For Malian people in West Africa,Chinese doctors are their trusted and    1    (rely) friends. Now, they have welcomed another beneficial Chinese project — Luban Workshop, which is designed     2    (facilitate) healthier lives in the region.

A ceremony was to mark the opening of a Luban Workshop in Bamako, the capital and     3    (large) city of Mali.It is part of a campaign by China to set     4    10 Luban Workshops in Africa in order to offer occupational training for local young people. The project brings to mind what happened 600 years ago,    5    Zheng He led groups of ships on ocean voyages westwards, seven times, visiting many countries in Asia and Africa.

The 400-square-meter Luban Workshop at the University of Arts and Humanities of Bamako offers practical courses about traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). In the TCM sample display area, Sade, a student at the university, finds artemisinin (青蒿素) among over two hundred     6    (display) samples. After observing it for     7    long time, he takes out his mobile phone and     8     (photograph) the plant. Three months ago, Sade contracted malaria (疟疾) and     9    (treat) with artemisinin.

In the future, Chinese medicine technology is expected to be incorporated(包含)into the teaching system of Malian institutions of higher     10    (learn).

Reaching for the stars

Within three years, he won China's top sci-fi award—the Galaxy Awards—twice. Tianrui Shuofu, brought home the Best Online Sci-fi award for his novels, Die On Mars, in 2019 and We Live in Nanjing, in 2021. At only 25 years old, he is already a     1     (lead) figure among China's young generation of sci-fi writers.

Many of these young sci-fi writers started as freelance online writers.     2     did Tianrui Shuofu. Among all kinds of sci-fi writings, Tianrui’s works are famous for     3     (they) hard-core style. There are many details of space engineering,   radio communication and other     4     (technology) in his works.

However, Tianrui Shuofu thinks hard-core is just one style and he might include more themes in his works in the future. “Many argue against each other on     5     is real sci-fi. Some hard-core sci-fi fans look down upon soft sci-fi. But that's just killing the growing Chinese sci-fi,” he said.

    6     (actual), it is cross-boundary writing that has become     7     trend in online sci-fi works by young writers, according to Tianrui Shuofu.     8     (compare) to traditional sci-fi, the themes and elements in today's works have expanded a lot. Popular themes of other online writings such as city life and farming       9     (become) parts of sci-fi works in recent years, too.

“This is a good thing,” Tianrui Shuofu added. “Going cross-boundary means going     10     limits, which helps with writing good stories and helps sci-fi reach more readers.”

Tang suit or Tangzhuang is often referred to     1     type of Chinese jackets. The term “Tang suit” (Tangzhuang)     2     (create) because of overseas Chinese people and it has been widely used since then.

As the richest and     3     (powerful) dynasty in the history of China’s feudal (封建的) society, the Tang Empire (618~907) is     4     famous in the world that foreigners call overseas Chinese people “the Tang people”, the places     5     they live “Chinatowns” (literally meaning Tang People Streets) and the clothes they wear “Tang suit”.

A Tang suit has two varieties in Chinese culture, which     6     (be) strikingly different from each other in style. One refers to the authentic Tang-era clothes evolving from Hanfu, and it features a button-less yi overlapping the right border to the left and is tied with a sash (腰带) and an ankle-length shang, giving a free, easy and elegant     7     (impress). The other refers to the Manchu male’s jacket evolving from Magua of the Qing Dynasty (1644~1911), which is made by     8     (absorb) a Western-style suit cutting method, featuring a Mandarin collar, a frog and a duijin (a kind of Chinese-style jacket with buttons down the front).

    9     (actual), the Tang suits we see today have evolved from Magua rather than Hanfu. A typical design of a Tang suit has Chinese characters on it, such as Fu (literally meaning happiness in Chinese) and Shou (literally meaning longevity in Chinese), which are often employed     10     (express) good fortune and best wishes.

Lin Congying, Chairman of JOEONE, a Chinese brand focused on men’s trousers created in 1989,     1     (announce) that the company would remove the English word “JOEONE” from its logo, leaving only the Chinese characters     2     part of its new branding (品牌设计) strategy.

This represented a sharp turnaround of the conventional way of branding, where some Chinese companies tended to design their products with a name sounding the     3     (little) “Chinese.” Examples include Metersbonwe and Semir, both     4     (found) in Zhejiang Province. The names almost have no literal association with Chinese.

Recent years have witnessed     5     increasing trend of Chinese companies becoming popular by integrating Chinese elements into their design and marketing     6     (operation), forming styles known as China Chic. Li Ning, a professional sportswear company, in 2012 suffered a major setback with a huge annual loss of over 20 billion yuan. The situation barely improved     7     (significant) in the subsequent years. Later in 2018,     8     (it) new products, combined with Chinese elements, were quickly sold out and the company returned to the center of the fashion world with a brand-new image.

As reported,     9     over half of the oh-oh group believe is that a foreign brand by itself is not an advantage. They tend to focus on the experience of using the products. With the quality of products of local brands     10     (arise), people’s affection for these brands is also growing.

China’s foreign trade is expected     1    (post) stable growth this year, despite unexpected challenges,     2    (include) high raw material costs and fierce     3     (compete) from Southeast Asian countries. The profitability of exporters in most sectors     4    (improve)during the past 6 months, according to a survey by the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade in Beijing. Major challenges facing foreign trade enterprises, such as high costs of logistics, have eased, the survey showed.

“It is worth     5     (note) that trade data got better not only from quarter to quarter, but also from month to month during     6     second quarter. June is likely to have witnessed a strong foreign trade rebound and more     7     (energy) economic recovery,” said Liu Ying, a researcher at the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies at Renmin University of China. The survey showed more than 25 percent of enterprises registered positive quarter-on-quarter revenue growth,     8     nearly 20 percent said they have secured profit growth from a quarter ago.

