1 . Having spent more than a decade on the dance floor, ROME — Niccolo Filippi, a 23-year-old Italian dance performer, recently decided to explore Chinese culture and its traditional dance forms and believes that this experience will not only boost his career, but also broaden his horizons beyond the world of dance.

His interest in diversifying his skills grew after he stumbled upon a short video of traditional Chinese-styled dance on YouTube. “I saw it as an art that combines tradition and modernity, which was mostly the reason why I liked it,” says Filippi.

Ever since, he has been closely following Chinese dance performers and watching numerous videos to learn more about the traditional style that he admires. “I prefer the traditional style because of its light movements. It also reflects my personality with elegance,” he adds.

Filippi’s chance came when he was invited to perform for a Chinese New Year celebration in the central Italian city of Florence. He has since fully committed himself to the art form, learning several pieces and putting his newfound passion into practice.

“The biggest difference that I found (compared to other disciplines) is the change of mood and emotional expressions among dances,” says Filippi, adding that he needed to shift from the dynamic moves of hip-hop to the graceful and fluid movements of Chinese dance. Despite various obstacles, Filippi’s efforts have not gone unnoticed. Two of his friends shared videos of his performances on social media, and the response was overwhelming. One video garnered 500,000 views, while the other received 200,000 views.

Filippi believes that learning about different cultures is priceless, and he sees it as a means of personal growth. “I like to think of a person as a book,” he says. “Embracing different traditions and cultures, such as Chinese culture and many others, is like adding new chapters to my book, making it more diverse and wonderful.”

The archaeological ruins of Liangzhu in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, which date back 5,300 years, were included onto the UNESCO World Heritage list     1     a cultural site on July 9, 2019,     2     (bring) the total number of the Asian country’s sites on the list to 55.

The ruins,     3     core area covers 14.3 square kilometers in the northwest of Hangzhou, are considered as important representation of early urban civilization, with rice-growing agriculture as the     4     (economy) foundation.

The heritage site includes city ruins with palace remains, 11 early-stage dams,     5     high-level cemetery sites. The site is also known for its abundance of ceremonial jade, which shows     6     complicated ritual system and indicates a kingdom with a combined authority of god and kingship.

For example, cong — the jade piece that forms a rectangle tube with a circular inner section — is     7     (type) of artifact unearthed in Liangzhu. In 1986, the biggest known item of this kind, which weighs 6.5 kilograms and     8     (refer) to as the “King of Cong”, was discovered in Fanshan Cemetery in the city ruins.

    9     (find) in 2007, walls of the ruins and the surrounding water conservation system combined to display a massive infrastructure base, construction of which is estimated     10     (take) 4, 000 people a decade to accomplish.

Many people around the world may know that paper is one of the Four Great Inventions of ancient Chinese civilization,    1    few would know that more than 1,500 years ago, ancient Chinese craftsmen invented a new type of paper,    2    was called Xuan paper and used mainly for writing and painting.

Xuan paper was first made in ancient Xuan Prefecture, now    3    (know) as Jingxian County in Anhui Province. The traditional process of making Xuan paper is    4     (extreme) demanding and involves over 100 steps. The whole process can take as long as two years    5    (complete), and the skills have been passed down for    6    (generation).

Xuan paper is highly water absorbent, making it a perfect medium for conveying artistic effect in both Chinese calligraphy and ink wash painting. In addition, Xuan paper    7    (design) to be able to last for more than 1,000 years and still keep the freshness of the ink and color on it.

Today in Jingxian County, there    8     (be) many Xuan paper factories and workshops, where the paper is still made by master craftsmen using traditional techniques. And because of    9    (it) long history and the essential role it has played     10    the culture of Chinese painting and calligraphy, Xuan paper was included on the first list of China’s national intangible cultural heritages(非物质文化遗产)in 2006.

A traditional Chinese dance performed underwater in Luoyang, Central China’s Henan Province,     1    (go) viral on social media during the Dragon Boat Festival. The show led to renewed passion among audiences for traditional Chinese. art and culture.

The     2    (impress) dance is named The Prayer, which was the opening performance of the gala by Henan Television Station on Saturday.

In the video on social media the underwater actress is seen dancing in colorful traditional Chinese costume. The short dance, which lasted less than two minutes, was seen as a     3    (combine) of contemporary art and traditional Chinese culture.

