Are you familiar with pop star Jay Chou’s Blue &White Porcelain? Its original lines, just     1     the composer Fang Wenshan described, were inspired by Ru porcelain (汝瓷).

Ranked best among famous kinds during the Song Dynasty (960-1279), Ru porcelain is known for its unique pale blue glaze (釉). Oceans     2     Ru porcelain flooded onto the market around the year of 1100, but the     3     (exist) of Ru ware now is actually rare. Thanks to the efforts of Ru porcelain inheritors, people can now appreciate it     4     (close) at hand than before.

Born in Ruzhou, Henan province, Li Chao has spent a decade     5     (better) crafting skills. Ru porcelain goes through 72 steps, the    6     (one) of which is knead (揉) mud. Any small errors could lead to disaster, said the 41-year-old inheritor. He then stressed that a Ru porcelain inheritor must be patient enough. Every item of artwork     7     (full) deserves our admiration.

Techniques of making Ru porcelain will     8     (lose) with senior inheritors gradually passing away. So,     9     Li spares no effort in doing is introducing it to wider masses.     10     (achieve) this goal, he creatively uses Ru porcelain in making daily ware popular among young people. Now he’s aiming to expand the market by introducing it to the whole world.

The English word “garden” gives an entirely wrong idea of the Chinese yuan, for “garden” suggests a lawn and an infinite       1       (vary) of flowers, altogether too prim (呆板的) and tidy to suit Chinese taste. The Chinese yuan suggests first of all a wild landscape, perhaps better arranged and more artistically       2     (plan) than nature, but still a bit of nature itself, with trees, creeks, and flowers. Dotted in this natural landscape are the human structures like pavilions and long winding corridors, so       3       (perfect) belonging to the scenery as to become a whole with it. The Chinese garden       4       (characterize) by studied disorderliness. There are no even-cut bushes or symmetric (对称的) rows lining avenues as if in battle formation.

No Chinese mansion allows an outsider       5       (look) through theiron gates at along drive, for that would be against the principle of concealment.       6       (face) the   gate, we see a small courtyard giving no idea of the expansiveness of space inside, and leading one step by step into newer views, in       7       continual series of surprises and astonishments. With wooden framework       8       (bear) most of the weight of the house, windows, doors and walls are not restricted to certain locations. The essential idea of interior (室内的) decoration is the beauty of simplicity. Home designs are not something fancy we buy from a first-class firm. What distinguishes a home       9       a public building is the personal touch that we give it. It is only when the spirit of leisure and loving care exists       10       living at home can become an art and a pleasure.

Adaptation from My Country and My People by LinYutang

Loulan,    1    ancient city on the Silk Road, brings back    2    (image) of mystery and romanticism even as it disappears into the mists of history.

Shiji,or Records of the Grand Historian, the foundational text of Chinese history    3    (date) back to the first century BC, records that before the 2nd century BC,Loulan was already famous in Xiyu.    4    , it collapsed in about the 5th century. In 1900,Swedish explorer Sven Hedin discovered the site of ancient Loulan.

    5    (locate) in Lop Nur, a former salt lake which    6    (dry) up to a large extent now, in Ruoqiang county, Bayingolin Mongol autonomous prefecture,Xinjiang, the Loulan site covers an area of about 120,000 square meters,    7    extremely harsh environment ensured that few people set foot on this area. In the 1990s, when mummies were discovered in this area, grave robbers noticed the wealth of cultural relics.    8    (tackle)the situation, a Loulan cultural relics protection station was built in 1998. At first it was    9    (season), and later became permanent in 2003.

Over the years, five stations have been built in Lop Nur, and altogether 20 people    10    (work) at them safeguarding heritage, according to Feng Jing, director of Loulan Museum in Ruoqiang.

The Earth set unofficial record high temperatures last week. Scientists said they were a clear sign of how pollutants     1     (release) by humans are warming the environment. But the heat is also just one way the planet is telling us something is     2     (serious) wrong, they added.

Most of the planet     3     (cover) by oceans, which have taken in     4     percent of the recent warming caused by planet-warming gases such as carbon dioxide and methane.

In April, worldwide ocean temperature rose to 21.1 degrees Celsius,     5     scientists believe was caused by a     6     (combine) of planet-warming gases and the early El Nino formation.

High levels of wildfire smoke are more common on the West Coast. But, recently, several rounds of wildfire smoke from wildfires in northern Canada brought     7     (danger) air quality levels to eastern North America.

The current El Nino formed a month or two     8     (early) than usual. It replaced La Nina that, with its cooling of Pacific waters, kept worldwide temperatures down. That means that it will have more time than usual to     9     (strength).

The World Meteorological Organization predicts there is     10     98 percent chance that at least one of the next five years will be the warmest     11     record. One of these years would beat temperatures from 2016 when an exceptionally strong El Nino was present.

The 13th China Folk Art Festival, which has the largest scale and is the     1     (high) level of its kind in China, began in Qingdao West Coast New Area on April 20. The festival gathers famous experts     2     have been concentrating on folk art. Twenty first-class art performers     3     eighteen provinces and autonomous regions put on performances.

The 16th Shanhua Award of Chinese Folk Literature and Art is also taking place at the festival.     4     lecture will be held focusing on issues like the development of folk art, the     5     (protect) of the marine (海洋的) cultural heritage, as well as the training of followers.

The exhibition has been open from April 20 to 30 and is displaying paintings that cover diverse folk cultures and     6     (history) backgrounds. It aims to promote handmade artworks in Shandong and tell the world the     7     (story) of the Chinese people.

During the festival, folk artists will also visit Qingdao Qianwan Port to voluntarily perform for local residents,     8     (enrich) their spiritual and cultural lives.

To date,     9     (know) as “a village of modern Chinese folk paintings”, Qingdao WCNA has been trying to build a strong culture. A total of 86 intangible cultural heritage items     10     (promote) and more than 120 works have won art prizes.