With some free time during the holiday, I thought it was time to achieve one of my China     1     (dream): visiting Harbin!

That afternoon of     2     first day was time to see the fabled (传奇的) snow and ice world of Harbin. This frozen amusement park just blew me away. The giant ice statues, all illuminated (发光的)     3     the inside, were simply magical to explore; and various attractions and games, such as sledding, made the trip all the more worthwhile.

Although busy, the park was still definitely manageable, and     4     was nice to see so many families who must have traveled from far and wide all having fun. My only regret was wearing only two pairs of socks and not three, as     5     the sun went down the temperatures quickly dropped as well.

On my second day, my tour took us to the old city center. While     6     (walk) down the pedestrian (步行的) Central Street, I found architectural influences from both the present and the past     7     (be) on full display, showing an amazing mix of cultures. In some ways, it reminded me of walking down Nanjing Road in Shanghai — just a lot     8     (cold)! The freezing temperatures didn't stop visitors from enjoying the local ice cream, however.

The magic of this icy city     9     (stick) with me since and I can't wait until next winter     10     (visit) again.

Have you ever wondered how people type Chinese characters? The answer lies in the wonderfully useful phonetic system     1     (call) pinyin. It's the most commonly used system for spelling out the Chinese sounds, and it uses the letters in the Latin alphabet that you are already familiar       2     .

Pinyin is     3     extremely useful tool and should be the foundation of your Chinese learning. Besides, it's not just for Chinese learners like yourself.     4     (actual), all native Chinese speakers know pinyin,     5     is the first thing Chinese children learn at school before learning characters. So even if you don't know Chinese characters, you can type in pinyin and make     6     (you)understood.

Every single sound that exists in Chinese can     7     (display) easily in a pinyin chart. Once you master these 409 sounds along with the tones, you'll have practically mastered the pronunciation of every single word in the Chinese language. We've also created a series of video     8     (lesson)with practice tools that enable you to record yourself and listen back to it to     9     (sure) that your pronunciation matches the examples. Combined with our Tone Pairs practice tool, you now have everything you need     10     (master)pinyin, tones, and Chinese pronunciation.

Statistics show that there are more than 1. 9 billion videos related to stove-boiled tea on a popular Chinese short video platform. Stove-boiled tea, a newly     1    (emerge) social activity among young Chinese people, has been filling up social media feeds in recent weeks. Usually several friends sitting around a fire stove enjoy     2     smell of charcoal-grilled snacks and socialize while waiting for the tea     3     (boil). In many ways, it is the perfect activity in the winter,     4     (warm) body and soul in the colder months.

    5     it has recently regained popularity, cooking tea on a stove actually has a long history in China. Stove-boiled tea is derived from an intangible cultural heritage from southwest China’s Yunnan province: huotang roasted tea and a kind of huotang culture thus     6     (form) around it.

The reason why stove-boiled tea is gaining such popularity, apart from its embodiment of traditional Chinese tea culture, is     7     (part) because of its portrayal in the costume television drama “A Dream of Splendor”, which     8    (broadcast) last summer. The activity also shows young people’s pursuit of a sense of ritual, with their     9     (long) for traditional tea culture and aspirations returning to the pastoral (田园). It also helps that tourism is gradually recovering.     10    , stove-boiled tea acts as a social way of combining ancient and modern elements, attracting many young people who love both tourism and traditional tea culture.

According to UNESCO, deep in the sea     1     (lie) a great number of valuable relics—around 3 million boats, many cities and thousands of human relics. Today, these relics of human heritage are suffering serious damage from commercial and industrial exploitation (开发), making     2     (they) protection even more urgent.

    3     (protect) and inherit (传承) our hard-to-notice yet still important underwater cultural heritage, the National Base of Underwater Archaeology for the South China Sea     4     (launch) by China’s National Cultural Heritage Administration in Feb, 2023.

