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A. What about you? B. I hope the pandemic（疫情）will end soon. C. My grandpa lives there. D. Of course. E. It's in the southwest of China. |
Maomao and Fanfan are talking about their summer holiday.
Maomao: What will you do this summer holiday?
Fanfan: I will go to the countryside.
Maomao: What will you do there with him?
Fanfam: I will help my grandpa feed the horses.
Maomao: Can you ride a horse?
Fanfan:
Maomao: That sounds cool!
Fanfan:
Maomao: I want to go to Chengdu.
Fanfan: Why do you want to go there?
Maomao: Because I want to see some cute pandas. I love them very much. Oh,
Did you watch the closing ceremony（典礼）of the Beijing Winter Games? Which part moved you most?
Many people would say the"willow twig（柳枝）". To the song Songbie, 365 people carried glowing willow twigs in their hands. This showed"a bittersweet goodbye" in a traditional and special Chinese way. In Chinese, the word for willow, "liu", sounds like the word for "stay". So in the old days, when two friends parted（离别）, the travelling friend got a willow twig as a present. It is not "goodbye" but"see you again soon".
Many other traditional Chinese things were also parts of the Winter Games. There were 12 animal carts（手推车）in the closing ceremony. This idea came from the Chinese zodiac（十二生肖）. And on Feb 4, the opening ceremony of the Beijing 2022 Winter Games was held. The day was also Lichun, the first of the 24 Chinese solar terms. It shows the awakening of everything and the end of the cold.
In 2003, China sent its first taikonaut, Yang Liwei, into space. Since then, fourteen taikonauts have "reached for the stars". Chen Dong, Liu Yang and Cai Xuzhe are three of them. They are carrying out the latest（最近的）Shenzhou XIV mission（任务）. Have you ever dreamed of becoming a taikonaut like them? How did they get there?
Health is important
To be a taikonaut, you need to be very healthy. Good eyesight, a strong heart and lungs（肺）are important.
You'd better not have other small problems. For example, you can't have a decayed tooth or scars（伤疤）.
Become stronger with hard training（训练）
In China, you must be a great pilot before you can be a taikonaut. You must fly more than 600 hours. You'll start training hard. For example, you will also wear a 200-kilogram suit and do tasks underwater for six or seven hours without eating or going to the toilet. This is like doing tasks during a spacewalk.
Learn science
Knowledge is important as well. Taikonauts take 60 courses（课程）to get ready for a mission, including math, English, physics, spacecraft design and many more. They can also do experiments（实验）in space.
