"Describe a place or environment where you are perfectly content. What do you do or experience there, and why is it meaningful to you?"
During the summer vacation of my high school sophomore year, I went to Feng Huang in Hunan Province, which is a famous town all over China. That`s the place that really impressed me.
Almost every tourist visiting Feng Huang would be attracted by its beautiful and historical scenery. As a student growing up in an industrial city, never have I seen the rill flowing beside the path, which is paved with cobblestones. It was really unbelievable when someone told me that the waterwheel here in the rill was over one hundred years old , providing water for the residents here in their daily life.
People said that when you come to Feng Huang, the last scenery you should never miss is the Tuo River and the ancient buildings along the river side. This small river passes through the town quietly for millions of years, witnessing everything happened here and feeding everyone that live here. Women washed clothes with wood sticks on the river bank, cook with the water from Tuo River. The river is like the mother of this small town.
Once you step into this town, you are surrounded by houses built by black bricks with wooded beam as well as the famous “wooden feet” of the house that support the houses. During daytime, when we walked on the ancient brick roads in a rainy and foggy day, we felt like our heart is blend into this town and went back to hundreds years ago and we felt a total relax and clean of our body as well as the soul. At night, when we sat on the balcony of our room along the river and watched the sparkles of light of the houses、rivers, it’s just breath-taking beautiful.
Even it’s been many years from now, I still think of Feng Huang now and then. I miss the scenery、the culture and everything there. No wonder many people want to escape from the industrial cities to small towns like Feng Huang in seek of a kind of tranquil to their inner heart. I was deeply touched when thinking the polluted environment in the industrial cities: there are only smelly rivers with rubbishes and heavy metal precipitate , destroyed grassland without animals but holes for coal mining and heavy foggy days with toxic smell in the air. All the above are products of people`s desire for material wealth , which seems to be much more heavy than cultural progress.
I just wish people visiting or hearing of there can rethink ourselves . Less pollution and destruction , more environment caring and cultural protecting is what necessary and meaningful to the human material progress and cultural and ideological progress.