You may think you cannot live through summer without air conditioners. But in ancient China, hand fans were almost the only help for people       1     (drive) the heat away.

Chinese people started to use hand fans over 2,000 years ago. The fans came       2     different shapes, such as round and square and they were made from various materials. Palm leaf fans were cheap and easy to make. Feather fans showed the owner’s high status. Sandalwood fans     3     (send) out a fragrant smell.

    4     (late), hand fans became more than something     5     could cool you down. They developed into art works, in which tuanshan and zheshan were the most common.

Shaped like     6     full moon, tuanshan was usually made of silk. They had beautiful embroidery(刺绣) featuring birds and flowers on them. Females, especially     7    (woman) in the royal palace,liked to use them. Poets in ancient China often compared a woman’s abandoned fate to tuanshan. A poet wrote during the Qing Dynasty, “If only life were as     8     (beauty) as when we first met, why should the autumn wind bother to pity deserted painted fans?”

Meanwhile, men, especially the literati (文人), used zheshan. The literati liked them because they could paint and write poems on them.     9     was a way for them to show off their talent in literature, painting and calligraphy. Almost anything could     10       (paint) on zheshan, but the most popular ones usually featured landscapes.

When foreigners negotiate, or register in certain areas of China, they may be     1    (surprise) at Chinese’s special fondness and preference for seals. To Chinese, seals are an art of deep cultural roots,     2     combines the essence of both calligraphy(书法) and sculpture and inspires generations to study, to appreciate and to collect.

It is believed that seals came out as early     3     8,000 years ago after our ancestors could make pottery wares(陶瓷)and had private property. They were assumed to make marks on     4    (they) own possessions to prevent them from being stolen. When the first dynasty     5    (found),the king began to use seals to empower(授权)and to show lordly credits. Only the king’s special seal was then called “Xi”,     6    (represent) the highest authority. The first emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang, had his “Xi”    7    (make) out of the invaluable and beautiful jade “Heshi Bi”.

Then the local governments also needed seals for     8     same function. Meanwhile, private seals were carved in a variety of lucky     9    (character)and vivid animal patterns.    10    (gradual). the sphragistics (印章学) came into being.