The underwater photography exhibition titled “Chasing Dreams in Dark Blue”is     1     (current) taking place at the National Art Museum of China in Beijing. The exhibition marks the museum’s first-ever ocean underwater photography display,     2     (feature) a collection of 60 attractive pieces by Yue Hongjun, a winner of the Golden Statue Award for China Photography,     3     highest award for photographers in the country. The showcased     4     (photo) vividly show the vibrancy (活力) of ocean species and convey the ecological concept of protecting the ocean.

As an enterpriser, Yue is deeply passionate about both the ocean     5     photography. His commitment extends beyond business, as he actively participates     6     public welfare activities. He has chosen photography as a powerful medium to call for more people to safeguard the ocean and its inhabitants. Over the course of a decade, he     7     (dive) over 700 times in these regions from South America to North America and from the Pacific Ocean to the Indian Ocean. One remarkable achievement of     8     (he) is the pioneering description of the flying image of Dunhuang in China at a     9     (deep) of 30 meters within a South American underwater cave. He is also the first photographer     10     (achieve)China’s Golden Statue Award as well as the fellowship of The Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain for his ocean-themed photographs.

Yangko, a rural Chinese folk dance with a history     1     (date) back thousands of years, originates from farming life in ancient times. The dance relates to sacrifices to the farmland god when people prayed for a good harvest. As time passed, the     2     (origin) dance developed, taking in various artistic forms and skills, including opera, acrobatics and martial arts, and eventually turned into the type of Yangko     3     is seen today.

    4     (preserve) this Chinese folk culture, it was included in the inaugural(首批的)items of national intangible cultural heritage in 2006. It is     5     (common) performed in northern China during festivals, especially for Chinese New Year and the Lantern Festival. Performances or competitions     6     (organize) in towns and villages to express people’s joy and their hope for a better life.

Yangko employs drumming, Suona, dancing and singing. Content is based     7     folk stories and legends. Costumes are richly-colored and opera-styled, enabling     8     (character) to be easily identified. During a performance, the actors will dance and sing, following lively rhythms. Highly. skilled and interesting acts such as stilt(高跷)walking     9     carrying a wedding sedan chair(花轿)are also included. As a part of traditional Chinese culture, Yangko     10     (concentrate) the group consciousness of the Chinese people, and has outstanding historical and cultural value.

Many countries around Asia have unique ways of observing Lunar New Year. Some of these are famous, but Singapore has one special way,    1     you may not know about. Each year, cooks across the country prepare yu sheng, a salad made with raw fish. The salad is placed at the centre of a dinner table. Diners will gather around and use their chopsticks     2    (throw) the salad up into the air. This practice is known     3     Lo Hei.

Since its origins as     4     simple raw fish dish back in the 1930s，the recipe has undergone a series of transformations, and even until today, people are still finding innovative ways to present this dish. The dish     5    (bring)to Singapore in the late 19th century by the migrants from China.

“Lo Hei”, in Cantonese (广东话)    6     (literal) translates to “tossing (掷) up good fortune”, and it refers to the ritual (仪式) adopted in Singapore that involves a group of people gathered around a     7    (mass) plate, tossing its contents violently while saying out lucky    8    (phrase) before eating it. For example, when the golden crackers (薄脆饼干) are added, everyone will say “bian di huang jin”. This     9    (mean) “the entire floor will be covered with gold”. A1so, it is popularly believed that the higher the toss, the     10    (good) your prospects and fortune in the year ahead.

Shark fin soup,     1     is a famous and expensive dish in southern China, is endangering certain species of sharks and threatening the ocean’s ecosystem.

Sharks are     2     the top of the food chain and they are of great     3     (important)for the ocean’s ecosystem. However, around 70 million sharks     4     (kill)for the fin soup each year and the number of sharks has been falling during the last decades. If their number drops     5     (low)than the current level, life circle in the ocean will be     6     (serious)threatened.

Environmental protection     7     (group)around the world, such as WildAid, are trying to stop the fin soup. They have even asked governments     8     (pass)laws to ban the sale of shark fins. But     9     is not enough. We need to stop     10     (enjoy)the fin soup to save our sharks.

Yang Jian in the movie starts a new journey

The legend goes that there was a Battle of the Gods. The reason why Yang Jian became a god was     1     he fought hard during the battle.

But 1,500 years     2    (late), things are different. The Heavenly Court goes downhill. Yang has to make a living as a bounty hunter (赏银捕手). One day, Yang gets a bounty     3    (catch) a young man but finds out the young man is     4    (he) nephew, Liu Chen xiang. Liu wants to save his mother     5     splitting a mountain. But this will cause chaos (混乱). What will Yang do? Will he help Liu?

This is the story     6    (tell) in the animation movie, Xin Shen Bang: Yang Jian. It     7    (come) out in Chinese mainland theaters on Aug 19, 2022.

Besides the     8    (excite) story, people also like the movie’s visuals very much. The movie uses     9     ink-wash painting style in some parts. In others, it shows Heaven as a sci-fi style city with high     10    (building) and spaceships.

KUNMING, Feb. 17 (Xinhua)-Forest police from Hongtupo township, Southwest China’s Yunnan province，recently finished their annual patrol (巡逻) of    1    famous stopover (中途停留) site and habitat for migratory (迁徙的) birds in the Ailao Mountain area.

