1 . One of my most treasured memories as the daughter of a calligrapher was my mother showing me the beauty, the shape and the form of Chinese_________. Ever since then, I have been_________by this incredible language.

But to an outsider, it seems to be as hard as going across the Great Wall of China. Over the past few years, I’ve been wondering if I can_________this wall, so anyone who wants to appreciate the beauty of this language could do so. I started thinking about_________a new, fast method of learning Chinese might help.

At the age of five, I began learning to draw every single stroke for each character in the_________order. I feel fortunate to discover that only the top 200 characters will_________you to understand 40 percent of basic literature, enough to read road signs, restaurant_________, and to get the basic idea of web pages or the newspapers._________, the vivid shapes of characters make it easier for us to understand and memorize them.

For example, the shape of the “fire” is a person with two arms on both sides, as if she is yelling_________. “Help! I’m on fire!” Similar to “fire” are “wood”, “mountain”, “door”, “mouth”, etc. Characters like those are the building_________for you to create a lot more characters. If a “person”_________his arms wide, he is saying, “It is that big.” The “person” is inside the “mouth”, and he is trapped. He is a_________. The sun is the source of light, warmth and hope. Two “suns” together means being_________. Three together, that’s sparkles.

Putting two “mountains” on top of each other, we get another character. In ancient China, that means in exile (流放), because Chinese emperors put their political enemies in exile_________mountains. Nowadays “exile” has_________getting out. A “mouth” which tells you where to get out is an exit.

2 . Following tips from a tourist guide 15 years ago, Zhao Jiang went to Mahabalipuram, a town, that despite its architectural splendors, golden beach and performing arts, was strictly off the map for Chinese holiday-goers at the time. Then in October, came the news that Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi would have an informal summit at the same seaside resort in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu.

“I was happy that Tamil Nadu got the chance to host the summit and enjoy the spotlight, and I was proud that what I have learned and am working on has now become well-known,” Zhao, who heads the Tamil language service at China Radio International (CRI), said.

It has been an illuminating journey for Zhao. In the mid-1990s, when she went to study a foreign language at the Communication University of China, she chose her major more on a quirk.

“At that time, the university was offering Bangla, Nepali, Swahili and Tamil as foreign languages. I knew Bangla was spoken in Bangladesh, Nepali in Nepal and Swahili in Tanzania. But I had never heard of Tamil and I had no idea where it was spoken. So I signed up for this unheard-of language,” she said.

Today, she is an expert in Tamil, the predominant language in Tamil Nadu. It is also spoken in Sri Lanka ,Singapore and Malaysia. One of the oldest languages in the world with a history of about 2100 years, its script is formidable, leading to a noted Indian business tycoon calling it “the Great Wall of Tamil.”