The base is planned to cover     5     area of 74 mu and a total construction area of 31,085 square meters. It is expected to perform various     6     (function), including underwater cultural heritage surveys and protection measures, cultural heritage repair and archaeologist training, according to the administration.

Li Qun, vice-minister of culture and tourism, told Xinhua     7     the South China Sea is the     8     (large) in scale and richest in underwater cultural heritage among China’s waters and is an important area of the Maritime Silk Road.

Building the base is an important step toward strengthening the country’s underwater cultural heritage protection work and is     9     great importance in passing on traditional Chinese culture and     10     (safeguard) China’s sovereignty (主权), security and maritime rights, Li added.

Soon, every robotic dog will have its day!

Isn’t it nice to always have a lovely dog follow you around and respond when     1     (ask) to sit down or shake hands? What     2     the dog has some unique skills, such as standing on one leg while resting on a chunk of tofu without destroying it, or continuously making back flips(后空翻)? This would be even better.

In fact, a life-like quadrupedal (四只脚的) robotic dog     3     is developed by Chinese tech company Xiaomi Corp seems like that special one.

    4     (weigh) 8.9 kilogram, about the size of a Doberman, CyberDog 2 is the latest push by Xiaomi to popularize quadrupedal robotics. With a black, shiny, futuristic design, CyberDog 2 can run along at speeds of 3.2 meters per second, analyze its surroundings in real-time, create navigational maps, plot its destination,     5     avoid obstacles (障碍物).

“Coupled with human posture and face     6     (recognize) tracking, CyberDog is capable of following its owner and avoiding obstacles,“ said Lei Jun, CEO of Xiaomi.

“This is the first time I     7     (see) a robotic dog in reality. It is quite cool!” said Zhang Lu,     8     university student in Wuhan, Hubei province, after witnessing CyberDog 2 during an exhibition earlier this month. “I have seen videos of people walking robotic dogs online. But it is     9     (interesting) in reality,” Zhang said, adding that domestic technology products have changed and developed rapidly.

On being asked     10     the robot dog can help deliver parcels, an employee at Xiaomi said as long as the weight of the package is within the acceptable range of the flat back area of the robotic dog, it can be done.

Cui Chenxi became China’s youngest ever Asian Games gold medalist on Wednesday after the 13-year-old skateboarder won the women’s street event in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province.

The teenager,     1     is the Chinese national team’s youngest athlete, won the gold medal by scoring 242.62 points. Cui said this victory means a lot to her. “I always wanted to win gold. This competition is different from other competitions, so I     2     (particular)wanted to win this one.”

    3     (ask) if she was nervous before the competition, she shook her head and said, “My dad told me     4     (stay) relaxed, enjoy the competition and show my skills. As long as I give it my all, I have no regrets.”

Skateboarding, which is rooted     5     street culture and closely tied to lifestyles and attitudes of young people, is a sport that stresses freedom and personal techniques.

Cui only     6     (take) up skateboarding in 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic did not allow her to practice rollerblading. However, her father,     7    skateboarding enthusiast, suggested that she try skateboarding at home instead.

“I remember the day I stepped onto the board for the     8     (one) time. It felt incredibly smooth. It was love at first sight,” Cui said.

In skateboarding, injuries are unavoidable, but when     9     (discuss) the pain and the setbacks, Cui displayed a level of     10     (determine) beyond her age. “I realized people receive a lot of injuries while skateboarding. But that is where the spirit of skateboarding lies,” she said.

Hotpot has a long history of over 1,000 years in China. It used to     1     (favor) only in winter, but recently hotpot has been appearing on tables all year round.

    2     the delicious flavor, there are two other important reasons for the Chinese to like hotpot. First, it is a great way     3    (socialize) — people gather around the pot, chatting, eating, drinking     4     having fun. Second, hotpot is a healthy meal. Boiling is better than frying, with bone nutrients     5     (release) into the soup. In addition, eating hot pot can warm the body in winter, and increase perspiration (排汗) to help cool the body in summer. Some seasonings (作料) used in hotpots can help relieve some minor     6    (illness) like colds, blocked sinuses and headaches.

