As night falls, the sound of drums fills the air as an 8-meter fish-shaped lantern swims through the streets of Wangmantian village, Huangshan, in East China’s Anhui province.

Within the crowd, Wang Lijun — a 27-year-old villager who serves     1     the “head fish” — leads the procession, sometimes cheering on those behind her. Traditionally     2     (hold) by respected elders, the position of “head fish” has attracted younger participants to take on the role     3     (voluntary).

Every year between     4     13th and 16th of the first month of the Chinese lunar calendar, villagers hold fish-shaped lantern     5     (parade). In old times, the mountain village,     6     (consist) of a lot of wooden structures, faced the risk of frequent fires. Therefore, villagers used to gather to parade with fish-shaped lanterns,     7     symbolic meaning is “water overcoming fire”.

With a history of over 600 years, the fish-shaped lantern     8     (recognize) as a provincial-level intangible cultural heritage in 2022. Villagers in Wangmantian have established     9     (profession) fish lantern performance teams. These teams have gone to cities such as Shanghai and Nanjing, Jiangsu province     10     (give) performances.

As fish-shaped lanterns continue to benefit local tourism and related industries, the future looks brighter than ever.

Sichuanese is China’s most thrilling regional cuisine. Although it’s most famous for     1     (it) electrifying use of chilies (辣椒) and lip-tingling Sichuan Peppercorns (花椒), the heart of the local style of cooking     2     (lie) in the artful mixing of flavors.

Sichuanese     3     (cook) specialize in combining hot, numbing, sweet, sour, savory and nutty seasonings     4     (create) an astonishing variety of flavors. Some of these are     5     (incredible) hot, some dishes are mildly spicy and some are not hot at all.

While Sichuan pepper is     6     ancient Chinese spice, the chili is a relatively recent import from the Americas. It wasn’t widely cultivated in Sichuan     7     the 19th century but went on to become one of its most indispensable local seasonings.

In Sichuanese dialect, chilies     8     (know) as “sea pepper” (hai jiao) too, a reference to their foreign origins. Locals explain their preference for chilies comes from traditional Chinese medicine,     9     people are advised to eat plenty of “heating foods” to counter the damp of the local climate. People     10     (visit) Sichuan are often asked, “ni pa bu pa la” — “Are you afraid of Chili heat?”

Taoism (Daoism) is one of China’s best-known religions. It’s an ancient tradition of philosophy that reflects a deep-rooted Chinese worldview. But what exactly is Tao? We visited the largest Taoist establishment in Beijing, the Baiyun Temple,     1     (find) out more.

Zhong Daosong is a Taoist master at Baiyun Temple. “The Tao, or the Way, is the approach in tune with the flow of Nature.     2     different counties and various regions have their own cultures, if we pursue harmony between humanity and nature, there will be no friction-and no     3     (violent).” said Zhong.

Taoism is China’s native religion.     4     is evident in its best-known symbol, the circle of yin and yang, it’s also a religion of unity and opposites. This represents two fundamentally opposite forces in     5     universe: light and dark, male and female, hot and cold.

“The supreme good is like water, which benefits all of creation without trying to compete     6     it” That’s a very famous sentence     7     (note) by Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu in Tao Te Ching, the ancient Taoist text, over 2,000 years ago. This philosophy     8     (fascinate) and inspired people in China, as well as those in many Asian countries and more recently in the West, over the course of many centuries. “The culture of Taoism is universal without any barriers,     9     (promote) cultural exchanges and mutual learning. The reason why western people like Taoism so much is mainly because Taoism has no boundaries.” Taoism has become increasingly     10     (influence) around the world.

“YOLO”(热辣滚烫), coming out in China on the first day of the Lunar New Year holiday,     1     (direct) and starred by Jia Ling, China’s female filmmaker. She plays the role of Le Ying, an unemployed woman in her     2     (thirty) who still lives with her parents until one day, she     3     (fortune) meets a boxing coach (by Lei Jiayin).

Jia’s first feature was “Hi, Mom,” an     4     (inspire) film in which a young woman,    5     mother has been seriously injured in a car accident, travels back to the early 1980s.There, she forms an incredibly close bond with the     6     (young) version of her mother and works on giving her mother a better life than before.

    7     (release) at the China box office during the Lunar New Year holiday period three years ago, “Hi, Mom” earned a massive RMB5.41 billion. That made     8     the world’s top-grossing movie directed by a solo female     9     it was overtaken by “Barbie” last year.

Sony recently made an     10     (announce) about the English remake rights to “Hi, Mom,” which is currently in development.

