1 . Qiang Shuping was so busy making cloth shoes    1     she didn’t even rest during the Dragon Boat Festival holiday. The woman from Baipu County, Jiangsu Province,     2     (make) shoes since she was 19 years old, and this year marks her 31^st year making cloth shoes.

She spends the entire day in her tiny studio, which     3    (measure) less than 10 square meters altogether, filled with cloth shoes in    4    (variety) stages of completion.

Nowadays, many stores make cloth shoes    5     (use) machines, but Qiang sticks to the technique of making shoes entirely     6     hand. She says the shoes     7     (produce) by the machine are not of the same quality as handmade ones. The handmade cloth shoes are more durable and comfortable,     8    (soft), and absorb sweat better.

Some people buy cloth shoes out of nostalgia(怀旧), while others trust     9    (they) quality. Making shoes isn’t a profitable job, but Qiang still insists as she wants to preserve the craft and pass it down to the younger generation.

Handmade cloth shoes are also called qiancengdi (shoes with a thousand layers),     10     can date back to the ancient Zhou Dynasty. In 2009, the making technique of qiancengdi was listed as the national intangible cultural heritage.

The word Nushu literally means “women’s writing” in Chinese: As the name suggests, Nushu is created and specially used by women.

Often     1    (call) “the world’s only surviving characters for women”, these slim words were developed from standard written Chinese. In the old days, Nushu     2    ( teach) by elderly women to girls at home because female children weren’t allowed     3    (attend) formal school. During gatherings in villages, women used the characters to write poems or song lyrics to express their emotions     4     were hidden from men. The words were full    5     encouragement and positive energy, and showed an uncommon open-mindedness among women at that time.

Ji Xianlin once said that Nushu is a feminist (女权主义者) symbol. “It’s    6     unique writing system created by    7    (talent) women who were deprived (剥夺) of the right to education,” he wrote in an article. “It has significance in various     8    (field) and represents Chinese people’s strong spirit.”

Nushu was made as a national cultural heritage in 2006. However, it is not     9    (wide) used in daily life today. In fact, it is a dying language. Now linguists are taking action to prevent this incredible cultural heritage from    10    (disappear).