Chongqi ng Hotpot is the staple dish of the city. Hotpot restaurants in Chongqi ng are everywhere — if you look up on the street you are in, chances are that you     7    (stand) exactly near a hotpot restaurant.

    8    (usual), the taste of food can reflect the attitude and ‘status of life there. As a    9     (symbol) food in Chongqing, it reflects that people there have the sense of integrity and embrace the diversified culture. Almost everything     10     is eatable can be cooked in hotpot, so eating hotpot is a must when you come to Chongqing!

A new chain of coffee shops has sprung up in the city of Wuxi, East China’s Jiangsu province, themed on the ancient Huishan clay figurine (泥人) culture—with a few modern adaptations. The Nanimomo Cafe chain has expanded     1     (rapid) since May last year and now has 11     2     (branch) in operation. The coffee shops display     3     range of figurines and related creative cultural products. In addition     4     drinking coffee, visitors can choose whether     5     (have) a go at making clay sculptures on site.

Huishan clay figurines are made from the black clay found at the foot of Huishan Mountain in Wuxi. They are said to have a     6     (record) history of more than 400 years. And they     7     (list) among the first batch (批) of China’s national intangible cultural heritage (非物质文化遗产) in 2006. In Wuxi dialect, Huishan clay figurines are pronounced nanimomo. The two most famous     8     (tradition) figurines are A Fu and A Xi, meaning “good fortune” and “joy”, and the factory has designed and produced several new figurines, such as Nani and Momo,    9     are more modern and attractive to young consumers. There are also several cute and colorful characters,    10     (carry) different types of food for which Wuxi is famous: spare ribs (排骨), peaches and steamed buns.

The crispy (松脆的) pancakes, usually called jian bing, are one of China’s most popular     1     (breakfast). You can often see them in the street. The pancakes,     2     are thought to have originated in Shandong Province during the Three Kingdoms Period, have a     3       (long) history than almost any other Chinese street foods. Each pancake     4     (cook) on a circular cast-iron grill, just the way you want it.

Every large city neighbourhood across China has    5     (it) own vendors (摊贩) serving the pancakes to satisfy hungry people on their way to work. In the morning, the vendors appear     6     everything they need. They pack up necessities and put them on the back of a bicycle or a motorbike.     7     (preserve) the crispness and freshness of the pancakes, the vendors    8     (bare) make them ahead of time. Waiting for your turn is part of the food culture. Of course, if pancakes were that easy to make, they would have taken the world by storm long before now. The challenge in making    9     dish is that the batter (面糊) and fillings     10     (use) in the pancakes differ by region. In northern China, the batter may be made of mung bean flour and black bean flour, while on the east coast of China, it’s a combi-nation of wheat flour and bean flour.

In Yimeng area of east China — situated Shandong Province, colorful clay whistles,     1     used to be the most popular toys for local children, are regaining attention as     2     typical symbol of local folk culture.

In the memory of many local people,traditional Yimeng clay whistles had simple and exaggerated style, ingenious appearance and bright color and     3     (wear)around necks of children with threads of five colors including red, yellow, blue, white and black     4     (pray) for good luck.

In Chuzhuang village in Linyi City of southeastern Shandong, clay whistles making boasts a history of more than 340 years. In the past, clay whistles made in Chuzhuang were once sold to provinces of Jiangsu and Hebei,     5     (provide) a major source of income for local villagers.

Similar     6     other folk arts in Shandong, color of clay whistles made in Chuzhuang is characterized by brightness, clarity and elegance. By combining     7     (common)used colors such as magenta, pink green, brownish yellow, sapphire blue and eggplant purple with black, the originally completely different colors become     8     (harmony).

Some of the fine Chuzhuang clay whistles     9     (collect) by many national museums andexperts around the world have won many national awards in China and are deemed as one of the important     10     (platform) for cultural exchange between China and foreign countries