Fight with flood

Dayu (大禹) was a leader of a tribe (部落). He loves his people and always tries his best to protect (保护) them.

One day, a flood came and broke a dam (大坝). Dayu went to fight the flood. Different from his father, Dayu didn’t build new dams. He widened the river courses (加宽河道). He also built new river courses. In this way, more water could go through and flow into the sea. There was no more flood problem.

This is not easy work at all. It took 13 years and 20, 000 workers to do it. Dayu worked very hard every day. During the years, Dayu passed by his house three times. But he never went inside. He didn’t want his family to take his time and mind (心思) away from the work.

Dayu then became the hero of people. He also helped homeless people build new houses. People admired (敬仰) Dayu very much and made him the new king. After that, Dayu built Xia. It was the first dynasty (朝代) in Chinese history.

This is a story about two wise men Zhuge Liang and Zhou Yu. The Chinese people have told it for many, many years.

One day, Zhou Yu gave Zhuge Liang an impossible (A) task. He asked him to make 100,000 arrows within ten days. “No problem,” Zhuge Liang said. “I’ll bring you 100,000 arrows in three days.”

Zhuge Liang asked his soldiers to fill 20 large boats with many straw men. In the early morning of the third day, Zhuge Liang’s soldiers sailed the boats towards the camps of Cao Cao’s army on the (B) ________ side of the river. The soldiers shouted and   beat their drums loudly.

When Cao Cao’s soldiers heard the sounds, they thought (C) 他们受到攻击．However, they could not see anything (D) ________ the thick fog on the river. Cao Cao (E) ordered his soldiers to shoot arrows towards the sounds of the drums and the shouting. (F) Zhuge Liang’s boats were soon full of arrows.

Zhuge Liang’s soldiers then turned the boats around and shouted. “Thank you for your arrows, Cao Cao.” Zhuge Liang took all these arrows to Zhou Yu. There were more than 100,000 of them.

Spring Scene

The state is destroyed, but the country remains.

In the city in spring, grass, grows everywhere.

Feeling sad about the times, even the flowers cry.

Hating to par, hearing birds breaks our heart.

This famous poem was written by Du Fu 712—770, Tang Dynasty. When he found himself alone in Chang’an now Xi’an, having no hope for his country. Du Fu was born in 712 in Gongyi, he loved to read. “When I was in my seventh year, my mind was already full of heroic things. When I was in my ninth year, I first began to red my poems in public.” he wrote.

In Du Fu’s teens, his family was rich enough to allow him to go traveling. China then was at the height of wealth under the amazing emperor Xuanzong of Tang. Among all the places Du Fu visited, there was a special one—Qufu (曲阜孔子). The teachings of Confucius were Du Fu’s basic ideas all his life. For Du Fu, his main goal of life was to help the emperor realize social stability. There were no big or sudden changes and people lived happily and worked without fighting or disagreeing with one another. But however much he wanted to achieve the goal, he was completely helpless. His dream of using power and fame was broken into a thousand pieces. When Du Fu was about 30, came the meeting that changed his life with the poet Li Bai. Li Bai gave him a lot of inspiration in the art of poetry. But their poems were different. Li Bai’s poems were usually about nature, while Du Fu’s generally dealt with themes such as history and how people must live according to Confucianism.

In mid-December 755, a huge rebellion (叛乱) led by An Lushan broke out. After that Du Fu’s life was made up of short stops at different places. Through ups and downs, pouring out his worries about the country and people as well as celebrating simple joys of life. In 77, he died on a riverboat between Danzhou now Changsha, Hunan province. But the cause of his death is still unknown.

Du Fu lived through the fall of China’s fantastic Tang dynasty. He wrote many poems to express feelings of the ordinary people, especially for the poor. He is better than anyone else at reflecting history in his works. As Shakespeare (莎士比亚) is to literature (文学), so is the poet Du Fu to literature in Chinese.