Writing and Reading
Teacher: Mr. Chen
The Writing Practice 5 for Contrast and Comparison—City Life and Country Life
Student: Lance Huang
Outline:
The topic is contrast between the city life and the country life, and the contrast is
based on self experience I used to be.
The city life: busy, pressure, hard work, achievement, convenience, shopping, movie,
entertainment, the air pollution, the busy mass transmission system, my parents, my
siblings, coldness between people, everything is complex
The country life: my old and stubborn grandpa, my tender grandma, the nostalgia, the
tangerine garden, the old house, living on the mountain, fresh air, comfortable
atmosphere, the life without worry, get up early, quiet, seldom going to the town, no
many shopping store, do not have to worry about the relationship between people,
simple food for every meal
Possible idea for contrasting: complex relationship to people versus simple
relationship to people, the convenience life versus isolated life on the mountain, the
irregular and regular work and rest life
Text:
Everyone has her own image to the city life and the country life; therefore I have
my own idea to these two kinds of life style. To me the city life is quite different to the
country life, and the comparison sources are my life experience and my memory. I
lived with my grand parents in the country in my childhood; after I finished my first
year in the elementary school, I came to live with my parents in the Taipei County.
From then on, I go back to my grandparents’ old house when it is summer or winter
vacation. Under this situation, the differences between the city life and the country life
becomes evidently.
The first difference in these two different life styles one can figure out easily is
the different level of regularity of work and rest. As a dweller in the city, I always
have the hope to have more than 24 hours a day; the limit of time effects me cortically.
Thus, burning the night oil is what I usually. I think many people living in the city
have the same problem like me. However, when I have chance and time to live in the
country with my grandparents for vacation, I feel the time going slowly. It is not just
for the mood of having vacation, but the atmosphere there bring to me. The dwellers
there always get up before 5 A.M., and sleep about 8 P.M. in the night. Students and
farmer go out early for work and study and also come home early. It makes feel the
time always enough.
The level of convenience is the other big difference in the two different life styles.
People live in the city can experience the convenience the mass transit system and the
prosperity of the commerce bring. By the speed small paying traffic people can get
any site in the city. Moreover, the prosperity of commerce not only brining the
entertainment like the shopping, movie seeing, or something else, it also makes people
get equipment to make their life more comfortable and expediency. In the countryside,
there is no sign for leading much convenience life, except some equipment the
modern family need like the TV or the electricity. The inconvenience is also revealed
on its scarcity of mass transit system and the commercial facilities. Then people in the
country side leave isolated to the outer world. However, since the isolated situation,
people there gain really simple life quality; whereas, the convenience of the city life
make people live much busier for many activities they can choose to apply to.
The third difference I intend to introduce is quite influenced by the former two I
have already mentioned. It is the complexity level in people’s relationship with the
others. Dealing with the relationship with the others is quite important in the modern
society, especially to city dwellers. Because of the high tension of the life, the
relationship between people becomes tension also. When face to different ones,
people use various ways to communicate with like wearing different masks. Living in
the country sides, I find that I do not have to be so hypocritical for I met really scarce
people there. Who I communicate with is familiar with me; then I have no need to
wear mask to face them. Moreover, people I will meet there are elders and children,
and they use the most common way to each one. They do not hide what they think
about.