中國對聯

◎江蘇省錫山高級中學 韓曉航 指導教師：劉揚巍

In my hometown Wuxi, there’s a famous academy called Donglin Academy（ 東 林 書 院）. Gu Xiancheng, a scholar in the Ming Dynasty left a famous couplet here. “The sounds of wind, of rain,and of reading aloud all come to my ears. The affairs of the family, of the state, and of the world are all my concerns.” The couplet shows his attitude towards learning and working. So, couplets are just a significant symbol of our culture, as well as a symbol of our long history and great wisdom.

But is that truly the case?

Couplets are made up of sentences, and sentences are made up of words.Language is surely a symbol of our culture. Chinese characters have kept developing since being created by Cangjie thousands of years ago. Even now, Chinese character system is still full of vitality. New expressions keep emerging, like “juan” which means studying or working especially hard.

So, is that the final answer? Well, I’ve got several questions here. Who created words and couplets? And who shaped and is shaping our great culture? It’s Gu Xiancheng, Cangjie and every common one of us, Chinese. It’s we Chinese who rely on our precious spirits to build our cultural self-confidence and make our culture great!