Marble Columns from Yuanmingyuan Returned

After a long journey overseas, seven marble columns from Yuanmingyuan recently returning from Norway to their home site     1    (exhibit) publicly for the first time last Friday.

The columns were     2    (origin) from the Western Mansion (Xiyang Lou) area of Yuanmingyuan in Beijing. A long-term exhibition displaying these relics, together with     3    (relate) old pictures,     4     (open) at the Zhengjue Temple of Yuanmingyuan Park.

Yuanmingyuan was burned down by the invading forces in 1860 during the Second Opium War. It gradually fell     5     ruin in the following decades, and its numerous constructional components were stolen and sold, many of     6     were lost overseas.

According to the researchers from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and the Palace Museum in Beijing, the columns, 80 to 92 centimeters in     7    (high), match those stone relics     8    (remain) in the Western Mansion area. The columns are thought to have been set on the     9     (roof) and by the stairways in the past time.

Some of their frontal facades (外立面) feature     10    (type) Western decorations, while the sides were carved with traditional Chinese patterns such as orchids, lotuses, peonies and chrysanthemums.

Christmas is to Westerners what the Spring Festival is to the Chinese. A special Christmas family meal is     1     unique celebration for many, but     2     is actually served can vary greatly from country to country. In England and many other countries influenced by its     3     (tradition), a standard Christmas meal     4    (consist) of turkey, potatoes, vegetables, and sausages is usually followed by Christmas pudding or mince pies. In Poland and other parts of eastern Europe and Scandinavia, fish are often provided     5     the main course, but richer meat, such as lamb,     6     (serve) increasingly in recent years. Ham is the main meat in the Philippines,     7     in Germany, France and Austria, goose and pork are favored,       8     (make) them sell well. Beef, ham and chicken in       9     (vary) recipes are popular throughout the world. All in all, Christmas is the very moment     10     can't be missed!

Chinese tea culture is divided into four parts that show the origin (起源) of it, the philosophy (哲学) behind it, the     1     (connect) with other cultures and its modern development.

The origin is often connected with the story of Shennong     2     is said to have discovered the medicinal use of tea leaves in ancient times.

    3    (drink) tea includes more than just preparation and beautiful tea set, and also shows the philosophy of how the Chinese get along with the outside world. The ancient Chinese used the word chadao, the way of tea     4     (honor) their dream of living an honorable life, as well as of keeping a good relationship with nature and the world.

In history, many emperors were tea addicts. Over ten teahouses     5     (build) in Beijing by Emperor Qianlong, a die-hard tea lover. The teahouse is     6     mix of different cultures. It also shows the openness and tolerance (包容) of     7     (high) civilized Chinese culture. As for tea culture, we can see the development of Chinese culture is     8     (color) and tolerant.

Apart from the tea sets and paintings, tens of tea bricks of different sizes and shapes     9     (make) in different places during the Qing Dynasty are on show. People can sit in a modern teahouse, examine different kinds of leaves     10     finally, have a cup.

The first time I entered the busy Chinese hotpot restaurant, I was immediately impressed by the delicious smells and lively chatter. The waiter handed me a menu, but it was predominantly written in Chinese,     1    characters were completely beyond my comprehension. With some hesitation, I decided to take     2    leap of faith and pointed at a few items on the menu that looked     3    (invite).   

As the bubbling pot was set     4    (boil), I watched with fascination as the waiter poured a fragrant broth (肉汤) into it.     5    (mix) with chili peppers, Sichuan peppercorns, and other mysterious spices, the pot released a mouthwatering aroma into the air.   

The moment of truth came     6    I tentatively dipped my chopsticks into the broth and added a slice of thinly sliced beef and a handful of vegetables. The first bite was an     7    (explode) of flavors.   

The numbing sensation from the Sichuan peppercorns danced on my tongue, and I understood the reason for the restaurant’s name, “Spicy Heaven.”

I continued to experiment, trying various ingredients and    8    (marvel) at not only the food, but also the adventure, the    9    (delight) surprise of a world of flavors in a single bubbling pot.     10    my limited knowledge of the Chinese language, I laughed with my newfound friends and shared stories.

Over 800 performers from around the world, including over 300 from China, brought back the     1     (impress) scene of the Edinburgh Festival Carnival (嘉年华). They presented music, dance, and circus performances along the Princes Street in the heart of Edinburgh, with tens of thousands of people     2     (cheer) them on. Edinburgh, Scotland’s capital,     3     (fill) with music and color that day. The excellent performances     4     (give) by the Chinese community in Edinburgh, such as dragon and lion dance and colorful ethnic (民族的) dance, drew     5     (wave) of warm applause.

    6     carnival is an annual event organized by the Edinburgh Jazz and Blues Festival, and marks the beginning of Edinburgh’s summer festival season, in     7     a series of festivals will last from mid-July till the end of August.

