On Good Manners

Have you ever seen the TV series "Shanghai Beach" and do you remember the hero Wen Ge? How handsome and resolute he was! Thousands of people admired his manners. Many young people, in particular, liked him so much that they tried to imitate his gestures and copy the style of his clothes. I don't know what you think about good manners. When some young men walk down the street, wearing fine clothes and long hair, do you think they are smart? I don't think so, and I am not alone in holding this opinion. Many people are sneering at them!

What are good manners? To put it in a nutshell, good manners refer to the speech and behavior of people who make us fell comfortable. Seeing a good-mannered man, we say, "Oh, how nice he is!" We live in a colorful world, and good manners appear in different forms. Do you like Mrs. Thatcher, the British prime Minister? The late Premier Zhou Enlai was well known for his diplomatic manners. Zheng Xiaoying, a famous conductor, has impressed so many people with her artistic style. Obviously, the manners of each are different, yet each has his own charms to win admirers. Why?

One reason, I think, is that their manners are a natural expression of their character and personality, without ant trace of affection. Good manners are a representation of the beauty in people's spirits. People with different educational backgrounds have different manners. If you make a peasant imitate an artist, the result will be ridiculous. So are the young people who imitate Wen Ge.

We all know the story "Dong Shi blindly imitated Xi Shi". Dong Shi, an ugly woman, heard that Xi Shi was as beautiful as a fairy. One day she went to see for herself. However, Xi Shi happened to be sick that day with a stomachache. She knitted her eyebrows and wore a painful expression, yet she was still surprisingly beautiful. Dong Shi mistakenly thought that her beauty derived from the painful expression on her face. So Dong Shi knitted her eyebrows in imitation of X