1 . Once a year in a small mountain village, the Mande people gather to hear the folk stories of their traditions. The man playing an instrument called Sosso-Bala while singing is the storyteller. He holds all the folk knowledge of the Mande people.

Most of us don’t have a musical instrument that ties us together, but we have someone in our lives who’s the keeper of our folk knowledge. Often it’s a grandmother, who keeps all our stories of wisdom ready to tell upon request.    1     .What’s the best way to get a baby to sleep? Where do I come from? What’s my moral compass? The stories provide an answer, and it’s useful to speak with someone who knows how things are done.

    2     Researchers have documented folk knowledge in other species whales returning to parts of the sea that they’d abandoned a generation before; monkeys that communicate hunting skills to their offspring (后代). Folk knowledge is not only culture, it’s also survival.    3    

Traditionally, we share it in small units—families sharing around a dinner table.    4    Look at any social median, and you’ll see folk knowledge at work and at play. It’s exploded as we’re trained to look for information online, rather than from within. In this case, chances are that our questions can be answered with misinformation.

But we don’t gather once a year to reality check our “folk stories” as the Mande people do; nor do we center our folk traditions around a musical instrument. The internet has no reality except its own and, left unchecked, its wisdom has no rhythm(节奏).    5    

A black slate (石板), an alloy steel needle and decades of practice are     1     Li Yahua needs to create the perfect Huihe stone shadow carving work of art. With her left hand     2     (gentle) leaning against the mirror-like stone to support the heavy chisel (凿子) she’s holding in her right hand, the artist creates a black-and-white landscape by intensively chiseling dots in various sizes and density on the stone.

    3     (difference) from traditional Chinese art types that emphasize the beauty of lines, stone shadow carving highlights the size and     4     (deep) of dots.

“We use an alloy steel needle to chisel white dots to create images on a polished and smooth black slate,” Li explained, adding the pressure     5     (use) to chisel them was the key to getting the carving right.

“On an A4-paper-size black slate, we need to chisel about 100 million dots     6     (create) an image,” she continued, adding it would take 7 to 20 days to complete the work depending on its level of complexity.

Born into a family of stone carvers, stone and alloy steel needles     7     (be) Li’s best friends since childhood and the sound of chisel     8     (knock) on the slate is the soundtrack to her life.     9     56-year-old has devoted nearly 40 years to the craft. For her, shadow carving is about preserving history, culture and art,     10     recording the stories of the times.

You might have heard of Cantonese opera, but have you heard of Nanyin — Fujian’s traditional opera? Traditional Nanyin is performed by five people,     1    (comprise) of one singer and four instrumentalists. The musicians play the dongxiao, nanpa, erxian, and sanxian. In 2009, Nanyin     2    (add) to UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage List.

    3    (wander) the streets of Quanzhou, a historical port city, one will often hear slow, soft and pleasant melodies (曲调) coming from a newsstand on a street corner, a grocery store in a marketplace     4    a residential house with its door open.

That’s the sound of Nanyin,     5     ancient music style of Minnan, or southern Fujian Province,     6     can be traced back to the Tang Dynasty. One of the country’s oldest music     7    (style), Nanyin (literally meaning “music of the south”) came into being and developed as the culture of central China spread to Quanzhou and integrated with local arts.     8     its melody was often associated with royal court music, it gradually changed to become part of local folk life, and was passed down from generation to generation. Nanyin became “the sounds of hometown and motherland” in the minds of many overseas Chinese who left Quanzhou.

It’s common for its fans     9    (collect) Nanyin albums, organize regional associations of Nanyin enthusiasts, hold salons (沙龙) and set up musical theaters. In Quanzhou alone, there are about 500 music associations devoted to Nanyin’s soft sounds, and more than a dozen festivals and competitions are held     10    (annual) both at home and abroad.

For people interested in learning more about the ethnic (少数民族) Miao culture, an ideal place to experience it is an ethnic Miao community, called Qianhu, in Guizhou Province.     1     has preserved the distinctive cultural traditions of the Miao ethnic group exhibited in the forms of architecture, arts, and daily lifestyle.

This world’s largest Miao community consists     2     a dozen smaller settlements     3    (spread) over rolling mountains. Singing is     4     essential part of local life. The Miao people begin to learn how to sing as early as they can speak.

The Miao people are also known for making fine embroidery (刺绣). Different from other parts of China, the themes     5    (express) in Miao embroidery are showy,     6    (imagine), and often based on folklores (民俗). Meanwhile, Miao people can     7    (effortless) arrange colors in a way that avoids awkwardness. This is a truly natural gift.

Another fine element of the Miao culture is wearing silver ornaments (装饰). For most of their history, the Miao people     8    (have) no written language, so they had to preserve and pass on their heritage through visual elements, like carving history on silver ornaments. Over time, this craft has evolved into a vehicle     9     represents the Miao culture and spirit.

The Miao songs, embroidery, and silver ornaments all convey the rich, profound history of the Miao people and     10    (symbol) the continuity of their culture and traditions.