British Prime Minister David Cameron and his ministers were attending a reception hosted by Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. They insisted on wearing poppies (罂粟花) in their buttonholes.

　　What's wrong with that?

　　According to the Global Times, Chinese officials apparently had asked the UK delegation not to wear poppies. The British said that poppies meant a great deal to them on that day and they would wear them all the same.

　　So what's the significance of the poppy? It's a flower which has different cultural and symbolic meanings for British and Chinese people.

　　From the Chinese point of view, the poppy is a symbol of China's humiliation at the hands of European powers in the Opium Wars of the 19th century. Britain forced China to open the borders to trade — including in the opium — which was made from poppies grown in India.

　　Yet from the British viewpoint the poppy is a reminder of the killing during World War Ⅰ. Red poppies grew on the battlefields of Flanders in Belgium where many thousands of British soldiers died or were buried. Since then, Poppy Day (November 11 ) has become a time in the UK to wear poppies and remember the sacrifices of British soldiers and civilians in times of war.

　　So you can see that the poppy sets off strong feelings in the hearts of Chinese and British people for different reasons.And it makes sense for us to try to understand each other's standpoint.

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