Perfect for intermediate students of Chinese who want to improve their reading skills and gain a deeper understanding of Chinese culture, this book presents stories from Chinese history followed by lists of vocabulary, idiomatic expressions, sentence patterns, and slang. Each section ends with a series of simple exercises based on the readings. Because vocabulary has been selected from the 3,000 most frequently used characters in Chinese (from the Chinese Language Press Institute's list of 3,000 characters commonly used in newspapers), this reader is ideal for intermediate students of Chinese who are looking for authentic yet accessible reading materials in Chinese. Included also are appendices listing the 1000 Most Frequently Used Characters and dictionary-style entries for vocabulary. Full color illustrations and photographs throughout. Pronunciation of all annotations is given in both Chinese Phonetic Symbols and Yale Romanization. Grammatical designations follow the Dictionary of Spoken Chinese published by Yale University.