Qingtuan, or sweet green rice balls, is     1     typical and popular Qingming Festival (Tomb Sweeping Day ) food in China’s eastern provinces.

Qingtuan     2     (make) of a mixture of glutinous (黏的) rice flour and green plant juice, and stuffed with sweetened bean paste. A green plant called mugwort, or “Ai Cao” in Chinese, is     3     brings the color to the delicacy. This time of year is when the plant has just jumped out of the earth and is at its     4     (fine).

With some soda     5     (add) to the water, the plant is boiled into a state of paste. Normal rice flour is mixed into glutinous rice flour to make the rice ball sticky,     6     not too soft to be shaped. Next, the liquid is poured into the powder. This rice dough is then kneaded (揉) into little green balls.

The green rice balls can have various fillings, most traditionally being sesame (芝麻) or bean paste. But nowadays some people also make     7     (one) filled with pork meat, pickled vegetables and bamboo shoots.

    8     (date) back to the Tang dynasty, the sweet green rice balls have been around for some 1000 years.     9     (original) a food to sacrifice to ancestors, they have gradually become a dish of the season. For people who leave their hometowns for work elsewhere, the sweet green rice balls are a delicacy reminding them     10     home.