“The Chinese performances are absolutely wonderful in     8     (they). It’s really exciting to see so many performers from China. It’s something we want to build on for the future,” said the chair of the Edinburgh Jazz and Blues Festival. “The Chinese presence in this multicultural event     9     (help) create a diverse society. It’s a good way to share that understanding and bring people together     10     art and music.”

Paper cutting is one of the most popular decorative Chinese handicrafts. It is popular for its low cost and artistry. Rural women often make paper cuttings in their spare time when farming is not busy. As a     1     (reflect) of its philosophical origins, paper cutting is as comprehensive as it is attractive. Moreover, folk paper cutting conveys (表达) the content and nature of traditional culture with     2     (it) own particular language.

The history of paper cutting     3     (date) back to around the 6th century. From the 7th to 13th century, paper cutting became popular     4     (especial) during Chinese festivals. The art spread to the rest of the world in the 14th century.

These days, with a pair of scissors     5     a piece of red paper, Fu Zhao’e from the Ningxia Hui autonomous region cut out an image of Argentina football star Lionel Messi within a couple of minutes.

Since the Qatar World Cup     6     (start), Fu, 63, has been creating works of football superstars,     7     are favored by a lot of her friends. “I can cut out anything that I can picture in my mind,     8     (include) people, animals and scenery,” said Fu, adding that people say the cuttings     9     (be) lifelike.

Fu is a national-level inheritor (继承人) of paper-cutting. Her works show the customs of northwestern China and have strong ethnic characteristics. She was recognized as     10     Chinese folk craft artist by UNESCO.

Human memory is notoriously (众所周知地) unreliable. Even people with the sharpest facial recognition skills can only remember so much.

It’s tough to quantify how good a person is     1     remembering. No one really knows how many different faces someone can recall, for example, but various estimates tend to hover in the thousands – based on the number of acquaintances a person     2     have.

Machines aren’t limited this way. Give the right computer a massive database of faces, and it can process what it sees – then recognize a face it     3     (tell) to find – with remarkable speed and precision. This skill is     4     supports the enormous promise of facial-recognition software in the 21^st century. It is also what makes contemporary surveillance (监控) systems so scary.

The thing is, machines still have limitations when it comes to facial recognition. And scientists are only just beginning to understand what those constraints are.     5     (figure) out how computers are struggling, researchers at the University of Washington created a massive database of faces – they call it MegaFace – and     6     (test) a variety of facial-recognition algorithms(算法) as they scales up in complexity. The idea was to test the machines on a database that included up to 1 million different images of nearly 7,000 different people – and not just a large database     7     (feature) a relatively small number of different faces, more consistent with what’s been used in other research.

As the databases grew, machine accuracy dipped across the board. Algorithms     8     were right 95% of the time when they were dealing with a 13,000-image database, for example, were accurate about 70% of the time when     9     (face) with 1 million images. That’s still pretty good, says one of the researchers, Ira Kemelmacher-Shlizerman. “Much better than we expected,” she said,

Machines also had difficulty adjusting for people who look a lot alike –either doppelgangers (长相极相似的人), whom the machine would have trouble       10     (identify) as two separate people, or the same person who appeared in different photos at different ages or in different lighting, whom the machine would incorrectly view as separate people.

Ready Player One (《头号玩家》) is a 2018 American science fiction adventure film produced by Steven Spielberg,    1    (base) on Cline’s 2011 novel of the same name. The story takes place in the year 2045,    2    most people in the real world use a virtual reality (虚拟现实) software to do    3    they want, as long as they have enough coins. The film puts forward a question to its characters and audiences: With an available world of fantasy to escape to, is it possible to balance between real life and virtual reality?

This is a typical way that Spielberg expresses both reality and humanity through his movies, drawing attention    4    how society could    5    (possible) change to work better. The 71-year-old director    6    (believe) that the way you create a better future is by studying the past. He also feels that one of the most satisfying    7    (thing) in his career is having history    8    (discuss) by the public again.

Ready Player One received generally positive reviews. It was said to have significant differences from the book, with some critics (影评人)    9    (call) the plot an improvement over the novel. As US author Dean Kowalski put it, “Few movie directors have had a    10    (great) impact on popular culture than Steven Spielberg.”

Sethe has too many memories of Sweet Home, a beautiful farm     1     she lived as a slave and experienced many awful things. Although she escaped there 18 years ago, she still isn’t free. Her new home     2     (attack) by the ghost of her nameless baby, whose gravestone is marked by one word: Beloved.

Beloved     3     (concern) with the past is written by American writer Toni Morrison, whose     4     (creative) makes a great impact     5     us. The past is never truly gone; it keeps on moving into the present and future. Actually, memories hold     6     power that they seem to suck the life out of some of the characters in Beloved.

Morrison depicts the past as a collection of stories that     7     (constant) change with each person’s telling. The past is also something that should never be ignored     8     without it, how can we grow and avoid     9     (repeat) our mistakes?

In this excerpt, Sethe talks to Denver about memory, or rememory, something     10    (remember) again.