Gems of Chinese Literature/Liang Ch‘i-ch‘ao-My Country!
THE greatest country in the greatest of the five continents of the world,―which is it? My country, the Middle State, the Flowery Land! The people who number one-third of the human race,―who are they? My countrymen of the Middle State, the Flowery Land! Annals which extend back without a break for over four thousand years,―of what country are these? Of my country, the Middle State, the Flowery Land! My country contains four hundred million inhabitants, who all speak what is fundamentally the same language, and use the same script: of no other country can this be said. Her ancient books hand down events which have occurred during more than thirty centuries past: of no other country can this be said.
Of old, there were five States: China, India, Persia, Egypt, and Mexico. Of four of these the territory remains, but as States all four have disappeared. Wandering over the deserted sites, you see only traces of the ruins left by the ironclad horsemen, followers of Mahomet, or the arenas where once warlike Caucasian tribes gloried in the song and dance. But my country, the Middle State, the Flowery Land, stands proudly alone, having survived, in one unbroken line, ever increasing in size and brilliancy, down to the present day. And in the future it will spread into a myriad branches, to be fused together in one furnace. Ah, beautiful is my country! Ah, great are my countrymen! Now, ere inditing a rough outline of their story, I must purify myself thrice with perfume and the bath; then, looking up to heaven, with many prostrations, thank God that I was born in this lovely land, as one of the sons of this great people.