在南京这样大的城市里, 无论从字面上还是在日常生活中, 绿色通道都提供了新鲜空气。
My comments:
If you’ve been staying inside a stuffy room, a meeting room for instance full of smokers, and then you go out to the balcony, you’ll literally feel what a breath of fresh air feels like.
Yes, it’s like inhaling clean air for the first time in a long while, air that’s not stale, contaminated and smelly.
Figuratively speaking, one can feel what a breath of fresh air spiritually when one experiences something new, imaginative, relieving and very welcome.
After 2,000 years of feudalism, for example, the Chinese people embraced science and democracy in the early 20th century like a suffocating people longing for oxygen.
Science and democracy were a much needed breath of fresh air for us then. In fact, they are something we still need, and in large quantities, today.
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本文仅代表作者本人观点,与本网立场无关。欢迎大家讨论学术问题,尊重他人,禁止人身攻击和发布一切违反国家现行法律法规的内容。
About the author:
Zhang Xin(张欣) has been with China Daily since 1988, when he graduated from Beijing Foreign Studies University. Write him at: zhangxin@chinadaily.com.cn, or raise a question for potential use in a future column.