More than 26 percent of the respondents     9     (be) confident about year-on-year revenue growth, and about 28 percent expect their revenues to be at least the same     10     last year’s level.

Hockey (冰球) goalkeepers are the rare athletes in team sports who can try to show their history, family and personality through the     1     (choose) of clothes. That’s no different at the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics.

China’s goalkeeper Zhou Jiaying caught the attention of the world when she showed     2     with her dragon-themed pads(护膝) at the hockey competition in Beijing.

“She always     3     (want) to honor her Chinese heritage,” explained Chris Joswiak, who has helped to design the pads for     4     26-year-old goalkeeper.

Her notice to Joswiak and his team read, “I hope that immediately we Chinese people see the pads, they think, ‘That’s the Gold Dragons in the Forbidden City!’”

Zhou Jiaying helped create the pads by     5     (send) Joswiak several examples of Chinese-style dragons that could convey     6     she was looking for in her pads.

The design team worked up multiple     7     (sample) for her before she finally approved the one that she wore at the Olympic competitions.

To meet her deadline, the pads that     8     (typical) take about 8 to 10 weeks to build     9     (make) for her in less than two weeks.

Wearing her dragon pads, Zhou Jiaying stopped 22 of 23 shots in China’s win over Denmark on Friday. The Chinese team is scheduled     10     (face)Japan on Sunday.

Most people can remember important news stories clearly, whether it was the murder of President Kennedy     1     the events of 9/11. But now, psychologists Martin Conway and Catriona Morrison from the University of Leeds are conducting     2     online research project into the power that music has to create “autobiographical memory” of the main events in our lives. Their online study asks people     3    (choose) a song by the Beatles, and describe the memories that they have when they listen     4     it.

Morrison explains that they looked at     5    (difference) age groups and their memories. It’s often     6     (think) that we remember more from the time when we were teenagers, which is called “the reminiscence bump”(怀旧性记忆上涨). This is the time in your life when you form     7    (you) idea of who you really are. For older people who have memories     8    (relate) to the Beatles’ music, the majority of them are of events that occurred in their teenage years. But younger people also had a very strong     9    (respond), and had vivid personal memories from their past.

    10    (ultimate), the project opens up possibilities for using music to engage with people who may have problems with memory. “You could use music to help improve people’s ability to remember,” says Morrison.

Hummingbirds (蜂鸟) are the smallest birds in the world. Researchers have spent three years     1     (study) hummingbirds to find out whether they can distinguish between spectral (光谱) and non-spectral colors.

A newly     2     (publish) paper has confirmed that these incredible tiny     3     (creature) indeed have the ability to tell the difference between these color types and that they can see colors completely unknown to the human eye.

Hummingbirds are one of nature’s wonders — they live     4     a diet containing high levels of sugar (and sometimes insects), they are almost     5     ( constant) on the move, and they can see colors that humans can’t even imagine.

There are four color cone types in the eyes of hummingbirds,     6     humans only have three color cone types. Although it doesn’t seem like     7     big difference, when it comes to seeing color, that fourth color cone type matters most. Hummingbirds wouldn’t have the ability to see non-spectral colors if it     8    (be) not for it.

To find out how hummingbirds see color, the research group set up work stations at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory (RMBL) in Colorado where they     9     (train) wild broad-tailed hummingbirds to actively take part in their experiment.

The group was careful to keep     10     (they) work environment as natural as possible for the birds over the course of the three years when they worked on this.

I arrived in Beijing three weeks ago; a native Iowan of the United States far from the land-locked Midwestern state I call home. I was eager    1    (experience) all the differences life back home never gave me. Yet soon after    2    (I) arrival I noticed some similarities, although it was laughable at first to try and compare Iowa City, where I live,    3    a population of 70,000people, and Beijing, which has about 20 million people.

I soon recognized our common love for noodles. In Beijing noodles    4    (be) a part of the traditional everyday diet and an essential part of northern Chinese     5    (dish). I’m happy to report that noodles continue to be a part of my meals and are just as affordable.

Iowans know a lot about rural life as an     6    (agriculture) state and depend on it, like China, for jobs. Iowa is also known for raising quality pigs,    7    we love to eat and so do people in China. It is reported that pork makes up nearly three-fourths of the total meat     8    (consume) annually in China and Iowa is the     9    (large) pork producer in the US.

I suppose     10    a Beijinger sat down next to an Iowan on the subway, it would turn to be an interesting conversation.

If you’re visiting Hangzhou, the one place you absolutely cannot miss is the West Lake. It     1    (locate) southwest of the city. It’s twice the size of New York City’s Central Park. West Lake’s natural beauty and     2    (history) relics have inspired Chinese poets and artists throughout time.

You would need a whole day to     3    (full) appreciate its beauty. The lake has 10 scenic sites, each with     4     story of its own.

You can start with the Leifeng Pagoda. Local legend has it that a white snake spirit was once imprisoned in the five-story, eight-sided pagoda by a monk,     5     tried to separate the immortal spirit from a mortal lover.

Afterwards, you can walk northward along the Su Causeway,     6    (construct) with the help of the great poet Su Shi about 1,000 years ago.

At the other end of the causeway, you will encounter a lotus pool and a winding courtyard. A culture show will be staged here     7     the tourists.     8    (make) sure to indulge yourself with a lakeside sunset before you leave. It’s here that the still waters of the lake meet up with the     9    (color) of the skies,     10    (create) an image you won’t soon forget.