It is said that Chinese people have “one thousand” ways to cook vegetables. In fact, Chinese people don’t just love cooking delicious vegetable dishes. 【小题1】 Chinese people have grown vegetables in their backyards for centuries. Now, they have also grown them in the Antarctic, and even in space! Why do they have deep love of vegetables? Here are some reasons.

China has so much land, 9.6 million square kilometers. 【小题2】 Many places have the light, soil and water that vegetables need.

Most of today’s vegetables were once wild plants. Chinese people started to eat and plant them quite early. The Book of Songs (《诗经》), written 2,500 years ago, mentions vegetables. 【小题3】 Potatoes, peppers and tomatoes were all from other places, but Chinese people planted them, making them common vegetables in China.

In ancient times, poet Tao Yuanming lived in the countryside and did farm work. This surely included planting vegetables. He loved this peaceful life away from the royal court (朝堂). 【小题5】 Planting vegetables is a good way to get away from the hustle and bustle (熙熙攘攘) of city life.

Bill was going to visit Wang Wei in Shandong for several days. Before he left America, Bill tried to learn about Chinese food and Chinese ways of doing things. He wanted to be polite (有礼貌). He learned that most people in China eat rice, drink tea, and take off their shoes when they go into a friend’s apartment. Bill even learned to use chopsticks.

At the same time, Wang Wei learned about American food and American ways of doing things. He wanted to be friendly. When Bill came to Wang’s house, Wei told him to keep his shoes on. Later they went out for dinner. They ate pizza and drank Coke. The next few days, they had breakfast in a coffee shop and ate hamburgers in a fast-food restaurant.

On his way back to America, Bill was thinking about why he never ate rice or drank tea or ate with chopsticks. He never took off his shoes when he visited Wang’s family. He thought that living in China was just like living in America.

Chopsticks were first used in China and then introduced to other areas in the world. 【小题1】 Here are 3 things to know about them.

When were chopsticks invented?

Long long time ago, Chinese ancestors (祖先) actually also used hands to eat. About 3,000 years ago during the Shang Dynasty, Chinese people started to use chopsticks. During the pre-Qin period, chopsticks were called “Jia (梜)”, and in the Qin and Han dynasties, they were called “Zhu (箸)”. Because “Zhu” shares the same pronunciation with “stop” in Chinese, which is an unlucky word, by the Ming Dynasty, people began to call them “Kuai”, meaning “fast” in Chinese. 【小题2】

Who invented chopsticks?

【小题3】 One is that Jiang Ziya was inspired (激励) to create chopsticks by a mythical (神话中的) bird. Another one is that Daji, the favorite consort (妃子) of the King Zhou of Shang, invented chopsticks in order to please the king. It is also said that Yu the Great, who founded the Xia Dynasty, used sticks to pick up hot food in order to save time to control floods. So, chopsticks came into being.

【小题4】

When eating with the elders, Chinese people usually let the elders take up chopsticks before anyone else. Besides, playing with chopsticks is thought to be a bad manner. It’s also impolite to tap chopsticks on the edge of one’s bowl, because in ancient China beggars (乞丐) often did it to attract attention.