A child who has once been pleased with a tale likes,as a rule,to have it retold in almost the same words,but this should not lead parents to treat printed fairy stories as formal texts.It is always much better to tell a story than read it out of a book,and,if a parent can produce what,in the actual situation of the time and the child,is an improvement on the printed-text,so much the better.

A charge made against fairy tales is that they harm the child by frightening him or making him sad thinking.To prove the latter,one would have to show in a controlled experiment that children who have read fairy stories were more often sorry for cruelty than those who had not.As to fears,there are,I think,some cases of children being dangerously terrified by some fairy story.Often,however,this arises from the child having heard the story once. Familiarity with the story by repetition turns the pain of fear into the pleasure of a fear faced and mastered.

There are also people who object to fairy stories on the grounds that they are not objectively true,that giants, witches（女巫）,two-headed dragons,magic carpets,etc.do not exist;and that,instead of being fond of the strange side in fairy tales,the child should be taught to learn the reality by studying history.If I find such people,I must say so strange that I do not know how to argue with them.If their cases were reasonable,the world should be full of mad men attempting to fly from New York to Philadelphia on a stick or covering a telephone with kisses in the belief that it was their beloved girl-friend.

No fairy story ever declared to be a description of the real world and no clever child has ever believed that it was.

When you enter high school this fall, you’ll find yourself immersed (沉浸) in traditional Chinese culture.

In January, the Ministry of Education worked out a new set of curriculum standards (课程标准) for high school students, People’s Daily reported. One of the biggest changes will be a greater focus on traditional Chinese culture.

According to Professor Han Zhen from Beijing Foreign Language Studies University, the new standards echo (回应) President Xi Jinping’s call for strengthening education. “The standards help students build cultural confidence,” he told People’s Daily.

The new standards call for students to be able to recite 72 ancient poems or articles. The number used to be 14. Recommended classic literature from ancient China includes The Analects of Confucius, Records of the Grand Historian and more.

Apart from Chinese language, other subjects such as fine arts, music and physical education will also focus more on traditional Chinese culture. For example, fine arts will include new lessons on Chinese alligraphy and painting.

China has also seen a growing interest in traditional culture in the private education sector. According to Southern Metropolitan Daily, since 2004, more than 3,000 traditional private schools have been built. They mainly teach traditional Chinese classics.

According to Fu Yan, a Chinese language teacher at Hangzhou Xuejun High School, learning about traditional Chinese culture is a good thing for students.

“At their age, the students may be too young to understand some classics,” Fu told Qianjiang Evening News. “However, as their life experience builds up, they may develop their own thoughts about the wisdom of the classics, which could be a driving force for their growth.”

Ancient Chinese culture is gaining popularity in China. This is reflected not only in the new curriculum standards, but also in the increasing interest in cultural TV programs.

For example, the weekly show National Treasure has become a big hit. It was first aired on China Central Television (CCTV) last December. The show uses dramatic performances to present some of China’s finest cultural treasures.

Other cultural TV programs such as The Chinese Idiom Competition and The Chinese Poetry Competition have also made more people fall in love with traditional Chinese literature.

Throughout China’s history, scholars and authors have written many classics worth studying. Those classic writings also interest people.

Here are some of the country’s most well-known works:

Fourteen dancers wearing jumpsuits filled with sponge and with special cotton in their mouths recreate the plump figures of Tang Dynasty females. They line on stage with amusing facial expressions and humorous motions. Besides, crescent-shaped makeup and costumes resembling Tang tri-colored pottery make audiences feel like travelling to the Tang Dynasty 1,300 years ago. It is a combination of virtual scene with real stage, along with nifty dance moves of actresses and demonstration of national treasures, which have all made the show impressive.

The magic-like dance program, namely Tang Gong Ye Yan(Night Banquet in Tang Dynasty Palace), was released in the Spring Festival gala of 2021 by Henan TV. The video has been watched 48.62 million times on Sina Weibo, and the view counts of related topics have passed 200 million on Tiktok by Feb 19. It has enlightened people’s passion toward the beauty of traditional culture, and consequently also spread overseas, appreciated by culture lovers around the world.

The dance has become a representation of Guochao, which expresses the rise of China’s native fashion trends. A group of young artists have begun to try to demonstrate traditional Chinese culture in different ways. One of the pioneers is Chen Lei, director of the gala. In his opinion, the dance, in which modern technologies such as 3D and AR are used, is a combination of rich treasures of China’s traditional culture and modern technologies, fashions and aesthetic(美学).

Chen told the Global Times that with the development of China, Chinese young people feel more confident to promote Chinese trends to the international stage. He believes traditions shouldn’t be sealed in glass boxes at museums or merely taught in the classroom, but combined with the digital world. Otherwise, the inheritance of traditions would be artificial and empty.