寻路中国读后感.doc

Book Review of Country DrivingCountry Driving is a travel notes written by an American reporter named Peter Hessler who described the real situation in early 21st century in China. When he acquired his driving license in the summer of 2001, he started his journey through China from farm to west. Generally speaking, he drove along the Great Wall, which played an important role in ancient China, in order to witness the history. On his way, he met lots of strangers, for example, a feng shui master demonstrated his adaptability by flourishing a business card listing 27 services included marriage、funeral and so on. He seemed to be very interested in Chinese culture so he always consulted old man about the local historical sites. When heard that Chinese government officials exploited the farmers and concealed facts of tree planting in the countryside, the author was pretty upset. Reading the early fifty pages of this note, I learn a lot.First, from the writers view, I can notice the imbalance in development. Not only regional economies such as eastern city like Beijing and western city like Shanxi but also urban and rural development is uneven. Peter devoted himself to portray in a comprehensive view included culture、local people、historic sites、even the government officer. The western regions still had remained Poverty and ignorance and the local were inclined to change their life. Therefore, lager numbers of farmers flooded into the cities. As a result, eastern cities turned into more and more prosperous while the western countryside was falling into decay constantly. Moreover, the imbalance between the prosperous east and the impoverished west exist currently even though the government spares no effort to support western area. Meanwhile, the author also offered a fair description of the imbalance between the development of economy and that of thought patterns. For instance, it seemed that people was not accustomed to the increasing numbers of cars. The author repeatedly mentioned the aspect of traffic. Just like Peter said “it was a nation of new drivers, most of them negotiating new cities, and the combination was lethal.” Interestingly, I am very surprised that the FengShui masters were still popular in that era. In fact, Peoples minds should be adapted to the economy. From my own perspective, Fengshui, as the symbol of feudal dross, should be abandoned. Nowadays the central government has already conscious the imbalance and on these conclusions, some policy suggestions has been put forward such as the strategy of western development and Silk Road of modern times. Secondly, I feel extremely angry when I read the content about plant trees in the YouYu County. Obviously, the incompetence of government officials is appalling. In the authors narrative，the officials embezzled funds which should be used in tree-planting to reduce erosion. On the contrary, the officials just planted the trees along the road side which made a show. There was a detail in the book that the officials urged the author to drink alcohol even if the author explained that he had to drive after a while. Through this matter, it was apparent that the officials ignored the law and lacked of legal consciousness. Whats more, they just provided five bowls of instant noodles to employ the farmers who didnt possess the fields to plant the crops. Comparing with those government officials, it was farmers that had suffered a lot of pains. Even today, in China, there are universal phenomena existing in current corruptive and bribery crimes. In my opinion, official corruption is the key factor that hampered the development of western region and rural area. After all, local government as an important part of the governmental system, are not only executors of national policies, but also organizers and coordinators of the local economies and social development. In the country driving, everyone must admit the policy which utilized the loans from World Bank to construction and tree-planting was totally correct. However, officials didnt carry out the policy. How to solve the problem? Central government should promote the Local Government to implement the policies effectively. In the other hand, the political system should build and complete the system of discipline inspection and supervision in the government to restraint the local officials power. Finally, I want to express my own view on protecting traditional culture. Peter Hessler drove along the Great Wall that he considered the wall as a miracle which embody traditional Chinese culture and history. There are so many historic sites like beacon tower. just like the author wrote in his book “Chinese historians focus on textual research, and usually they study political institutions that can be traced through the records of a dynasty or government. So the Great Wall was ignored. In my opinion, it played an important role in Chinese history, defending the invaders. Chinese should pay their attention to the sites and protect the traditional culture. Nowadays, Chinese traditional culture consciousness is increasingly weak. It is not right that most of us prefer the western culture to our own culture. However, traditional Chinese culture deserves great respect and therefore the blind worship of western culture should be abandoned. So when we learn to absorb the western culture and civilization, our college students should know more about our national culture because one country or one nationality should have its own characteristic. We should attach importance to the traditional culture and protect the historic sites and spread ou