One sunny day in the late spring of 353, a party took place with 40-some poets, scholars, and artists     1     (play) a drinking game by a river in Lanting, or the “Orchid Pavilion”, a hilly southwestern suburb of Shaoxing. They floated cups of wine in the flow of the stream.     2     the cup stopped in front of a guest, he had to compose a poem.

A total of 37 poems     3     (write) that day, but it was the foreword to the poetry collection by famed calligrapher Wang Xizhi, titled “Preface to the Poems Collected from the Orchid Pavilion”, that made this party one of the best     4     (know) in Chinese literary history. In 324 words, Wang described the event while expressing his passion     5     life. The naturally-flowing strokes, a product of his outstanding skills and the     6     (inspire) of the moment have led the “Preface” to be regarded     7     (wide) as the best semi-cursive calligraphy(行书) work ever.

Today, visitors can go to the “Orchid Pavilion” area,     8     elegant garden complex on the former site of the party,     9     includes a calligraphy museum, a pavilion, and a pond, all     10     (surround) by thick bamboo forests. In downtown Shaoxing-a world of alleyways, green canals, ancient bridges and graying whitewashed houses, one can also visit a number of scenery sites connected with Wang’s stories from his time there.

It’s said that the Chinese characters were invented by Cangjie. They were deciphered (破译) in the Song Dynasty     1     whether these are the correct answers is still debatable.

In his life Cangjie observed mountains and rivers, footprints of birds and beasts, as well as shapes of plants and objects. Inspired by these, Cangjie invented various symbols     2     (base) on the shapes and     3     (appear) of different things and named them zi (character). These most ancient Chinese pictographs (象形文字) have ended the time     4     people tied knots to record their lives.

According to the Han Dynasty’s Chinese dictionary Shuo Wen Jie Zi, Cangjie wrote two scrolls, which     5     (lose) during wars in the Sui Dynasty.

Scholars in contemporary times tend     6     (believe) it is probably a beautiful tale that Cangjie invented the Chinese characters alone. Many Chinese characters actually came into being before Cangjie. He is more like the one who     7     (collect) Chinese characters. Chinese ancestors accumulated and developed the Chinese characters, updating them through hundreds of years, during which time the Chinese characters evolved from oracle bone script     8     bronze script, seal script, clerical script, and     9     (final) to standard script. Nowadays Chinese people commonly use the standard script, whose     10     (tradition) version was gradually simplified and modernized.

Nowadays, the word “hutong ” has come to mean more     1     just the alleys that connect the courtyards. It also refers to the courtyards     2     (they) and even to the communities that live there.

To help them keep control over the city, the Emperors during these Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasty    3    (arrange) different areas of Beijing in neat blocks of houses established around courtyards. They were then able to place guards at the     4    (enter) of the various hutongs, which made it easier     5    (keep) an eye on people’s movements.   

By connecting people’s homes, the hutongs in fact connected people’s lives,     6     the lives of the rich or the lives of the ordinary citizens.

Towards the end of the Qing Dynasty, the conditions in Beijing’s hutongs went down as the political situation cast a dark cloud on China’s economy. Many new hutongs were quickly built to house the     7    (increase) population but these new hutongs    8    (make) poorly.     

Hutongs are still     9     important part of Beijing’s life and it is not surprising that tourists love the hutongs. They can walk up Sanmiao Street,     10    (date) back 900 years.

The remains of 88 Chinese soldiers killed during the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea (1950-53) returned from South Korea     1     Shenyang, capital of Liaoning province, on Friday, the latest handover in    2     nine-year task for establishing a spirit of friendship and cooperation.

This is the first time for J~20s, the country’s most    3     (advance) fighter aircraft, to take part in the mission of repatriation. Their participation    4     (mark) the highest tribute (悼念) and respect for soldiers returning to the homeland.

Gao Penghua , a 95-year-old veteran of the war, watched a live webcast at home and welcomed his comrades back home.

“    5     I’m retired, I’m still a soldier. Back then, the young Chinese soldiers,     6     were selfless, had attained martyrdom on the battlefield. These soldiers, will always    7     (remember) and mourned by the people,” said Gao.

South Korea began to recover the remains of fallen soldiers in 2000. China and South Korea have     8     (successful) carried out the handover of the remains of 825 Chinese    9     (hero) in South Korea for eight years from 2014 to 2021,     10     (follow) humanitarian (人道主义) principles and in the spirit of friendship and cooperation.

8 . Skiing has been around since early civilization, evidenced by a 5,000-year-old rock carving representing men on skis hunting deer in Norway, and the discovery of a ski dating back to 6000 B.C. found in Vis, Russia. Historians debate where skiing first got its start, though; some argue that it was in Altay, China, in 8000 B.C.

Modern skiing, however, can date back to the Scandinavians, who mainly used skis as a means of travel or for other practical purposes, particularly the Indigenous Sámi people in Norway, Finland, and Sweden, writes Raymond Flower in The History of Skiing and Other Winter Sports. Norse myths (挪威神话) even described Ull, a winter god, on skis with curved tips and included other stories of heroes and goddesses skiing down mountains.

Some of the first official competitions began around 1850 in Norway, with the first recorded race in Sweden held outside Stockholm in 1879. Skiing became a household word with the publication of the popular book offering a thrilling account of Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen’s difficult and historic journey on skis across Greenland in 1888.

The sport spread to the Swiss Alps, where it was enjoyed largely by British vacationers, before clubs popped up around the world in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Variations of the sport developed over the years, such as the slalom race (障碍滑雪), downhill jumping, and mountaineering. The British are largely credited with transforming skiing from its Scandinavian roots into the highly competitive sport it is now. In 1921, they developed rules that became widely accepted and adjusted the slalom race to include flag gates to test the skill of skiers’ turns.

Skiing then exploded in popularity after World War II, when ski resorts (胜地) gradually developed to receive single-day skiers as well as those taking longer vacations.