Want to say "hello" from Disneyland? Send a post card!
   Beautiful scenes of paradise (乐园), wild animals, silly pictures — you can find them all in one place. Where? On a post card! Have people always sent post cards? No. Before post cards, people liked sealed letters.
   The idea for the first decorated (装饰) post card came to John P. Charlton in 1861. He thought a simple card with decorations would be a great way to send a note. Then in the late 1800s, post cards with pictures appeared. By law, people had to write their note on the front ——on the picture! The back was only for the address. Several years later, England allowed a divided-back post card. Then people could write their note on the back left side and put the address on the right. During the early 1900s, the golden age of post cards, picture post cards became a craze of the world. In 1908, Americans alone mailed over 677 million post cards. Today, post cards are the third most popular collection in the world after stamps and coins.

    Ancient China produced many types of beautiful works of art. Among them，calligraphy(书法)，poetry(诗歌)and painting were the most famous. Often they would be put together in art. These became important starting with the Song dynasty.

Calligraphy is the art of handwriting. In the old times the Chinese considered writing as an important form of art. Calligraphers(书法家)would practice for years to learn to write perfectly，but with style. Each of over 40,000 characters needed to be written correctly. And each stroke(笔画)in a character had to be written in a certain order.

Poetry was also an important form of art. Great poets were famous all over the country，but all educated people were expected to write poetry. During the Tang dynasty poetry was so important that writing poetry was part of the examinations to become a civil servant (文官)and work for the government.

    Chinese painting was often connected with calligraphy. It is one of the oldest artistic traditions in the world. The most traditional way of Chinese painting is known as "national "or" native painting(国画)", which is quite different from Western painting. People can draw mountains, homes, birds, trees and water on it.