Among all traditional Chinese operas, facial mask in Peking opera is popular around the world. ________ Different colors are used to show different roles, but at first, only three colors were used for actors: red, white and black.

Red is generally used to show that a role is honest. ________ It has another meaning as time goes by, because many roles use red and black to show they’re very brave and kind. An example of “red full face” is Guan Yu.

________ This kind of roles includes Cao Cao in the time of Three Kingdom, and Qin Hui, who put the national hero Yue Fei to death. This kind of people always has a bad ending.

The black face shows either a rude but brave person or a fair and selfless one. Li Kui and Bao Zheng are of this kind of people.

Later, other colors are slowly added to them. Yellow stands for bravery. ________ Gold and silver is sometimes used on the faces of monster(怪物,恶人). Facial mask in Peking Opera is a real unity of beauty and ugliness. It’s worth learning more about it.

Sonia is 14. She couldn’t stand Beijing Opera in the past. She thought it was boring. Like most of other students, Sonia liked popular music. This year her parents got new jobs in Beijing, so she came to Beijing with them. Then she started to study at No.15 Middle School.

Sonia learns Beijing Opera in music class every Friday. She learns a lot about Chinese history from Beijing Opera. Little by little（一点点地） she gets interested in Beijing Opera. Now she likes to see Beijing Opera on TV. And she joins her school Beijing Opera club. “Beijing Opera is a kind of Chinese old art,” Sonia said. “If one goes to learn it, he or she will like the country more.”

Since it was on in July, 2023, the animated (动画的) film Chang’an has caught many people’s interest.

The story in the film happens in the Tang Dynasty, a golden age of Chinese history, and it tells about Li Bai and his close friend Gao Shi. Both of them were the most famous poets at that time. Some other poets also appear in the film, such as Du Fu, Wang Wei and Meng Haoran. They work hard to make themselves and the country better.

There are 48 well-known Tang poems in the almost three-hour-long film. For example, one of them is Li Bai’s poem Leaving the White Emperor Town at Dawn. Li Bai wrote the poem to show his happiness returning home from exile (流放). Many children read poems excitedly along with the poets when watching the film.

Chang’an was the capital of the Tang Dynasty, one of the world’s largest and richest cities at the time. The movie’s Chinese name is taken from a poem by Chen Zilong, a poet in the Ming Dynasty. In the poem, Chang’an is the dream place for Tang poets.

The film is educational, too. It tells the stories of these great people in a special way so that we can have a deeper understanding of our history and classic works.