The officers with the forest police station of Hongtupo, Nanhua county enter forests in the Nanhua area of the Ailao Mountain national nature reserve every September    2    remain there until the following February. During their stay, they patrol the forests in Dazhong Mountain, deep in the Ailao area    3    (prevent) poaching (偷猎) and other wildlife crimes.

The Hongtupo forest police station, known as “a migratory police station”,    4    (establish) in 1984 in response to illegal poaching on the mountain. A huge variety of wildlife was hunted to near    5    (extinct), according to Zhang Yueping, an instructor with the police station.

The police station got off to a rough start, with no running water, no phone service, and significant    6    (challenge) in the delivery of supplies.    7    (initial), the officers had no choice but to live in tents. It was not until 2010 that a house was built for the officers at the foot of Dazhong Mountain.

Despite the tough conditions, generations of protection efforts    8    (pay) off over the years. Since 2019, zero cases of poaching have been reported. During the migration season, birds can be seen    9    (fly) right over people’s heads.

“In October, there are birds all over the mountain,    10    is quite splendid,” says Liu Yan, a female officer with the police station.

The day starts early for Shi Xiaogang, a wildlife ranger (护林员) at the Wolong National Nature Reserve in Southwest China’s Sichuan province. He monitors the population of giant pandas and conducts long-range patrols (巡逻) in some of the most extreme environments,     1     is a challenging and, often, dangerous job.

    2     (cover) about 200,000 hectares, Wolong National Nature Reserve is home to one of the largest remaining giant panda populations in China. Thanks to the rangers’ like Shi’s efforts,     3     number of wild giant pandas in the reserve has increased from 104, in 2015, to 149 today. In 2016, the International Union for Conservation of Nature     4     (announce) that the giant panda’s status had been changed from “endangered” to “vulnerable” on its Red List of Threatened Species.

As well as “the home of giant pandas”, the reserve is     5     (wide) known as a “bio-gene bank”. It features a great number of threatened species of plants and animals, including other famous     6     (creature), such as the red panda, snow leopard and clouded leopard among the 121 species of mammals (哺乳动物)     7     (record). There are also 392 bird species.

To mark the rangers’ hard work and contribution to wildlife     8     (protect) in the reserve, last year, 20 rangers     9     (recognize) with special commendations (表扬) at an online award ceremony for the IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas’ International Ranger Awards.

The commission speaks highly of their work, saying that they help stop biodiversity loss and protect the important ecosystems that serve     10     natural solutions to climate change and other global challenges.

Around the world, people love to keep dogs as     1     (pet). However, there is something you might not know about these     2    (love) animals. If your dogs become uneasy or sad around you, it might mean you are sick! This is     3     they may be able     4     (smell) that something is wrong with you.

At     5     research center in England, dogs     6    (teach) to smell cancer in people’s urine samples(尿样). To see if the dogs could     7    (real) smell the cancer, the researchers gave them a special test. They were brought into a room, and in front of them were different urine samples. Only one of them     8    (come) from a person with cancer. Neither the dogs nor the people there knew     9     urine sample had cancer in it. When they smelled cancer in a urine sample, the dogs had to sit down in front of that sample. One dog,     10     (name) Bee, was best at the test. It found the right sample 60% of the given time! So, if your dog smells you too much and looks a bit uneasy, maybe you should visit the doctor just to be on the safe side!

More than three decades after writing his first poem     1     a teenager in the mountains of northern China, Chen Nianxi is living a literary dream. He has published two books which are well received by people. For more than 15 years, he labored in gold, iron and zinc mines across China, detonating explosives (引爆炸药) by day and     2    (create) poems on the backs of newspapers at night.

His poems speak of the     3    (lonely) of the mines, the deaths of fellow workers and the distance between modern life and his work underground. This summer, two years after publishing his first poetry collection, he published a book of essays, To Live Is to Shout at the Sky     4     title comes from a poem that     5    (write) after a night of singing with his fellow workers at a mine in Xinjiang. Qinqiang is    6     type of traditional opera from northwestern Shaanxi Province.

Chen     7     (struggle) for inspiration for the past few years. “We still need abundant, diverse works     8    (support) contemporary literature and culture,” Chen said, adding     9     he hoped his work “will     10    (broad) modern people’s perspectives or remind them to look downward a bit”.

Experts say a recent change in the color of the Mekong River—from yellowish-brown to sky-blue-could be a worrying sign. They say the change suggests a possible problem     1     (cause)by dams that have been built along the Mekong. The river covers     2     distance of 4, 300 kilometers. It begins high in the mountains of Tibet and flows through China and five other countries.

The Mekong usually has a yellowish-brown color     3     results from the sediment(沉淀物)it normally carries. But recent     4     (report)say it has been running clear and taking on a bluish-green color. At the same time, the water levels     5     (become)unusually low, creating sandbanks that enable people     6     (stand)in the middle of the river. The low water levels     7     (clear)cause problems for fishermen and farmers. But experts in Thailand say the decrease in sediment     8     (represent)a different threat, one that can result in a greater erosion of the sides and bottom of the river.

Experts and people living along the river blame the changes     9     . a large dam upriver in Laos. The dam began operating in October. Critics say it is blocking much sediment from flowing down the river. About 70 million people depend on the Mekong River for water, food, jobs, agriculture and transportation. Critics say several large dam projects along the Mekong are harming the river and     10     (it)environment.