Our Ten Years is a TV series to look back at China’s achievements in the past decade. It has been translated     1     nine languages to run on 10 overseas platforms,     2     cover more than 200 countries.

Set between 2012 and 2022, the drama consists of 11 stories on a variety of themes like the economy, culture and ecological civilization,     3     (picture) a generation of Chinese people who seek for a better future. The show selected eleven production teams of more than 4, 000 people, which was filmed in more than 10 provinces,     4     was officially released on October 10, 2022. The major creators conducted a lot of interviews to seek inspirations, and made efforts     5     (combine) the regional cultures with the plots and characters.

As one of the highest-rated tales, the first story—    6     (title) Tang Gong Ye Yan-is inspired from the show with the same name performed by Zhengzhou Song and Dance Theater, which     7     (stage) on the 2021 Spring Festival Gala.     8     (interesting), the dance show itself was inspired from a set of ancient dancing statues unearthed in Anyang, Henan province, in 1959.

Wang Lei, the leading actor, says he feels proud to play a police officer in Xi Xiang Ming Yue. “As     9     actor, I believe it is our     10     (responsible) to convey the voice of this era through our characters,” said Wang.

The word “toad” (癞蛤蟆) would be very easy in an English-language spelling bee, but not in a nationally televised contest in China.

In Chinese, toad has three characters that are made up of 46 individual strokes(笔画). Yu Shuang,     1     8-year-old contestant, quickly wrote the characters on a screen that     2     (project) her effort on a big display above her head. When she finished, one of three judges hit the bell signaling a correct answer.     3     the other two didn’t agree,     4     (point) out that the young girl had missed a single dot in the third character.

Yu wasn’t alone. The show tested a group of adults in the audience, just 30% of     5     could write toad correctly.

Since the first show on a minor TV channel about educational programming, the “Chinese Characters Dictation Competition”     6     (explode) in popularity. The show shied to a Friday evening time on CCTV 1, even challenging the popularity of the country’s most     7     (watch) shows, including China’s version of “The Voice”.

Its creator, Guan Zhengwen said, “The hope is     8     the show could arouse people’s     9     (enthusiastic) for the language, which is one of the most spectacular treasures of Chinese civilization and the fifth big invention the Chinese people have given to humanity. The so-called four great inventions from China     10     (typical) are lite das paper, gunpowder, the compass and printing.