英文美文 · 第二十四辑

Before sunrise, a big square in Beijing is already full of people. They stand in the dark and wait. Then soldiers walk out. From a bridge to the flag pole, they take 138 steps. The flag goes up in 2 minutes and 7 seconds. That is how long the sun takes to leave the sea. So the flag and the sun rise together. Some arrive at three in the morning. They wait in the cold wind, but no one leaves. When the flag reaches the top, everyone looks up, and many eyes turn wet.

In 1949, China needed a new flag. The country asked everyone to send in ideas. One letter came from a man in Shanghai. His name was Zeng Liansong. He was not a famous artist. He worked in an office and drew at night. He put one big star and four small stars on a red cloth. The big star stands for the Party. The small stars stand around it for all the people. His design was chosen from thousands. In October, the red flag rose for the first time. An ordinary man had drawn it.

Some songs are soft and sweet. This one is not. It starts with a shout. In 1935, Japan was hurting China. Two young men wrote a song. One wrote the words. The other wrote the music. His name was Nie Er. He was only 23. He made the song sound like a drum. Short lines, strong beats. They wanted people to stand up and fight for their country. Later, it became the national song of China. It has only 84 words. When a billion people sing it together, it still sounds like a drum.

In the middle of a big square in Beijing stands a tall stone. It is almost 38 meters high. On the front are eight big words. On the back are 150 small words. The words are not about one person. They are about all the people who gave their lives for this country. Some were soldiers. Some were workers. Some were very young. Around the stone are eight stone pictures. They show the long, hard road. Every year on September 30, the country lays flowers here. The stone is quiet. But its words say: we remember you.

Ninety years ago, a long line of people walked across China. They had no cars and no trains. They wore straw sandals, and many had no shoes. They crossed snow mountains and deep rivers. The trip took a whole year. People call it the Long March. Now a fast train runs on part of that same road. It crosses the same old towns in a few hours. You can drink tea and watch the mountains pass. The same land, the same road, a different speed. The sandals are in a museum. The trains are still moving.

Look up at the night sky. About 400 kilometers above you, three Chinese people are living in a small home. It is called Tiangong, the palace in the sky. They sleep, eat and work there. They even grow rice in space. Once, two of them stepped outside for five and a half hours. They fixed a solar wing, a wing that catches sunlight. Long ago, China was not allowed to join other countries in space. So China built its own home up there. At night, that small light can be seen from the ground.

In the south of China, a wide stretch of sea separates three cities. People once crossed it only by boat. Then engineers built a bridge that seems to walk on the water. It is fifty-five kilometers long. Cars enter a tunnel and drive under the sea. The bridge was designed to stand for one hundred and twenty years, strong enough for any storm. A foreign company once offered to help, but its price was far too high. So Chinese engineers solved it themselves. When the bridge opened, it was the longest sea crossing in the world.

Every autumn, a giant basket of flowers rises in the great square of Beijing. Inside are peaches, pomegranates and peonies, all far larger than life. On the side, four words say: bless our motherland. Below them is a line of numbers, 1949 to 2026. The tradition is forty years old. At first there were only a few flat flower beds. Year by year they grew larger and taller, until they filled a basket reaching the sky. The flowers changed as the country changed. Reading them year by year is like reading a nation's diary.

On the highest plateaus of western China, the air is thin and the wind never stops. Along the border, young soldiers stand at their posts, day after day. Some posts sit more than five thousand meters above the sea. Up there, water boils at a low heat, and a short walk leaves a person breathless. The soldiers are far from their families. They celebrate birthdays on frozen ground. Most of us will never meet them or know their names. But every peaceful night we enjoy has been paid for by someone standing in the snow.

In 2015, a war broke out in a country far from China. Suddenly, hundreds of Chinese workers were trapped in a city with no safe way out. Planes could not land. Then a Chinese navy ship appeared at the port. Sailors stood along the deck and called out: come home. One by one, they were taken to safety. Other countries told their citizens to look after themselves. China sent ships and planes again and again. A passport cannot take you everywhere. But when trouble comes, it can bring you home. It is a promise kept many times.

People often picture old scientists with grey hair when they imagine the team that sends rockets into space. In fact, many of those engineers are surprisingly young. In the control room, the average age is around thirty. They work through long nights, checking numbers again and again. A tiny mistake can cost a whole mission. When the rocket finally lifts off, the room fills with cheers and tears. They grew up in a country that was already strong, and now they are building its next chapter. They simply keep working, and the sky keeps opening.

This is not about tall buildings or fast trains. The most surprising thing is the ordinary habits of daily life. At midnight, people walk out for noodles without fear. A street seller takes payment with a quick phone scan. To us, none of this is special, because we grew up with it. Visitors notice it at once, knowing how hard it is to make a society run this smoothly. In one long holiday, three billion trips were made, and everything kept moving. Greatness is not always loud. Sometimes it looks like a peaceful, ordinary day.