“The water made the costume even more gorgeous and the moves     4    (graceful)!” said one observer online. Netizens were left     5    (amaze) by both the beauty of the dancer and the     6    (create) involved in putting     7     the dance underwater.

The dance featured a character from     8    famous ancient Chinese painting Ode to Goddess Luo, the daughter of a sacred king character Fu Xi in a Chinese tale     9    drowned and then became a goddess.

“The moves were captured underwater at 4. 5 meters from the ground. The team spent a total of 26 hours under water    10    (complete) the shooting. The film team had to soak themselves in the water in each shooting session,”Chen Jia, director of the HNTV gala, said to local media.

8 . A small accident led to profound changes in the life of Yang Li, an artisan (手艺人), who is from the Miao ethnic group. In 201l, Yang, from Tongren city in Guizhou province, created leaf vein (脉络) embroidery (刺绣) three months after a leaf cut her hand.

The work is a perfect combination of traditional embroidery patterns and the natural textures (纹理) of the leaves. It has a unique aesthetic appeal of traditional embroidery matched with the characteristics of contemporary craftsmanship.

As a native Miao woman with an inborn love of embroidery, Yang opened a folk culture products shop with her sister in 2011. “People are becoming less familiar with traditional handicrafts, and I want to contribute all I can to change this situation,” Yang says. At first, the small shop did not earn a significant income as there were many similar products on the market. She gradually realized that it was important to establish her own brand and launch products with distinct features.

That’s when she was inspired by the cut. In July 2011, Yang accidentally cut her hand on a thorny leaf when she was hiking in Fanjing Mountain. A bold idea came into her head: “There are leaf-vein bookmarks and leaf-vein paintings. Why has nobody created leaf-vein embroider yet?”

Obviously, the reason behind this is that embroidering on leaves requires delicate skills that few possess. The biggest technical challenge Yang faced was improving the flexibility of the leaves and making them as soft as cloth. On Oct 16, a day she will never forget, Yang finally created a shiny, thin and unbreakable piece of leaf vein. Her idea of leaf-vein embroidery came to completion after hundreds of experiments.

Two years later, Yang opened an embroidery processing factory and offered jobs to more than 500 laid-off female workers, rural women and people with disabilities. “I will keep doing the leaf vein embroidery for the rest of my life because it is meaningful,” she says.

Print is a medium for mass communication, which has enabled     1     (artist) to be known and familiar     2     a wider audience.

The Prints-A Riot of Colors, an exhibition     3     (feature) some 130 prints created by generations of Chinese artists, the oldest one of     4     dates back to the 1930s, opened on Monday at the Guardian Art Center in Beijing. An online auction (拍卖) of most of the showpieces held by China Guardian Auctions is running with the exhibition.

    5     (divide) into five sections, the long-running show is aimed     6     (offer) art collectors and the general public alike an opportunity to learn about China’s modern, contemporary print art and     7     (far) explore the market value of prints, according to Liu Zehui, the person in charge of the show.

In 1931, the famous writer and social activist Lu Xun     8     (support) the New Woodcut Movement in Shanghai. He promoted the modern woodcut, which was popular in the West but still     9     essential Chinese form whose techniques reached maturity during the Tang Dynasty, as the most     10     (access) and efficient vehicle for circulating new revolutionary thought among the masses.

10 . 阅读下面短文，在空白处填入1个适当的单词或括号内单词的正确形式。

Traditional Fitness Qigong Wins Hearts of Young Chinese

No one could have expected that slow-moving Qigong    1    (become) popular among Chinese young people in the past several years. Short videos of young Chinese doing traditional fitness Qigong have flooded video websites, among     2    a video of Baduanjin has been played for more than 10 million times and received over 6, 000 comments on a video sharing platform targeting young people.

Baduanjin is one of the oldest fitness     3    (method) to stay healthy in China, originally created over 800 years ago during the Song Dynasty. The name refers    4    how the eight individual movements provide a soft quality for the movement of the body.

Compared with more    5    (physical) demanding sports such as the ball games or swimming, Baduanjin is slow and usually accompanied by restful music, so it used to be considered as the sport    6    (intend) for the elders. However, not requiring much space, equipment or time, it’s perfect for office workers, as they often suffer from back and neck pain caused by    7    (sit) in front of computers for hours.

“I’ve been doing Baduanjin for a couple of months, which makes     8    (I) sleep well and get strong,”     9    young netizen commented below the video. “I owe big thanks to Baduanjin as it offers a much    10    (good) lifestyle.”