Advanced Reading Practice

Ever met someone who loses a fight but still walks away feeling like the winner? Meet Ah Q, Lu Xun’s unforgettable every Novels

Ever complained about a gloomy, sunless week? Try a whole year of it. Back in 536 AD, the sun dimmed to a mere ghostly g Academic / Science

If you’ve ever returned home after many years of absence to find that you had changed and grown, while everyone else had Novels

Today’s reading, Autumn Remembrance, was written by Shi Tiesheng in 1981 and describes a paralyzed young man’s slow, pai Essays

Of all the essays Chinese students read in school, this might be the one they remember longest. 《背影》, or My Father’s Bac Essays

An article about diet and nutrition from Xinhua News, with a side of sneaky kiwi advertising. News

In today’s post, we’ll read the first chapter of Ba Jin’s famous novel The Family. Set in 1920s Chengdu, The Family foll Novels

This non-fiction article dives into the terrifying story of the bubonic plague – how it wiped out up to half of Europe’s Academic / Science

Ever wondered how birds manage to fly thousands of kilometers without ever stopping to ask for directions? No Google Map Academic / Science

In today’s reading, we’ll tackle an encyclopedia-style passage about the geography and history of the Strait of Hormuz. Academic / Science

In this advanced read for sports lovers, we learn that Italy failed to qualify for the World Cup yet again. News

Today, we’re reading the first chapter of a beloved 1958 children’s novel by 张天翼 (Zhāng Tiānyì), “The Secret of the Magi Children's Stories Novels

This is the first part of the first chapter of the modern literary sensation, I Deliver Parcels in Beijing by Hu Anyan, Novels

This idiom, “破釜沉舟”, literally translates to “smashing the pots and sinking the boats.” It’s used to describe going all-i Idioms

At the 2026 Two Sessions, China’s largest annual legislative meeting, pharma exec Wu Xiangjun makes policy suggestions o Politics & Communism

This tragic story identifies the victims of the Lake Tahoe avalanche, which claimed the lives of eight people (with one News

Read the renowned Xu Zhimo’s famous poem about his time studying at King’s College, Cambridge in the 1920s. Poems and Songs

NASA is dusting off the lunar playbook and getting ready to send humans back to the moon for the first time in over 50 y News

Think Earth’s resources will last forever? Think again! China just announced a major initiative to mine the moon and ast News

Written by Zhang Muye, this ultra-famous fantasy series is about a team of cursed tomb raiders. The novel reads like a m Novels

In this tear-jerker essay, famous Taiwanese authoress Sanmao ponders on the value of her own life. It was written as she Essays

Binge drinking, breakups and air travel don’t mix, people. HSK 6 and up. News

An essay from Chinese lit diva Zhang Ailing about a scene of police brutality she witnessed in Shanghai in the 1940s. HS Essays

Ready for a serious challenge? In this myth, the Eight Immortals mess around in the Dragon King’s domain, almost startin Myths & Fables

In my most challenging post yet, you’ll read the first chapter of controversial literary bad boy Wang Shuo’s dark plunge Novels

In June, 1984, thirteen years before the Hong Kong handover, he gave this speech, addressing critics of the “One Country Politics & Communism

Doesn’t it seem like humankind has a collective memory of some prehistoric natural disaster built into our DNA? So many Myths & Fables

Assassins and spaceships and evil doings! Start reading Chapter One of the novel Support Human Beings by Liu Cixin, auth Novels

Song dynasty warrior-poet and folk hero Yuefei (岳飞) gets a tattoo to remind himself of his duty to his country. This is Biography

In Part II of this two-part series, we’ll read acclaimed author Ba Jin’s reply to the 10 elementary school students who Essays

Jia Pingwa (贾平凹) is one of China’s modern literary greats, and in this short story, it shows. I don’t know how this guy Essays

Lu Xun (鲁迅) lǔ xùn was one of China’s great 20th century writers and thinkers who felt that the heart and soul of the C Biography

Yu Hua (余华) is for sure my favorite author of Chinese modern lit. He writes the lives of ordinary village people, and li Novels

Hey guys. Been a while. I’m studying Chinese IRL, so I’ve got less reason to focus on the blog, but I have been getting Poems and Songs

Science! A quick paragraph about why peppers come in so many hues. Though the sentence structure here isn’t too bad and Academic / Science

Woo, I’m on a roll this week. I can’t vouch for the accuracy of the history here, not being a pencil history expert myse Academic / Science

In the spirit of the holiday season, which is winding to a blissfully overweight close, I give you an article about some Essays

Gonna lay it on a bit thick today with something nice and serious. This is an abstract of an academic paper from the Gen Academic / Science

This excerpt is one of the Tiger Team supernatural mystery novels for adolescents. The Tiger Team series was originally Novels

In this essay you’ll learn to read Chinese martial arts words – well, a few, anyway – but it’s not really the vocabulary Essays

This news story covers a new government initiative to help protect women from sexual harassment by providing special wom News

Get your dose of cheesy militaristic language in this excerpt is from the modern militant action novel “Coldspike”, or 冷 Novels

My heart goes out to the many who lost their family, friends or homes in Japan this week. This straightforward Chinese a News

I love mystery novels, especially the trashy ones. This synopsis’ll get you up to speed on all that evil grave robbing v Novels

This fable describes backstory / origination of the idiom 掩耳盗铃 yǎn ěr dào líng, which literally translates as “to plug o Idioms

Theft by the elderly is on the rise in Japan, reports China Youth Daily. While I usually classify news items as advanced News

If you’ve ever been to China during Spring Festival (Chinese New Year), you know how impossible it is to make travel pla News

A short news item from Beijing Youth Daily talks of the tragic January 14th stampede in a temple in India. News

This very short blurb from Sina.com features an announcement by Twitter chairman Jack Dorsey that Twitter has now exceed News

As you’re probably aware, most Chinese idioms are 4-character constructs that make little sense unless you know the stor Idioms