英语文章美文赏析 There are few opportunities for me to physically go out of my city for sightseeing, and even fewer to take part in a tourist group. Such an occasion came when I was invited to a day trip to Wujiaqu, or Five Family Creek, a new farm-turned city 32 km away from Urumqi to which I’d never been before. Without the least hesitation I accepted the invitation. It was an outing organized by the local disabled persons’ federation. A 30-strong party of “special citizens” and their caretakers, it was a “special group ” consisting of people with cerebral palsy, polio, and permanent spinal cord injuries. A few sat in wheelchairs, some leaned on crutches, and still some limped around with their heads and hands turning and wringing at odd angles. They could create an attraction unique in its own! But each and every one of them wore a happy face and talked animatedly with one another as I joined the lot on April 30, 2009. “Disabled” has always been a harsh word to me, however subconsciously admitted I am to the fact that I belong to that “lot.” I was brought up in a world of
“normal people.” There is literally nothing I cannot do in my parents’ loving care. The use of the Internet and the grasp of the English language have pushed me even further away from the consciousness that I am disabled. Right thismoment when I, for the second time, stood in the cool morning air with the “lot ” waiting for the charted bus, I became more than ever conscious of my “nervous problems,” and an hour of waiting seemed like an eternity. Finally the bus arrived. I went on board with my mother and chose a seat by the window in the second row. The engine started when everyone was seated with all the wheelchairs secured in the aisle. From an attractive midget young lady two seats away on my right, I retrieved my glance and focused it on the window. Past corn fields, vineyards, and vegetable plantations, the bus came to a halt one hour later in what looked like a small parking lot of a scenic spot called “The 4th Annual Exhibition of Tulips.”Tulips! Tulips! Noble, graceful, attractive plants they are! Why is it that a plant looks to me almost like a gentle young lady? Ask Thumbelina from one of my picture books Mother used to read me when I was young – which depicted
a pretty girl climbing out of a tulip-like flower I have loved tulips ever since, but was never given a chance to get a real-life sight of them until now…. But it was not until the bus, with tremendous difficulty, maneuvered a few feet closer to the entrance some 30 minutes later, did I get off to catch my first glimpse at my favorite flower. Arranged in crescent beds are patches of red and yellow dazzling under the blazing sun. Despite the warning “Stay where you are and we will have a group photo taken in a moment,” my legs take me to the nearest bed. Bending down, I fix my gaze at one particular tulip, which holds its six red petals on an upstanding stem. Around the stem sprouted several half-folded triangular leaves like two little hands posed as if to support the stem and the flower. Inside the petals there is no little Thumbelina to be found but a tiny golden pistil standing up straight on purple and yellow star-patterned velvet, bracing itself up for the sun’s and my glare. “Attention. Time to take the photo!” Comes a shout from the crowd behind. Obediently I turn around and squeeze into a pool of standers for one unified “Cheese!” And then a real tour of tulips begins. Along a tree-lined road there are red, yellow, pink, orange, magenta, crimson, cream, snowy white, pearly silver, dark purple, light gold, and rosy claret – the only colors I
