Likes
Editor's Note: The third SCNU English writing contest, themed "Telling China’s Story", ended with 422 entries from 33 different schools. We congratulate all prize winners on their outstanding performance. Awarded winners have been announced (see results), and all winning entries will be published in this column.
-------
By Qiu Xiaoyang
"Profound history in our hearts, and extended roads before our eyes", the Yellow River and Yangtze River have nurtured a splendid civilization and formed the well-known Chinese culture. Over the lengthy course of more than 5,000 years, we have always been committed to our responsibility as a major country and strived for common glory with the rest of the world. Our long-lasting and well-established stories have been written and passed down from generations to generations in the pace of inheritance and development. With great affection, let me tell you the miraculous story of my nation, and let me take you, my beloved friends, on a long but colorful journey of the rapid development of China.
Deeply rooted in the fertile soil of traditional Chinese culture, the story of China is a story of cultural heritage and development. Our nation has formed a profound, unique and uninterrupted culture over the course of more than 5,000 years of history. In each historical period, the Chinese nation has left behind a large quantity of immortal works, which together wrote a glorious chapter of Chinese culture.
Among the hundreds of schools of culture in the pre-Qin period, thinkers such as Laozi, Confucius and Mozi who extensively explored the true meaning of the relationship between man and man, man and society, and man and nature, have earned an enormous reputation in astronomy and geography. Many of the concepts they put forward, such as filial piety and loyalty, courtesy, justice, honesty, benevolence, love others, be kind to others, harmony between man and nature, natural law and self-improvement, still have a profound impact on the lives of our Chinese people.
Later, from the Wei Jin Southern and Northern Dynasties metaphysics, Sui and Tang Confucianism, Buddhism, and Song Ming Confucianism; from the Book of Songs, Chu Ci, Han Fu, to Tang poems, Song Ci, Yuan Qu, Ming and Qing novels; from the "Four Great Inventions" of ancient China to Chinese music, painting, and porcelain, the brilliant achievements and far-reaching influence of Chinese excellent traditional culture have provided us with a strong confidence to create a socialist cultural power today.
These treasures of culture have not disappeared with the fleeting of time, on the contrary, with the development of new media, they have gone out of museums in the form of exhibitions, documentaries, cartoons, cultural creations, etc. For example, in order to make cultural relics "live" again, the Palace Museum organized cultural activities such as "New Year in the Forbidden City" and "Night of Yuan Dynasty in the Forbidden City".
For the first time, the ancient buildings of the Forbidden City were illuminated on a large scale at night, and for the first time, it is open to the public for free in the evening, which allow more and more people visit the Forbidden City. At the same time, the Palace Museum has also launched a variety of exquisite cultural creations, which has contributed to people's cultural cognition and inheritance of the traditional culture of Forbidden City. All in all, with the heritance and development of our beloved culture, our stories could be deeply rooted in the soil of our nation through weeding through the old to bring forth the new.
Our story cannot be written without the main theme of the inheritance and development of perseverance, unity and devotion. The spirit of struggle, unity and devotion has long been deeply imprinted in the genes of our nation. In ancient Chinese mythology, to carve out the ways to the outside world, Yu Gong and his family united together and kept carrying away small stones from a mountain from generations to generations; in order to tame floods, King Yu devoted himself for years and finally figured out the proper way to tame the flood. In modern times, our revolutionaries selflessly sacrificed themselves to resist the Japanese invaders and spread the fire of revolution to all parts of the nation. "A single spark can start a prairie fire." It was these martyrs who united and stubbornly resisted aggression to protect our country and people. In modern times, since the reform and opening up, China has created an astonishing development miracle that shocked the world.
Over the past 70 years, the torrent of reforms, which allow our country to burst into vitality and make strides towards the future, is constantly surging. In the past, we could only look up at the moon and imagine the beautiful scene of Chang'e and Yutu dancing on the moon; we could only gaze into the distance of the blue sky and be surprised by its broadness; we could only gaze toward the blue ocean and wonder what's in the depth of the ocean. But time is fleeting and things have changed, nowadays, with the successive launches of the "Shenzhou" and "Chang'e" series of manned spacecraft; with the C919 large passenger plane soaring in the blue sky and with China's manned submersible, Jiaolong, attempting the country's deepest-ever 7,000-meter manned dive in the Mariana Trench, we have already unveiled the mysteries which have troubles us for centuries and turned over a new leaf of our story.
Some people might call the miracle of China's development the "industrious revolution." However, it's worth mentioning that from the inability to make nails and matches to the emergence of "two bombs and one star", we inherit the courage and unity of our predecessors, keep breaking through other and yet other obstacles. It is the hard work and struggle of the Chinese that made the impossible possible. Meanwhile, our course of struggle have cultivated the spirit of the Long March, the spirit of "two bombs and one satellite", the spirit of manned spaceflight, the spirit of earthquake relief and so on, have been deeply embedded in our national consciousness, national character, and national temperament. In the past 70 years, the struggle and sweat of countless people have poured out the beautiful "Chinese landscape" and created a wonderful "Chinese story".
We continue to write the new chapters of our story with openness and inclusiveness based on the chapters written by our forefathers. Traced back to Han Dynasty, from 138 BCE, Emperor Wu dispatched Zhang Qian (张骞) twice as his envoy to the Western Regions. Since then, Chinese gold and silk have found their way as far as to the south of the Mediterranean. In the Ming Dynasty, the voyages of Zheng He down the western oceans brought a large variety of precious spices to the West.
In modern times, from infrastructure construction to improvement of people's livelihood, from trade to cultural exchange, we strive to cooperate with all countries for a win-win situation. Listening to the rings of camel bell on the Eurasian continent, the "Belt and Road" connects the hearts of the country along the route. Traversing Central Asia and finally reaching the Netherlands in the west, our high-speed rail, which extends from all directions, facilitate the communication and exchange with our surrounding countries.
At the China International Import Expo (CIIE), we have attracted the attention of guests from all over the world with our dazzling array of products; and the railways that crisscross the land of South Asia are the bond of cooperation, construction and friendly exchanges which unites us together. From the sea vitality and land vitality at ancient time to the all-round cooperation and openness currently. We have always inherited the spirit of openness and cooperation, and vigorously developed new open policies and facilities at the same time.
"So majestic is our young China, forever with the universe, so robust are our Chinese youth, eternal with our motherland." We have blazed a new and good road of socialism with Chinese characteristics which has become the road of national development and inheritance, national rejuvenation and people's happiness. Our story will continue, just as our pace will always steadily move forward.
What to read next:
