Lesson 15 Poplar Salute

Lesson 15 Poplar Salute

Mao Dun

Poplar trees are really extraordinary, I praise poplar trees!

When the car is running on the endless plateau, what comes into your view is a big blanket of yellow and green intricacies. The yellow is the soil, uncultivated wasteland, millions of years ago by the great forces of nature to accumulate the shell of the successful loess plateau; green, is the result of human labor over nature, is the wheat fields, and the wind blowing, turning up a round of green waves, - then you will truly admire the two words created by the past " The "wheat wave", if not by chance, is indeed the essence of the refined language. Yellow and green dominate the landscape, which is boundless and as straightforward as a main building, and you would forget that the car is driving on a plateau if you are not reminded by the distant peaks that look like side by side (these peaks, judging by your naked eyes, are under your feet). The feeling that rises up in you may be "majestic" or "great" or something like that; however, at the same time your eyes may feel a little tired and you are not sure about the current "majesty" or "greatness". You close your eyes to the current "majestic" or "great", and another taste grows in your mind - "monotonous"! But no, monotony, a little bit, right?

However, in a flash, if you look up and see a row of trees far ahead - no, or just three or five, one, standing proudly, like a sentinel, then what will be your sickly mood? I cried out in amazement then!

That is the aspen tree, a very ordinary tree in the northwest, but really extraordinary a tree!

It is a tree that strives for excellence, with a straight trunk and straight branches. Its trunk is usually ten feet high, as if it had been artificially added, and there are no side branches within one foot. All its maiden branches are all upward, and close together, also as if they had been artificially added, and become a bundle, never side; its broad leaves are also upward, hardly any oblique, let alone upside down; its bark is smooth and has a silvery halo, with a slight greenish tinge. This is a tree that remains stubbornly upright despite the oppression of the northern winds and snow! Even if it is only as thick as a bowl, it strives to grow upward, to a height of ten feet, two feet, towering in the sky, indomitable, against the northwest wind.

  This is the aspen tree, a very common tree in the northwest, but never an ordinary tree!

 It does not have a hovering posture, no curved and coiled gnarled branches. You may say it is not beautiful. If beauty is exclusively referred to the "hovering" or "out of the side" and so on, then, the aspen tree is not considered a good woman among trees. But it is magnificent, upright, simple, serious, and not lacking in gentleness, not to mention its strength and unyielding, it is the great husband of trees! When you walk across the plateau at the beginning of the snow melt and see such a poplar or a row of poplars standing proudly on the flat earth, don't you think it is just a tree? Don't you think it's simple, serious, strong and unyielding, or at least a symbol of the northern farmers? Don't you think that in the vast land behind the enemy's back, there are strong and unyielding sentinels standing proudly like this poplar tree, guarding their homeland? Don't you think a little farther, such branches and leaves united, striving for advancement of the poplar tree, just like a symbol of the spirit and will of today in the North China Plain, the blood to write the history of the new China?

  The aspen is not an ordinary tree. It is very common in the northwest, not valued, just like the farmers in the north; it has a strong vitality, can not be broken, oppression can not fall, also similar to the farmers in the north. I praise the aspen tree because it symbolizes not only the peasants of the north, but also, and especially, the spirit of simplicity, strength, and striving for advancement that is indispensable in our national liberation struggle today.

Let those who look down on the people, despise them, and are stubbornly regressive praise the aristocratic heather (which is also straight and long), and despise the very common and easy to grow poplar tree, I want to praise the poplar tree loudly!