文化中国第七单元

UNIT7Lesson oneTopic1： when you were in school , did you attend sports meeting? Topic2：talking about the most unforgettable sporting meeting in your memories.Hot sports in ChinaChina still sets the gold standard in table tennis as its all-conquering players lifted the country's 14th world men's team championship on Sunday to add to its 15th women's crown won Saturday.(The Chinese women's team hold the Corbillion Cup on the podium during the awarding ceremony for the women's final match at the 47th World Table Tennis Championships in Doha, Qatar March 7, 2004. The Chinese women's team won the Corbillion Cup by defeating their Chinese Hong Kong's counterpart 3-0 on Mar. 6. )China still sets the gold standard in table tennis as its all-conquering players lifted the country's 14th world men's team championship on Sunday to add to its 15th women's crown won Saturday.In a replay of Friday's semifinal, a super-star team of Ma Lin,Wang Hao and Wang Liqin gave a 3-0 whitewash to the German team spearheaded by former world No. 1 Timo Boll, winning a back-to-back Swaythling Cup and ensuring a ticker-tape welcome at the Beijing Airport.The first ever world pingpong championships held in an Arabian country were rematches of the depth of talent. While Boll is the only world-classplayer in the German team, China has five with MaLin, Wang Liqin and Wang Hao perching 1-2-3 in the world rankings.When other teams found it hard to gather five competitive players, Chinese officials were racking their brains over the lineup because they have too many good players. Therefore, immensely talented Chen Qi, world No. 6, was relegated to a sparring partner for his elder teammates in Doha, while Hao Shuai,No. 13, and No. 18 Qiu Yike, who upset then world No. 1 Boll in the Paris world individual championships last May, had to stay home.Thanks to a new format adopted by the International Table Tennis Federation, Germany won the play-off against South Korea to book a rematch with China, which blanked the Germans 3-0 in the early semifinal stage.A well-prepared Chinese team was just too strong for the Germans in the championship final. Wang Hao stuck to the tactics prepared by a team of advisers and coaches, beating Boll 11-7, 13-11, 11-2 in the first rubber.Wang was told to follow up his serves with straight topspin attacks and to receive Boll's flat serves with forehand flicks. The tactics worked, giving the 19-year-old Chinese an easy win.Ma Lin overcame Germany's surprise starter Suss Christian, ranked 92nd in the world, 11-5, 8-11, 11-8, 11-7, and Wang Liqin completed the rout by beating 71st-rated Zoltan Fejer-Konnerth 11-5, 8-11, 12-10, 11-7."I feel more relieved than happy now," said China's head coach Cai Zhenhua, who knew that Chinese fans had got used to winning and would accept nothing less."You may feel bored when I say this. But I really want to thankour supporters and these cities which offered us places for secluded training," Cai added.The Chinese men's team trained in southeastern city Xiamen and the women's squad honed their weapons in northern city Zhengding prior to the Doha championships. Sports psychologists, researchers and senior coaches were enlisted to help Chinese players whip up form.Zhang Xiaopeng, player-turned-researcher and China's first PHD in table tennis, has kept track of the German and South Korean teams since the Paris championships last May and convinced the Chinese team, with research papers and numerous videotapes he recorded during international events, that Germany and South Korea, rather than Jorgen Persson's Sweden and Werner Schlager's Austria,were China's major threats.Chinese coaches took notice, assigning national team players toimitate the play of Timo Boll, South Koreans Ryu Seung Min and JooSe Hyuk. "It's our job to report the developments in the rest of the table tennis world to the Chinese team," said Zhang. According to Zhang, Boll's lifeincluding his marriage, Ryu Seung Min's lethal forehand and Joo Se Hyuk's quick footwork were all among their research areas.With a silver medal, Germany replaced five-time champion Sweden as Europe's No. 1 power. An aging Swedish team fell to South Koreato finish fourth.A China vs Sweden final used to be a popular draw. China denied Sweden's fourth straight crown in the 1995 final and won the title again in 1997. Sweden snatched back the cup in 2000 and lost it in 2001."I came to watch Sweden-China game but I didn't see it, neither did I see Waldner," Zhang Jun, a Chinese oil worker in Qatar, told the reporter in the Doha International Exhibition Center where the world championships took place.Legendary Jan-Ove Waldner, as famous in China as in his home country, has been recovering from a leg injury caused by a bar accident and didn't play a game in Doha. He watched in dejection that the team of Jorgen Persson, Peter Karlsson and Jens Lundqvist were eliminated by South Korea on Friday.China is now looking beyond the desert and sea state of Qatar to the Olympics birthplace of Athens."The Doha event was just a rehearsal for us and the Olympics is more important," said China's head coach Cai Zhenhua.The Chinese women's team head coach Lu Yuansheng admitted too that the Athens Games was his top priority. "We found our problems here and will solve them before the Olympics," he said.Lu was admonished by China's table tennis chief Xu Yinsheng, former ITTF president, although the Chinese women beat their Hong Kong counterparts 3-0 in