Further Readings

Acountry is within a jade circle.On the top of the family is a tile.Everybody says our country is big.Actually it is a family.A heart is filled with the country.A hand supports a family.A family is the smallest part of the country.The country is made up of millions of families.The country is the outside world.Afamily is underthe sky.Only when one has a strong country, can one have a rich family.The country of many families lives in the hear.t Families of the country live in harmony.Country is honor.Family is happines.s Every inch of the country is every footprint of a family.When families are merged with the country, wondersare created onthe earth...The country ismy country.The family is my family.I love my country.I love my family.And I love my country and family.

——Lines from the song of My Country

Hello, motherland.Hello, motherland.Your children are praying for you.We wish everybody and every family in you live happily in sweet good day.s

——Lines from the song Hello, Motherland

Everybody loves his mother...with a warm heart...Dear motherland, kind mother...The Yangtze and Yellow rivers are flowing strong...The profound feelings we have for you...filled with the blue sky and the vast ocean...our loyalty to you.

——Lines from the song Motherland, Kind Mother

Quotations

I am son of the Chinese people. I love my motherland and people deeply.

——Deng Xiaoping

I love my motherland. I love my people. Without her and them, I cannot survive.

——BaJin

People often associate affection for one's motherland with one's feelings towards hometown and town fellows. In English“motherland”is also called homeland, and“patriot”one's compatriot. Homeland is where one is born and grown, and is also the place one may recall from time to time in his dreams throughout his life. It is where one starts his life, and may even be where one completes his life. Affection for one's homeland is the emotional basis of patriotism for all nationalities in the world. But, for the Chinese nationality, affection for one's homeland is particularly strong and deep, and it has become our nation's character. In Chinese history, there have been numerous poetic lines depicting this kind of special feeling:“Dusk saw a traveler missing his hometown which is still far away”from the Han Dynasty; “Looking up at the bright moon; Looking down pondering over his hometown”from the Tang Dynasty; and“Birds flow around trees at dusk; Thoughts of aged people are centered around his hometown”in the Qing Dynasty. Poet Ai Qing's lines depict contemporary Chinese peoples' emotional feelings of loving their hometowns, whether at home or abroad:“Why do I often have tears in my eyes? Because I love this land so dearly. ”Martin Burber, a German religious and philosophical thinker, commented, “No citizens in the world other than the Chinese are so attached to the land, pure and strong. Here, the people belong to the land, not the other way round. ”True, the Chinese people are deeply attached to their homeland, as evidently expressed in ordinary Chinese thinking of“ultimately residing in one's hometown, even if dead”, and the overseas Chinese are inclined to“look for roots”. The Chinese are reluctant to move away from their homeland. Once on foreign soil, images of his hometown will constantly appear in his dreams and he would embrace them affectionately and emotionally.