HSK 6 Reading Practice — 12 Free Chinese Stories
Literary and news-register Chinese, written for fluent readers. Every story below is free to read here in full, with pinyin above each word and an English translation on every line.
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都市夜归人 City Nightcomers
A literary sketch of metropolitan life after dark.
19 sentences · 290 characters · 136 words -
一封写给故乡的信 A Letter to My Hometown
An emigrant writes back to a town that no longer exists.
19 sentences · 297 characters · 128 words -
算法时代的孤独 Loneliness in the Age of Algorithms
Reflections from inside the recommendation feed.
19 sentences · 288 characters · 121 words -
老北京的胡同 Old Beijing's Hutongs
What disappears with each demolished alley.
18 sentences · 297 characters · 130 words -
苏东坡与黄州 Su Dongpo and Huangzhou
How exile turned a politician into one of China's greatest writers.
18 sentences · 296 characters · 122 words -
故宫的红墙 The Red Walls of the Forbidden City
A morning at the Imperial Palace, considered through its color.
18 sentences · 294 characters · 138 words -
鲁迅的呐喊 Lu Xun's Call to Arms
Why a doctor put down his stethoscope and picked up a pen.
19 sentences · 299 characters · 127 words -
茶马古道 The Ancient Tea Horse Road
A trade route through clouds, between leaves and hooves.
19 sentences · 309 characters · 148 words -
三峡 The Three Gorges
Two hundred kilometres of cliff and current, from Li Bai's light boat to the great dam.
16 sentences · 327 characters · 129 words -
二十四节气 The Twenty-Four Solar Terms
Before clocks and calendars, a country told time by wind, rain and light.
16 sentences · 301 characters · 133 words -
李白与月亮 Li Bai and the Moon
The poet who wrote the moon three hundred times, and drank with his own shadow.
16 sentences · 280 characters · 113 words -
春运 The Spring Festival Travel Rush
The largest human migration on earth, and the single meal at the end of it.
16 sentences · 292 characters · 124 words