1 . Do you like Chinese traditional painting and dance? They are two important parts of the traditional Chinese art. But what about when they meet each other?

This year, a dance drama titled Poetic Dance: The Journey of a Legendary Landscape Painting (《只此青绿》) was staged on CCTV’s Spring Festival Gala and became popular.

According to CCTV, this poetic dance program was inspired by the 900-year-old Chinese painting A Panorama of Rivers and Mountains (《千里江山图》), created by Song Dynasty painter Wang Ximeng at about 18. The painting is amazing in its sweeping size, rich coloration and the expressive details, reported by CCTV. It shows a Chinese blue-green landscape: mountains and groupings of infinite (无限的) rise and fall between cloudless sky and rippling (涟漪的) water.

When the dancers moved elegantly, audiences seemed to be looking at the moving mountains and rivers. “It brings me a pure experience of beauty. It is not only a drama but also an exhibition. Vast mountains and rivers are coming to life!” Internet user Mo Weisha wrote in a review. “More than a thousand years later, green mountains and rivers still impress people as they did long ago.” Some people even decided to watch the dance again when it was staged in the theaters later. In fact, in recent years, more and more modern shows have featured Chinese traditional culture and received warm welcome. As for the reason, it is due to people’s great love for traditional culture.

“The younger generations have grown up with a more open mind. They accept Chinese culture and are proud of it,” Yao Wei, director of Henan TV Station’s Innovation Center, told China Daily.

2 . It’s been nearly two decades since the traditional clothing style Hanfu first started to reemerge in China. Since then it has gone from a small cultural movement celebrating an ancient fashion to a trend that is booming on social media, having been adopted by China’s Generation Z as a means of connecting with their past. Instead of following other cultures blindly, Generation Z now have different opinions about what trend is by promoting local culture while having an objective view of exotic cultural products.

The new tastes of Generation Z—young people born after 1995—are well represented on Bilibili. In the recent New Year’s Eve gala presented by Bilibili, it attracted more than 100 million views within 48 hours with a colourful set of programmes ranging from Peking Opera to classical Chinese cartoons. The same is also true of movie industry. Last year, for the first time, the top 10 most viewed films in China were all domestic films, while the ticket sales for imported films have dropped to only 16.28 percent.

”Generation Z grew up with the rapid development of China and under good economic conditions. With the development of the Chinese Internet industry, they have more access to diverse international information and culture, which bring them a much broader vision and makes them more open and confident in analyzing foreign culture. Apart from taking pride in China’s rapid development, this generation also pursues individuality and values devotion to the country,“ Professor Zhang Yiwu said.

He also noted that the popular rock and punk culture pursued by the 70s and 80s generation is more of a challenge against real life and local culture. Some people who were born in the 1970s and 1980s did not grow up in the Internet age—they experienced the transformation of China going from poor to rich first-hand. This kind of longing and admiration of the West came from a lack of confidence.

However, Generation Z now have the confidence to look at Western culture with equal status. This kind of cultural confidence will result in China being more active and creative in its development on the international stage in the future.

Cultural relics are a part of history, and represent people’s cultural treasures. Therefore, it is important for us to protect     1     (they).

    2     we know, most cultural relics are really valuable because they have seen     3     history of our country, which allow us to have a better understanding of our country’s history and culture. We can also learn a lot from our ancestors (祖先) and feel proud of being a Chinese person while     4     (enjoy) these valuable treasures. In addition, we are able to develop tourism and promote the economy when the well     5     (protect) cultural relics are open to public.

However, some cultural relics     6     (damage) by people now. For example, buildings carved (雕刻)     7     people’s names can be seen here and there. There is no doubt that more valuable historical relics will disappear if people keep     8     (destroy) them.

Therefore, it is high time that we should take measures to protect cultural relics. To begin with, we can make speeches and put up posters     9     (educate) people how important it is to protect cultural relics. Besides, money can be collected to have some buildings repaired.

In a word, it is our duty to spare no effort to protect     10     (culture) relics.

In the course of economic development, there comes a time     1    the old must give way to the new.

