用英语讲中国-传统文化时文阅读(配练习)(一)-2026-2027学年译林版九年级英语上册

用英语讲中国-传统文化时文阅读(配练习)(一)

用英语讲中国 | 盘古开天地 Pangu Creates the Universe

In the beginning, there was no universe as we know it. I    1   , everything was without any form or order. There was no light and dark, or Earth and sky. In the middle of all things, there was a giant black egg. And in this egg, there s     2      a giant named Pangu. He looked much like a human being. He had a beard, wide shoulders, and strong arms and legs. Pangu wore a skirt of leaves and carried an ax. But where did Pangu come from? Some say that he was c      3     by the forces of yin and yang, two opposing forces from Chinese philosophy that are b     4      with each other, so that Pangu could bring order to the universe. However, we really do not know.

Pangu slept inside the egg for eighteen thousand years, never moving. Then one day he began to wake up. He tried to reach out his arms, but the egg's shell was hard. Surrounded by yolk(蛋黄) and egg white, he coolly took his ax in his hand and hit the shell as hard as he could. A      5       the shell broke open, the egg white floated(飘浮) up and formed the sky, while the yolk flowed down and formed the earth. In the beginning, the sky was not f       6       in place and kept falling. To stop it from falling, Pangu set his feet firmly on the earth, r       7      his powerful arms and held up the sky for eighteen thousand years. And as he stood there, every day he grew three meters taller, and the sky grew with him.

When the sky no longer needed Pangu's s       8      , he was so tired that he fell and died. The hair on his head and his beard became the stars in the sky, and his eyes the sun and moon. His body became mountains, his b       9      became rivers, his skin and the hair on his body grew into flowers and trees, and the insects on his body became humans.

The legend of Pangu may have had its start in the legends of different ethnic minority groups in southern China. For example, in the Zhuang people's stories a brother and sister named Pangu lived through a flood, got m      10      , and had children, creating the human race. On the other hand, the Miao people may tell you they came from Pangu, and the Yao people b      11      that Pangu was a king who created the world. These a      12       legends gradually spread in China and mixed with other legends and stories. Finally, they ended up as the story of Pangu coming from an egg and creating the world.

Pangu is seen as a great hero who was unhappy with the dark old world that he lived in and

d       13       to create something new. He also never gave up and c     14       to support the sky even when he grew tired. In the end, he gave his life to create the universe.

用英语讲中国 | 女娲造人及补天 Nüwa Creates Humans and Fixes the Sky

A more generally accepted legend about how humans were created is found in stories about a goddess named Nüwa, who had a human head and the body of a s      1       . As she traveled the earth, Nüwa began to feel l     2      , so she sat beside a lake. Taking some yellow earth, she m     3      it with water and formed a human. This new person immediately began dancing about and shouting in happiness. Nüwa was pleased so she continued to form other people

u      4        the world was full of humans.

Later, Gong Gong, the god of water, and Zhu Rong, the god of fire, had a great fight, creating a mess in the heavens and on the earth. In the end, Gong Gong lost. He was so a     5       that he hit his head a      6        Buzhou Mountain, which was holding up the sky, and the mountain fell. As the sky began to fall, all the planets and the stars started to move to the northwest, leaving a hole in the sky. Then the earth broke open, and fires and floods covered the land.

Worried that her humans would be k      7     , Nüwa took stones of five different colors, melted(融化) them and then used them to cover up the hole in the sky. To keep the sky from falling, she put a turtle's leg at each corner to hold it up. In this way, humans were s       8        .

Since ancient times, people in China have worshipped(崇拜) Nüwa as the mother goddess and the creator of humans, and it is thought that this legend may show that at one time China had a matriarchal(母系氏族的) society and women played a very i       9        part in Chinese life.

Nüwa is also k      10        as the goddess of love and marriage, and it was thought that she could arrange marriages and help women have children. Historically, many temples in China have been built for her, and even today many people worship at them. Nüwa is often m      11       in ancient stories. For example, Jia Baoyu, the main c       12        of Dream of the Red Mansions(宅邸), came from a stone that was left over when Nüwa repaired the heavens. Further, the 16th-century novel The Investiture of the Gods begins with King Zhou (ca. 1105-1046 BCE) doing evil things that annoyed Nüwa, so she decides to bring this t      13        ruler to ruin(毁灭).

Today, Nüwa is generally t      14       of as an example of a good mother, in that she is generous and loving. She wants to help and support her children, so that they could have happy and long lives.

用英语讲中国 | 孔子和中国哲学Confucius and Chinese philosophy

Confucius

Confucius, whose given name is Qiu, styled himself Zhongni (551-479B.C.), was born in Zouyi, the State of Lu (now in south-eastern Qufu, a city in Shandong Province). As founder of the Confucianism, he was a great philosopher and educator in the end years of the Spring and Autumn Period. His forefathers were nobles in the State of Song, later the whole family m     1       to the State of Lu. When Confucius was very young, his father d      2      , so the family began to decline. He

d      3     a firm and persistent character owing to the early years' experience of frustrations.

Confucius' Thought

Confucius was the first thinker in China's intellectual history to c      4       moral(道德的) standard as the first and highest criterion of man's behaviour and government. The core of morality, according to him, is humanity (humaneness or benevolence). “To be humane is to be a man,” he said. This s     5      that in his view it is the q     6      of humanity that makes a man a man. He pointed out that humanity meant to “love other men”; to “help others to be established when one wishes to be established oneself; and help others to be successful when one w      7       to be successful oneself”; and “not to impose on others what one does not desire oneself”.

About the Analects(论语)

The Analects is a book compiled after discussions by his disciples(信徒), and p     8        his disciples' disciples, who had taken notes of what their master and his main disciples had talked about.

The book is faithful and reliable because it is b      9      on the notes taken by the students of what their teacher had said. At the same time, it is only n      10     if there are in it some repetitions(重复) and inconsistency(不一致) in wording, because it is a collection of the notes taken by d       11        students.

In the book there are all together about 490 s      12        of Confucius and his main disciples. These are d      13        into 20 sections(部分), in about 12,700 words. They discuss a wide range of subjects: morality and rites, government and law, education and learning, knowledge and practice, music and poetry, the gentleman's qualities and the small man's weaknesses, the will of Heaven and destiny, the mean, the way of self d       14       , and the right attitude toward ghosts and spirits. In