Saturday's final."Your players seem to lack motivation and their styles lack variety," Xu told Lu, referring to the five Chinese players who all play in European handshake style."If you want to play well in Athens, you'd better solve these problems," he added.Hot sports in America: baseballAbout Baseball (Olympic sport since 1992)Baseball’s stature in the history of the United States is perhaps reflected more clearly in a simple dictionary rather than in the seven-centimetre-thick baseball encyclopaedia.There, you can find the word Ruthian, meaning "of mammoth proportions", as in a home run by Babe Ruth back in the 1920s. There, you can find Lou Gehrig’s disease, as the incurable degenerative illness amyotrophic lateral sclerosis has been better known since Lou Gehrig, Ruth’s team-mate, died from it in the 1940s. In the United States, baseball and the English language are interwoven. However, just as the game did not begin as a wholly US enterprise, it did not end the 20th century as one either. Baseball’s all-time home-run champion is a man named Sadaharu Oh, who hit 868 during a legendary career in baseball-mad Japan. The nationalteam of Cuba overpowered the Baltimore Orioles of the US major leagues 12-6 in a 1999 exhibition game.Lesson twoTopic1：football in south Africa ; famous players; David Beckham Topic2：famous Chinese table tennis players.Reading and comprehensionCat's cradle is a well known series of string figures created between two people as a game. The name of the entire game, the specific figures, their order, and the names of the figures vary. Versions of this gamehave been found in indigenous cultures all over the world--from the Arctic to the Equatorial zones. In some regions of the US, this game is also known as Jack in the Pulpit.The game begins with the first player wrapping a loop of string around the hand (around the fingers or wrists) and taking one side of the string and circling the hands again. Then this player performs the last two moves of Opening A: taking the string which runs on the inside of the left arm onto the first finger of their right hand, then, reaching through the triangle created, the loop on the inside of the right hand is taken onto the first finger of the left hand).The aim of the game is to make a series of figures including the "cat's cradle". This is created by two sets of crossed string between both hands.A second player grasps each cross horizontally using the thumb and first fingers, pulls these outwards, down under the line which runs below the crosses from the first players wrists, and back up. The first player lets go of the figure and the second player stretches it open by bringing apart the thumbs and fingers. This figure is the "diamonds". A series of other alterations produce more figures, some of which lead back to the diamonds while some are dead ends and cannot be transformed. (Some say that "diamonds" is the cat's cradle from the game title, while others insist it's only the game title, and not any figures.)This game is very simple and is always started with the above opening. After that one mostly pinches the x's and wrap them around the outsidestrings. The other moves tend to need a little more practice. Some of these advanced figures include the Candles, the Manger, Knitting Needles, and the Scorpion.The origin of the name "cat's cradle" may have come from a corruption of cratch-cradle, or manger cradle[1][2] (though this derivation is disputed by the OED). The French word for manger is crèche, and cattle feed racks are still known as cratches. The "manger cradle" is significant in the nativity: Jesus was born in a barn and laid in a manger because no other lodgings were available.In an 1858 Punch Cartoon it is referred to as "Scratch Cradle", a name supported by Brewer's 1898 Dictionary. Different cultures have different names for the game, and often different names for the individual figures. (For instance, in Russia the whole game is simply called "the game of string" and the "diamonds" pattern a "carpet", with names like "field", "fish" and "sawhorse" for all other figures. The cat isn't ever mentioned, but the cradle is, though it's the initial figure that is called so.)Cat's cradle is probably one of humanity's oldest games, and is spread among an astonishing variety of cultures, even ones as unrelated as Europeans and the Dyaks of Indonesia; Alfred Wallace who, while traveling in Borneo, thought of amusing the Dyak youths with a novel game with string, was in turn very surprised when they proved to be familiar with it, and showed him some figures and transitions that he hadn’t previously seen. In China Cat's Cradle is called Catch Cradle. The anthropologist Louis Leakey has also described his use of this game to obtain the cooperation of Sub-Saharan African tribes otherwiseunfamiliar with, and suspicious of, Europeans. A character in Joanna Russ's 1975 novel The Female Man calls cat's cradle "the universal symbol of peace".Lesson threeTopic1：how do you relax yourself?A:I do feel like a trip to Florida on such a gloomy day in the New York, to enjoy the sunshine while lying on the beaches of Florida.B: that is a good idea. It’s the best season for tourists in Florida. You can also get a good sun-tan there.A: but if the sunshine is too strong , It might damage the eyes and skin.B: you can put on your shades. And remember don’t make your skin look like a tomato. Or else after that your skin will begin to flake off . you may even wind