From all aspects, it is fair     1     (say) that the Shenzhou XIII mission has been a (n)     2     (succeed). In terms of speed, it set a new record. The Shenzhou XII return capsule spent over 24 hours revolving around (绕……旋转) Earth 11 times before returning on Sept 17, 2021. This time the Shenzhou XIII reentry module (返回舱)     3     (dramatic) shortened the orbiting time to about nine hours, going around Earth five times.

The search and rescue team on Earth also demonstrated its     4     (power) capabilities. The Dongfeng Landing Site has a search zone of tens of thousands of square kilometers, which     5     (contain) desert, salt flats, as well as wetlands that make it challenging to find out     6     the reentry module might land. Yet the team finished the job of finding the three astronauts hours earlier     7     expected.

Besides, the return of the crew also signaled that the Chinese space station had finished     8     (confirm) its key technologies. Since 2021, five flight     9     (mission) have been launched. The sixth has now been completed, and has confirmed that the space station can meet all the required standards for operation.

2022 is a key year. Two experimental modules, two manned spaceships carrying six astronauts, and two cargo (货物) spaceships will take     10     this year, pushing the construction process of China’s space station further forward.

“Only when I take the needle out and touch the silk thread, I feel     1    (full)comfortable,” says Zou Yingzi, an inheritor of Su embroidery(刺绣), an ancient craft that originates from the garden city of Suzhou in Jiangsu province.

The day before the interview,     2     53-year-old woman worked more than 10 hours, until late into the night, on a large piece of Su embroidery. A piece measuring around half a meter can take her months     3    (complete). From Zou’s mother to her grandmothers, all the women in her family are good at needlework, particularly Su embroidery, which features rich stitches(缝针)and the creative use     4     silk threads dyed in various colors.

Su embroidery has a history of more than 2,000 years. A piece of fabric with silk embroidery     5    (find) from a tomb in the area showed that the craft dates back to the Spring and Autumn Period(770-476 BC). In ancient times, needlework was a must-learn skill for women,     6     had to make clothes for their families. It was a tradition that mothers should make wedding clothes with exquisite(精美的)embroidery for their     7    (daughter).

Zou     8    (recall)that, when she was little, her grandmother was busy every day, making wedding clothes and quilts for granddaughters. At the age of 6, she started to help her mother to make Su embroidery items, all of which     9    (sell)to support the family.

She had a dream to become a     10    (paint). Now, the needle helps her to realize that dream.

A new building of the Yinxu Museum in Anyang, central China’s Henan Province, officially     1     (make) its debut (初次露面) to the public on Feb 26th this year. With the Yin Ruins     2     (be) the first documented late Shang Dynasty capital site in China, it is also the ancient capital site with the highest frequency of archaeological excavation and the longest duration of     3     (explore) in China. In 2006, the Yin Ruins was added to the World Heritage List by UNESCO.

Located near the archaeological site of the Yin Ruins,     4     is also the location of the last capital of the Shang Dynasty(1600-1046 B. C.), the expanded Yinxu Museum is the first museum     5     (present) the Shang civilization comprehensively. The new building, with     6     total investment of 1.06 billion yuan, covers an exhibition area of 22,000 square meters. Many     7     (delicate) made and beautifully decorated bronze wares, showing the great prosperity during the Chinese Bronze Age, are     8     display.

“The Shang Dynasty was a time with great     9     (create) spirit. It is because of the continuous innovation and inclusiveness (包容性) in the Shang Dynasty     10     the Yin Ruins reached the glorious stage of the early civilization of the Chinese nation,” said He Yuling, deputy director of the Anyang workstation.

Thousands of years ago, Chinese characters appeared on animal bones and silk before they     1     (write) on paper. But now many     2     character has a “new container” in the modern age. 

Recently, a research team, drawing every little bit of     3     (inspire) from Xunzi, an outstanding Confucian philosopher during the late Warring States Period (475-221 BC), has rolled out Xunzi, a large language model (LLM) and Xunzi Chat in association with a leading ancient Chinese text publisher. When     4     (ask) why, the team leader explained, “Characters  set invertical layout (竖版), the absence of pausing and punctuation are all holding readers back.”     5     (create) Xunzi the LLM, the team first did a lot of research. Since2013, they’ve sweated     6     (heavy) to digitize Chinese classics like the SikuQuanshu. “The hard work involves a large-scale pool of two billion Chinese characters,     7     has laid a solid foundation for the LLM.” Their efforts seem to have paid off. Currently, Xunzi the LLM can translate, punctuate     8     understand some ancient Chinese texts. The model can help us mine for more information hidden in our cultural legacy and find unnoticed models and connections.

The team have shared the LLM on GitHub and other websites,     9     (allow) users to download and use it for free. They’re committed to the philosophy of making the data and model     10     (access) globally.