden periods in the history of seal cutting. And     5     long period from the Tang Dynasty to the Yuan Dynasty turned out to be a time     6     the royal seal was on the decline. The use of the seal also varied. Clay impression was used before the Sui and Tang dynasties and inkpad or red ink paste     7     (use) since the Tang and the Song dynasties.     8     (classify) into two categories — official seals and private seals, Xiyin is still widely used nowadays. Official seals refer to     9     of emperors and officials. The making materials in ancient times mainly include gold, silver, copper, jade, stone, bamboo and wood with seals     10     (make) up an overwhelming majority.

A small village in Yunnan Province is     1     (wide) known as the Dai paper factory. There are nets for drying paper all over the village and inside villagers’ houses. Dai paper     2     (make) for over 800 years there up to now.

One of the best papermakers is Yan, who was already interested in Dai paper     3     an early age.     4     (teach) by his grandparents to be a papermaker at 16, Yan was quickly able to complete     5     production independently.

Unlike ordinary papermaking     6     trees need to be cut down, Dai paper is environmentally friendly. This is     7     its raw material is the recyclable bark of a kind of trees unique to the area. Dai paper’ production process is still used today. In a workshop, Yan demonstrated 11 different papermaking     8     (process) to us.

Although Dai paper     9     (carry) the culture and belief of the Dai people, the crafting of it is faced with great challenges. To address the problems, Yan improved Dai’s papermaking technology, thus saving production time and     10     (reduce) labor costs. And then he started teaching the villagers his new papermaking process for free.

Traditional Chinese festivals are important part of Chinese culture, and it’s our     1     (responsible) to protect and maintain them. This article focuses on a festival that many people are not familiar with — Hanshi Festival.

With a history of more than 2,600 years, Hanshi Festival is the only traditional one in China named     2     food, and it is also known as the Cold Food Festival as people are only allowed to eat cold food on this day. Hanshi normally     3     (fall) around April 3 in the solar calendar, one to two days ahead of the Qingming Festival.

In most parts of China, fires might start easily in the dry early spring due to the flammable     4     (substance) stored by people and the spring thunder. As a result, the ancients usually held grand ceremonies of sacrifice when the fire stored from the previous year would be put out. Later, they would drill wood to get new fire for a new year. The gap between putting out old fire and burning the wood     5     (obtain) new fire ranged from three, five, or seven days.

During the gap days, fires     6     (prohibit) in households. As a result, people would eat what they had prepared     7     (previous), namely the cold food, or hanshi in Chinese. That’s     8     the Hanshi Festival gradually came into being.

As the Hanshi Festival is one to two days ahead of the Qingming Festival,     9     gradually got combined with one another. After the Song Dynasty, cold food did not remain a necessity on this day, and gradually, Qingming Festival     10     (take) over the folk activities of Hanshi to become a major festival on this subject.