Longmen Grottoes

Set on the banks of the Yi River, 12km south of the current Luoyang City, the Longmen Grottoes are ranked first of the Four Great Grotioes in China, together with Mogao Grottoes in Dunhuang, Yungang Grottoes in Datong and Mount Maiji Grottoes in Tianshui. They were also listed in the World Cultural Heritages and Relics by UNESCO in 2000.

    1     (Locate) between the Xiangshan Mountain and the Longmen Mountain, with the YiRiver flowing below, the Longmen Grottoes are     2     (harmony) with mountains, forests and rivers displaying a peaceful atmosphere. Viewing it at a distance, it looks like     3     natural gate, which gave it the name “Yi Que (the gate of the Yi River)”. According to legend,     4     Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty climbed on Mount Mang north of Luoyang, he was very pleased and ordered the eastern capital     5     (build) here with its palace gate opposite the Yique. Thus, it came to be named, Longmen Gate.

Longmen Gate also houses     6     (rough) 2860 stele inscriptions (碑刻), making     7     a treasure for ancient calligraphy study. In total, more than 100,000 Buddhist statues and niches     8     (carve) into the cliffs by ancient Chinese people ranging from the largest one, the Vairocana Buddha with a     9     (high) of 17.14 meters,     10     the smallest one of 2 centimeters.

Wandering in the Longmen Grottoes, one is amazed by the delicate carving skills, deep Buddhist culture and great art achievements of Chinese people.

In the grip of a cold wave, with temperatures plummeting below minus 10 degrees Celsius, the plateau county of Jishishan in Northwest China’s Gansu province was jolted from its slumber midnight Monday by a 6.2-mngnitude earthquake, causing death,     1    (destroy) and panic.

According to a local villager Ding Xiaolong, he was asleep at home when the quake struck. He felt     2    (fortune) for being able to escape, but he also conveyed deep sadness for his friend who was currently working in the coastal city of Xiamen,     3    (locate) more than 2,000 kilometers away.

“I received a call from him after the quake, asking me to check on the situation of his family,” Ding said, adding that he rushed to their house, only to discover that it     4     (level), to the ground, with four people buried underneath.

    5     Ding’s efforts to gather over 20 people for help, it proved futile(徒劳的) as it was already too late. All four members of his friend’s family bad lost their lives.

As of 10 am Tuesday, a total of 105 were confirmed     6    (die) in Gansu and 11 in the neighboring Qinghai province, with hundreds injured.

Members of the Gansu branch of the Blue Sky Rescue Team,     7     Chinese civil relief Group(小组), have set up dozens of tents in the public square of Date village. Local officials have provided warm water for the affected residents     8    (consume) and use for preparing instant noodles.

In Dahejia township,     9     the temperature plummeted(速降) to 16 degrees Celsius below zero, over 140 medical staff at a local hospital word occupied treating the injured people. According to first person     10    (account), the loved ones of many of these patients were untraceable in the aftermath of the earthquake.

Nature’s Lungs

We know that trees are nature’s purifier (净化器): They absorb carbon emissions (碳排放)and release oxygen. But their     1       (able) to do that changes as they age. According to Newsweek, trees     2       are at least 20 years old can absorb carbon better than younger ones and older ones. And a recent study by researchers from South Korea’s Forest Research Institute     3       (find) exactly how much carbon that each 25-year-old cherry tree can absorb: 20 pounds (9.1 kilograms) each year.

According to the study, there are     4       (current) about 1.5 million cherry trees in South Korea, which means they can take in as much as 13,650 tons of carbon each year.

This may sound like a lot,     5       it’s only the annual emissions of 6,000 cars. And it’s pretty     6       (shock) if you think about it: The annual emissions of a single-car requires 250 mature cherry trees to absorb     7       carbon.

Yet, planting trees is still considered the most effective way     8       (reduce) global warming, according to Professor Tom Crowther of the Swiss university ETH Zurich. “Forest restoration isn’t just one of our climate change     9       (solution), it’s the top one,” he told the Guardian. “What blows my mind is the scale. I thought restoration would be in the top 10, but it is much    10     (powerful) than all of the other climate change solutions proposed.”

For those looking to escape the concrete jungle, maybe it’s time to dive into the bamboo forests of southern Sichuan.

A natural forest that people in Sichuan province tend     1    (visit) is the Southern Sichuan Bamboo Sea in Yibin. The 120-square-kilometer Bamboo Sea is the     2     (large) bamboo park in China and its average temperature seldom drops below zero degrees Celsius in winter     3     many parts of the country are covered with snow and ice.

Known as one of the country’s 10 most beautiful forests, it     4    (be) a popular tourist attraction since the Oscar-winning Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon     5    (shoot), there in 2001.

Two years later, the bamboo forest received world-wide     6    (recognize) as a bamboo reserve in December 2003,     7    (become) the fourth tourism destination in China to be granted Green Globe 21 certification.

The Bamboo Sea covers Changning and Jiang’an, two counties     8     the authority of Yibin. Amazed at its vast expanse, Huang Tingjian,     9     poet from the Song Dynasty, described it as “bamboo waves”. As Huang was an     10    (influence) man of letters, his description gave rise to the forest’s popular nickname—the Bamboo Sea.

Anji, a small county in East China’s Zhejiang Province,     1     (receive) over 28 million tourists every year. There are more than 300 coffee shops there,     2     in terms of population density has surpassed that of Shanghai. “A cup of coffee bridges the gap between the big city and the small county,” said Han Jie, a Shanghai tourist who     3     (temporary) escaped the large city and came to Anji over the weekend. In Zhejiang,     4     increasing number of coffeehouse owners are venturing into rural areas to meet the demands of a growing population of young and adventurous coffee enthusiasts.

    5     (locate) in the bamboo forests of Penghu Village in Anji , a café called Waterfall Coffee has gained popularity     6     social media influencers. Visitors can not only taste coffee on the cliff halfway up the mountain, admiring waterfalls in the distance,     7     enjoy boating on the lake with an excellent view.

The outdoor café, the Deep Blue Coffeehouse, has received 350,000 tourists in less than a year, with the highest daily number of visitors     8     (reach) 8,000 people. By far, the small coffee shop has fueled the rural economy of Hongmiao Village in some way, causing university students     9     (cooperate) with the local government in organizing a start-up fair, with the aim of attracting more university     10     (graduate) to start business in the village.