Great changes in China

Oct 1st is an important day for our country. On this day, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) celebrate its 70th birthday. Seventy years is a short period of time in history, but China has experienced many ups and downs during this time. We invited some young people to share their ideas about this special day. They talked about what makes them proud (骄傲) of China. They hope China will become better and stronger.

I am Zhang Xiyuan. I am very proud of the Chinese navy (海军). In one class, our teacher played a video about Chinese troops (军队) in Somalia fighting pirates (海盗). The pirates were cruel. But our troops never gave up. They fought hard to protect (保护) overseas Chinese.

I am Xing Yuxi. I’m from Chongqing. During my trip in Singapore, I saw that many people spoke Chinese. Singapore is a multilingual (多语言的) country, and the number of people who speak Chinese grows every year. I talked to a taxi driver there. He said, “Chinese people go to Singapore for their vacations and they buy many things every year. China is now Singapore’s largest import and export (进出口) partner. China is a great country.”

Vicuna, a small town in the north of Chile, is a great place for watching stars all year round. Although it is near the sea, the cold, wet air from the coast does not bring clouds. Instead, dry winds from the desert keep the clouds away at night. In fact, the sky is so clear in Vicuna that it is possible to see many stars that can be seen only with advanced（先进的）instruments in other parts of the world.

In Vicuna, distant（遥远的）star systems such as Magellanic Clouds can be seen without the help of an instrument. That is why the town was chosen as the home of a number of sky observatories (天文台). One of them, the Mamalluca, is quite different from the typical observatories used by scientists. This observatory was built for tourists who like to look at the stars. During the year, Vicuna’s hotels accommodate thousands of tourists who come from all over the world to see the night sky as they have only seen it in books. The cloudless sky is clearly a moneymaker for the town, which plans to set up even more observatories. It was recently decided that building observatories would go on for another few years.

At one point, however, the town faced a serious problem. As the town grew, more streetlights were added, making it more and more difficult to see the stars at night. The town saved the night sky by building a new system of lights that lit up the streets without influencing the view of the sky.

China is a country in East Asia. It is large in more than one way. More than 1.4 billion people live here. That’s about a fifth of all the people on Earth! And China is the third or fourth largest country by total area in the world. It covers about 3.7 million square miles.

This large country has many different kinds of land. It has some very low areas of land. In fact, the sixth lowest point on Earth is in China. It is Ayding Lake in the Turpan Depression (吐鲁番盆地). Other parts of China have mountains. For example, part of the Himalayan mountain is in the west part of the country. This area has some of the highest mountains in the world.

The snow in the mountains is a source (源头) of many rivers. In fact, the snow makes two of China’s most important rivers. They are the Yellow River and the Yangtze River. The Yellow River is China’s second longest river. It is very special to the Chinese people, as it was the birthplace of Chinese civilization (文明). The Yangtze River is the longest river in Asia and the third longest river in the world!

There are thousands of rivers in China. But there is still desert in the country. And rainforests are also in some areas of the country. So visitors can enjoy diverse landscapes (景色) in this country!