The understatement central to British tourist attractions_美文

The understatement central to British tourist attractions

I looked at the simple painting and reflected on its tranquility which is utterly different from the magnificence of the roaring Niagara Falls or the wild beauty of the Amazon rainforest. The Buckinghamshire woodland does not sing its own praises too loudly but the more I looked at it, the more its elegance came alive for me.

I wonder if the hundreds of thousands of Chinese tourists coming to London every year will increasingly venture beyond London, beyond the famous university towns such as Oxford and Cambridge, and beyond the well-loved Lake District National Park, to discover a piece of less well-known English landscape.

Over the years, I also became familiar with British reticence and modesty. I remember a straight-A classmate once telling me he "survived exams" and another friend from Oxford introducing himself as "studying in the countryside".

This modesty also has its mirror in Chinese culture, as I remember my parents' telling me to work hard but restrain from talking too much about my achievements. Chinese culture is full of proverbs such as "good wine needs no bush" and "real gold will shine sooner or later", to encourage long-term dedication to one's chosen area of expertise.

This mindset has helped me to appreciate the English way of understatement. I have learnt that the wild and open uplands in Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights and the lush and unspoilt meadows in John Constable's beautiful paintings are not just scenes in English history but are very much a part of British life today, waiting to be discovered by every one of its visitors.