    2    (keep) balance between progress and the protection of cultural sites can be a great challenge. In the 1950s, the Egyptian government wanted     3    (build) a new dam. However, the project led     4    protests, because water from the dam would likely damage a number of cultural relics. So the government turned to the UN for help. A committee     5    (establish) to deal with the challenge and experts investigated the issue, conducted several tests and made a     6    (propose) to save the cultural relics.     7    (final), the work began in 1960. The temples and other cultural sites were taken down piece by piece and then moved and put back together again in a new place. Over the next 20 years,     8    (thousand) of engineers and workers rescued countless cultural relics. In 1980, the project ended,     9    was considered     10    great success. It shows that if a problem seems too difficult for a single nation, the global community can sometimes provide a solution.

7 . The Sanxingdui Museum in Southwest China’s Sichuan Province enjoyed huge popularity during the three-day Qingming Festival holidays by receiving nearly 20,000 visitors on the peak day, after the new archaeological(考古的) discoveries brought international attention.

According to media reports, the museum saw over 15,000 visitors on Saturday, the first day of the Qingming Festival holidays, breaking its record for daily visitors. And on the next day, more visitors swarmed into the museum to exceed 19,800. To cope with the large flow of people, on Sunday afternoon, the official Weibo account of the Sanxingdui Museum released a message to remind visitors of avoiding rush hours or rescheduling their visiting time.

The Sanxingdui Museum showcases various kinds of precious cultural relics unearthed at the site, such as the 2.62-meter-tall standing statue, 1.38-meter-wide bronze mask, and 3.95-meter-high bronze tree. Earlier on March 20, Chinese archaeologists announced some new major discoveries made during the 37th excavation (挖掘) since its last excavation 35 years ago. The ruins were first discovered in the late 1920s and first excavated in 1934. More than 500 important cultural relics have been unearthed in the six newly-found pits. Since the new discoveries were known to the public, the number of people visiting the Sanxingdui Museum has increased sharply.

The museum said although it was open as usual, the newly-found pits had not opened to the public yet and the newly-excavated cultural relics were still under restoration and couldn’t meet the public currently. But a hall for cultural relic conservation and restoration would be in pilot operation in April and officially opened on May 18. Visitors to it can see how the relics are restored, according to Zhu Yarong, vice director of the Sanxingdui Museum.

Dating back about 3,000 years, the Sanxingdui Ruins have shed light on the ancient Shu civilization and cultural origins of the Chinese nation, and have been regarded as one of the most important archaeological discoveries in the 20th century.

9 . As William Shakespeare is to literature in English, so is the poet Du Fu to the Chinese literary tradition. “We have Dante, Shakespeare and Du Fu. These poets create the very values by which poetry is judged,” remarked Harvard Professor Stephen Owen in Du Fu: China’s Greatest Poet, a BBC documentary that aired on April 7.

Aimed at introducing the charm and beauty of traditional Chinese literature to viewers around the globe, the documentary invited the famous British actor Ian McKellen, who played the wizard Gandalf in the film series The Lord of the Rings, to read 15 of Du’s poems that have been translated into English.

The one-hour film traces the poet’s life experiences in detail. Born in 712, Du lived in the reign of the Emperor Xuanzong of Tang(712—756), a time marked by extraordinary prosperity, inclusiveness and glorious cultural accomplishments.

However, as An Lushan’s rebel army floored the empire, the 43-year-old Du, the former civil servant at the Tang court, had to take his family out of his hometown, and faced starvation and sufferings. Through ups and downs, the poet never stopped writing and about 1,500 poems have been kept over the ages.

Even though he never held a high position in the government, Du still cared about common people. For example, in the poem My Cottage Unroofed by Autumn Gales, he wrote that “Could I get mansions covering ten thousand miles, I’d house all poor scholars and make them beam with pleasure”.

“That is why he is honored as the Poet Sage by later generations. A difficult life and his spirit of concern about the world helped him create so many masterpieces,” Shi Wenxue, a cultural critic based in Beijing, told the Global Times.

Without doubt Du is a cultural symbol of ancient China, but his brilliant works and core spirits have also inspired people outside China. As the documentary notes, his work represents a precious cultural heritage for the entire world, not just China.