up with skin cancer.A:I see . overdoing it will do more harm than good.B: you said it.Topic2：how do you enjoy life? What is your attitude toward life?Reading and comprehensionLegend of the White SnakeThe story is set in the Southern Song Dynasty.A female white snake demon, Bai SuZhen, dreams of transforming into a goddess by doing good deeds, so she takes on human form and goes to the human realm. There she meets a green snake demon, Xiao Qing, who causes disasters in the area she lived. Bai SuZhen holds her captive at the bottom of a lake, though she promises the green snake that she'll come back in three hundred years to free her.After three hundred years she keeps her promise and frees her. They bond as sisters. They meet a sorcerer called FaHai who believes that every demon should be destroyed. But Bai was too powerful and he can't eliminate her immediately so he vows that he will if he sees them again. Fearing that they would meet more human sorcerers, Bai and Qing retreat into the world between demon and human world called Ban Bu Duo where they try to do good things by bringing rain to places that hasn't had any water for three years. But Qing was careless and almost flooded the whole town. because of this, Bai sadly loses her chance of becoming a goddess. However Guan Yin informs her that she may have yet another opportunity.In the meantime Bai and Qing accidentally brought a scholar Xu Xian and his friend to the demon world. Bai protected them from demons and in the process fell in love with Xu Xian. After the battle with the Leader of the underworld, Xu Xian confesses his feelings for Bai, claiming that it was love at first sight. But in order for a human to go back to the human world they have to become unconscious and in the process also forget their time in the demon world. Xu Xian knows and avoids being knocked out. However, FaHai somehow found a way into the demon world and seeing Xu Xian, tricks him into being knocked out.Now Xu Xian is back into the human world and has forgotten everything. Since he and his friend went through the portal separately they land in separate places. There Xu Xian meets many new people.Soon after Bai takes the final step to becoming a goddess which is to collect human tears. Bai sees Xu Xian with another girl and assumes that they are a couple. The former green snake, Xiao Qing, realises that when Xu Xian and Bai meet, Xu Xian will again fall in love with Bai and so arranges a meeting. They then got married, opened a medicine shop and lived happily.But as demons and humans are not supposed to join, the town was struck by a plague and it was soon on the verge of total destruction. Bai, Qing and FaHai finally agreed to a truce and obtained the magical herb needed to help the population.Later Bai gets pregnant, but Fahai continues to try to eliminate her and Qing.On the fifth day of the fifth month, the Dragon Boat Festival is held. On that day demons revert to their true selves. Bai thus decides to take Qing and Xu Xian back to Ban Bu Duo, but Xu Xian falls for FaHai's tricks yet again and Bai shows her true self, scaring Xian literally to death. Bai retrieves the herbal medicine which brings Xian back to life. But after giving birth to a son Bai can't control herself anymore and is forced to tell her husband the truth about her origins. Xian kindly accepts her, but Fahai then attacks the weakened Bai and holds her to eternal captivity in the Leifeng Pagoda.Lesson fourTopic1：spring , summer, fall and winter, which season do you like best?Topic2： life often seems to be marked off into different periods: schooldays, marriage, old age, what is your opinion about life.Reading and comprehensionThanksgivingThanksgiving Day is a harvest festival. Traditionally, it is a time to give thanks for the harvest and express gratitude in general. It is a holiday celebrated primarily in Canada and the United States. While perhaps religious in origin, Thanksgiving is now primarily identified as a secular holiday.The date and location of the first Thanksgiving celebration is a topicof modest contention. Though the earliest attested Thanksgivingcelebration was on September 8, 1565 in what is now Saint Augustine,Florida[1][2], the traditional "first Thanksgiving" is venerated as havingoccurred at the site of Plymouth Plantation, in 1621. The Plymouthcelebration occurred early in the history in one of the original thirteencolonies that became the United States, and this celebration became animportant part of the American myth by the 1800s.Today, Thanksgiving is celebrated on the second Monday of October inCanada and on the fourth Thursday of November in the United States.Thanksgiving dinner is held on this day, usually as a gathering of family members and friends.Lesson fiveTopic1：How do you celebrate your birthday? What is your constellation?Topic2：What is your blood style? And from the blood style , can you tell some special characteristics about yourself?Reading and comprehensionHow to celebrate your birthday?At the birthday partyPeter: happy birthday , Alice . many happy returns of the day. Here is a present for you.Alice: thank you, Peter! Come into the dining room.John: have some sandwiches first , Peter.Peter: thanks. John, who’s that girl ?John: that’s Joan . she is pretty isn’t she? She likes to dance . ask her to dance.Peter: well , I don’t know.John: don’t be afraid . she isn’t going to bite you.Alice: I am going to cut the cake now.Chorus: happy birthday to you.。