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 time 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 the 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.

    In 99% of human history, people took their food from the world around them. They ate all that they could find, and then moved on. Then about 10,000 years ago, or in 1% of human history, people learned to farm the land.

    The kind of food we eat depends on which part of the world we live in, or which part of our country we live in, For example, in the south of China they eat rice, but in the north they eat noodles. In European countries near the sea, people eat a lot of fish. In central Europe, away from the sea, people don't eat so much fish. They eat more meat. In Germany and Poland there are hundreds of different kinds of sausages.

    In North America, Australia, and Europe, people eat with knives and forks. In China, people eat with chopsticks. In parts of India and the Middle East people use their fingers to pick up food.

    Nowadays it is possible to transport(运 输) food easily from one part of the world to the other. We can eat what we like, when we like, at any time of the year. In Britain, bananas come from Africa; rice comes from India or the USA; strawberries come from Chile or Spain. Food is very big business. But people in poor countries are still hungry, and people in rich countries eat too much.