Shijing, also The Book of Songs or Shih Ching, is the     1     (early) collection of Chinese poetry. It     2     (make) up of 311 poems dating from the early years of the Western Zhou Dynasty to the middle stage of the Spring and Autumn Period. Nowadays, Confucius is generally believed to be the     3     (edit) of the book.

Shijing is rich in content,     4     (describe) love and labour, war and slavery, customs and marriage, ancestor worship and special events. It is called a mirror of social life.

Poems included in Shijing fall into three sections-poems that come from villages belong to Feng; those written to persuade or praise the rulers belong to Ya; those used at religious     5     (ceremony) belong to Song. Ya and Song are flowery and serious in language.     6    , Feng is relatively inspiring and full of passion.

The opening poem of Shijing, “Cooing and Wooing” (《关雌》), is about love,     7     reads:

By riverside are cooing, a pair of turtledoves;

A good young man is wooing, a fair maiden he loves.

It is vivid that the man is longing     8     (win) over the girl.

Shijing enables people to have a better understanding of Chinese civilization and is also     9     beginning of ancient Chinese poetry. Additionally, it is also frequently quoted in other Chinese texts and has always been referred to     10     moral truth and lessons.

With a history of more than 2,000 years, the Silk Route dates back to Han dynasty. Through this route, the Chinese highly     1     (qualify) silk made its fame to the western countries. The merchants in different regions     2     (seek) the opportunity of trading Chinese silk     3     they indeed made their fortune along this route.

That route functioned     4     the life blood of international trade at that time. Meanwhile, the Chinese civilization was introduced to the Western countries and vice versa. The Silk Route     5     (consider) as a new chapter recording the friendship between the European and Asian peoples.

Throughout all these years, many great figures have made great     6     (contribute) to the development of the Silk Route. Today, the Silk Route has a poetic name     7     (call) One Belt One Road,    8     (aim) to help those connected regions in culture and economy exchange with a more advanced road. The main cities alongside it are becoming     9     (large) and more important in helping trade and culture exchange. Many countries have gained great benefits along the trading process. All in all, the ancient Silk Road is more like     10     historical textbook for everyone to read and to know about what happened during that ancient time. It has been playing a significant role in the development of the civilizations of China.

The 53-year-old craftswoman Ji Yulan, an inheritor (继承人) of the intangible heritage (非物质遗产) of paper-cutting from Xinjiang, has engaged in the art for over 40 years.

She made paper-cuts of people from all     1     (walk) of life. One of her pieces showed a nurse with long, beautiful hair, wearing a mask and a protective hat. The craftswoman was deeply     2     (impress) by female medical workers     3     cut their long hair to better fit into the protective suits while fighting in the front line against the epidemic. “Women are attractive in long hair and     4     takes a lot of courage to cut it,” Ji said. So she created a paper-cutting work to show the image and named the piece The Angel in Harm’s Way.

Ji has 12 students, aged from 3 to 23. She often encourages her students to create works based on a younger mindset. “I am     5     (extreme) positive about the future of the craft. The younger generation have a real sense of responsibility to protect     6     (culture) heritage.”

Not long ago, China’s traditional tea-making techniques and their associated social practices successfully     1     (become) a UNESCO’s latest World Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

“Stove-boiled tea,” a new way of drinking tea, has recently gained     2     (popular) in China. The process of drinking tea has     3     sense of ritual (仪式) and becomes a new favorite of young people.

    4     (general) speaking, the process of boiling tea on a stove consists of highly roasting tea leaves before brewing them, sometimes with rosebuds    5     sweet osmanthus (桂花), in a pot over a charcoal-filled stove. The art of boiling tea is a time-consuming process     6     requires constant attention to the temperature in order to properly “cook” it. People sit around the stove and have snacks such as fruits, nuts, and desserts with their hot tea. People also post their moments of stove-boiled tea while     7     (wear) traditional Hanfu in these ancient teahouses.

Similar     8     other trending lifestyles such as cycling and camping, “stove-boiled tea” reflects young people’s desire     9     (escape) from cities in order to embrace the nature and experience a peaceful mind.

“Stove-boiled tea” is also a latest “Guo Chao” or “National Trend” to blend Chinese cultural elements into people’s     10     (day) lives.

Silk, which    1    (feel) very soft to the touch, has been present throughout Chinese history. Like almost all types of art on the vast land of China, the styles and qualities of silk are also diverse. Hangluo satin from Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, is famous     2     its light and soft quality, while Yunjin brocade from Nanjing, Jiangsu province, a luxurious cloth often    3     (use) for royal clothes, represents China’s silk weaving (编织) technique at that time.

Yunjin brocade is best made by hand in a complex procedure     4     comprises more than a hundred steps. Even the most skilled workers can only weave a few centimeters a day. Time,     5     (patient) and skills all play crucial roles in its heavenly beauty.

In the Western Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 24), with diplomat and explorer Zhang Qian     6    (open) up the routes to the western regions, silk graced countries in Central Asia, later expanding its reach to other parts of Eurasia and beyond. Fittingly, its name marked China’s major international trade routes, the ancient Silk Road and Maritime Silk Road.

In     7     hands of Chinese artists, the thinnest threads (线) can weave pictures of endless possibilities,     8     the softest material can travel through thousands of years. As one of the many     9    (wonder) of ancient China, silk is not     10     (mere) a type of textile (纺织物). It is a cultural symbol, and a reflection of elegance and grace.