In much of Asia, especially the so-called “rice bowl” cultures of China, Japan, Korea,     1     Vietnam, food is usually eaten with chopsticks.

Chopsticks are usually two long, thin     2    (piece) of wood or bamboo. They can also be made of plastic, animal bone or metal. Sometimes chopsticks are quite artistic. Truly elegant chopsticks might     3    (make) of gold and silver with Chinese characters. Skilled workers also combine carious hardwoods and metal     4    (create) special designs.

The Chinese have used chopsticks for five thousand years. People probably cooked     5    (they) food in large pots,     6    (use) twigs (树枝) to remove it. Over time, as     7     population grew, people began cutting food into small pieces so it would cook more quickly. Food in small pieces could be eaten easily with twigs which gradually turned into chopsticks.

Some people think that the great Chinese scholar Confucius,     8     lived from roughly 551 to 479 B. C., definitely influenced the development of chopsticks. Confucius believed knives would remind people of killing and     9    (be) too violent for use at the table.

Chopsticks are not used everywhere in Asia. In India, for example, most people     10    (tradition) eat with hands.

As winter comes, hands and feet can easily get cold. Thick gloves might be a good     1     (choose), yet sometimes wearing them is not convenient.     2    , this was not a problem for ancient Chinese people, who had a fine tool     3     (keep) their hands warm: hand warmers.

There is no     4     (write) record about the origin of this tool, but there is a story about its invention.

Emperor Yangdi from the Sui Dynasty visited Jiangsu in winter. Due to the bitter cold, the local official asked craftsmen to make a small warmer for     5     emperor that could be held in his hands. Thus the hand warmer     6     (create). By the Song Dynasty, the warmers had become popular among the common people. Skills for producing the tool were     7     (wide) used in the Ming and Qing dynasties.

Made of bronze or ceramics (陶器), ancient hand warmers had     8     (vary) designs. Round, square and octagonal shapes are typical, and there were some other shapes     9     look like pumpkins, flowers and turtle shells.

Inside a hand warmer, simple coals were mixed with some flowers,     10     (produce) a pleasant smell when burned.

Wandering sounds, irregular rhythms and a carrier of gentle emotions define the musical language of guqin, a seven string instrument created in ancient China.

The earliest piece of guqin in China,     1     (discover) in Hubei province in 2016, dates back to the Zhou Dynasty. The body of a guqin is made of lacquered (上漆的) wood and the strings of twisted silk. Unlike its seemingly simple appearance, making a guqin is    2    (extreme) demanding. An outstanding piece can take anywhere from two to several decades    3    (create). It is a result of art and time.

The tone of a guqin is quiet, light and    4    (distance). Vibrations (琴弦振动) are used to produce a flowing and lingering (持续的) quality,    5    abundant empty notes in between. As the listener fills in the gaps in their own minds, a connection is formed between music and man.

The guqin     6    (favor) by the scholars in ancient China. The most well-known guqin musician was Yu Boya in the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods. As he played his guqin in the mountains, a woodcutter named Zhong Ziqi heard the music and understood exactly    7    Yu wanted to express. This deep understanding formed     8    strong bond between them, and they became close friends. This is the famous tale behind the guqin masterpiece, Flowing Water, High Mountains. The piece has been passed down through     9    (generation) and is considered one of the most famous and important compositions in Chinese guqin music.

This graceful dialogue, flowing from brushed fingertips and    10    (travel) for thousands of years, is continuing to this day.

Dujiangyan Dam, 45km north of Chengdu, an ancient technological wonder of the country, was originally constructed around 256 BC by the State of Qin    1    an irrigation(灌溉) and flood control system as well as a remarkable example of ancient engineering skill. Due to the success of the project, the dam    2    (automatic) changes the water flow of the Min River and channels it into irrigation. For more than 2, 000 years, the dam    3    (continue) to make the most of the water protection works.

During the Warring States period,     4    troubled people living along the banks of Min River was the annual flooding.     5    (aid) by thousands of local people,   Qin governor and irrigation engineer Li Bing investigated the problem thoroughly and led a team    6     (construct) a levee (河堤) to redirect a portion of river’s flow. Then they cut a channel through Mount Yulei to discharge the extra water. With the system finished, no more floods    7     (occur). What’s more, it made Sichuan one of the most productive agricultural regions in China     8    the redirected water from the Min River could be used for irrigation. If you visit Dujiangyan, you will see    9    unusual construction that resembles a fish’s mouth. This famous attraction, Yuzui, together with two other important parts, namely, Feishayan and Baopingkou,     10    (be) designed initially to control the water flow throughout the year.

The archaeological ruins of Liangzhu in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, which date back 5,300 years,       1     (include) onto the UNESCO World Heritage list as a cultural site on July 9, 2019, bringing the total number of the Asian country’s sites on the list     2    55.

The ruins,     3    core area covers 14.3 square kilometers in the northwest of Hangzhou, are considered as an important    4     (represent) of early urban civilization, with rice-growing agriculture as the economic foundation.

The heritage site includes city ruins with palace     5    (remain), 11 early-stage dams, high-level cemetery sites. The site is also known for its abundance of ceremonial jade, which shows a complicated ritual system and indicates a kingdom with     6     combined authority of god and kingship.

For example, cong — the jade piece that forms a rectangle tube with a circular inner section-is typical of artifact (器物)    7     (unearth) in Liangzhu. In 1986, the biggest known item of this kind, which weighs 6.5 kilograms and    8    (refer) to as the “King of Cong”, was discovered in Fanshan Cemetery in the city ruins.

Found in 2007, walls of the ruins and the     9    (surround) water conservation system combined to display a massive infrastructure base, the construction of which is estimated     10     (take) 4,000 people a decade to accomplish.