When teaching foreigners Chinese, teachers often meet many questions about Chinese culture put forward by their students. This indicates that foreigners are becoming more and more interested in the glorious Chinese culture; and on the other hand, it also indicates that cultural introduction in teaching Chinese as a foreign language is a part that can not be ignored. The compilation of this book is to supply some useful materials for Chinese teaching with a view to spread Chinese culture. Since Chinese culture is so rich and colorful, it is surely impossible to give an overall introduction in such a small book. In this book, we will give very brief explanations to those questions frequently popping up in our teaching. To make it easier for foreigners to read, we also provide English translations. However, we should specify that not every article in this book has been translated word by word.

Hereby we would like to acknowledge Mr. Cheng Yuzhen for his revising the Chinese part of the articles in the book, and Professor Wang Yuju for his proof-reading a number of our English translations.

Special thanks go to Messes. Gao Fusheng, Chen Kunru and Cheng Shaofu, who share the work of examining the English version and making a great deal of valuable comments. We would also like to express our thanks to Ms. Wang Suyun from Beijing Language and Culture University Press, whose conscientious and detailed editorial work is a big contribution to the final publication of this book.

We would also like to acknowledge many authors because we have taken their works as reference in compiling our book. Their names will not be listed here because of a big number of them.