—in the City or in the Countryside?

The topic for my speech is where you would like to live ──in the city or in the countryside? I think I am the very person to offer the answer because I used to live in the countryside and I am now living in the city. So it's easy for me to make a comparison. As the saying goes, every coin has two sides. When you hear this question you may be aware that there are advantages and disadvantages of living in either place. What's good about liv-ing in the city? First, it's very convenient. You don't have to travel a long way to get what you need. And as telephone has be-come more widely used, sometimes you can do shopping at home. All you have to do is to dial a few numbers. What's more? you can enjoy spiritual products easily in the city. You can go to the library and bury yourself in the famous works of Shakespeare or Charles Dickens. Or you can relax yourself by going to the cinema for the recent blockbuster Titanic. They are right at hand. And what about in the countryside? I still remember the great mountains and flowing streams that I was familiar with. Every-thing is so natural and everybody there enjoys a peaceful life. That is one advantage of living in the countryside. You also don't have to worry about the noise or traffic jams or carrying your child to and from kindergarten. These problems do not exist there.

Now let's look at the other side of the coin. What are the disadvantages? Living in the city, I think, the biggest problem is pollution. The air is so polluted that it has become a dream for me to have a breath of purely fresh air. I don't know when this dream can come true. When I was living in the countryside, my favorite hobby was to observe the sky at night and count the stars. Now the sky above the city is so polluted that hardly any star can by seen at night. That's one of the disadvantages of living in the city. Of course, there are also other disadvantages. It's backward and inconvenient in transportation and communication. When I was living there, a 100-kilometre bus trip to the city would probably take 4 or 5 hours. And it was not comfortable at all because the road was rough and bumpy. In addition, it was hard to know what was going on in the outside world. There were not many books, magazines nor newspapers for sale and on-ly a limited number of channels can be received on TV. When I first came to the city to study, I found I knew too little.

So you might want to know, where exactly you would like to live? Well, I want to live in a place where I can conveniently enjoy the material prosperity produced by human beings. I can easily go to the library to study, and I can go to the cinema to en-joy myself at any time, and make full use of the modern public facilities. At the same time, I can sit under that starry sky, breathing fresh air, enjoying the pleasure of counting the twin-kling stars. That’s the place where I want to live.

评语：

Through the comparison between living in the city and in the rural areas, the writer points out the importance of protecting the environment and the need for developing economy in the rural ar-eas. The language in the article is fluent and well organized.

指导教师：纪文华