My Favorite Book—Atlas

By opening the world atlas, I feel as if I were travelling around the whole world, which is the reason why I am fascinated by it.

I had never been captivated by the world atlas until I went to senior high school, where I was taught specific geography and told to read the atlas whenever I had time, even during the 10-minute breaks between lessons, since the  geography exams would be based on the world map and could be rather difficult without familiarity. At that time, everybody in our class owned a little, thin but very specific and useful world atlas, which only cost as little as 4 yuan. To be frank, I felt at first somewhat hard and annoying to read it, as it took up my precious breaks. However, after many times of regional-map reading practice for the exams by myself, I found I managed to tell to which country this area might belong, only basing on the latitudes, longitudes and some certain shapes of rivers or lakes, which I regarded as the repayment to my efforts. I felt extremely glad that my efforts got repaid. Thus I was encouraged and inspired, and ever since then I found it enjoyable to read the world atlas.

The world atlas brought me a great deal of fun when I argued with my friends as well, on where a certain area belonged to or which river or lake the little shape was. At times we kept arguing until we got blue in the face and finally turned to the origin, the world atlas. One of my best friends was overwhelmingly skilled at recognizing maps, which influenced me a lot and thanks to whom I promoted my ability of reading maps.

However, after I graduated from my senior high school, I decided to throw the little reach-me-down atlas together with other outworn books since I believed I hardly needed to use it any more, for which afterward I felt regretful. When I went into my university, I found that life without a world atlas seemed to be discounted. As a result I rushed into a bookstore and got a new world atlas completely the same as the old one and returned to my little room with a sigh of relief.

A year passed after that and again I would have to move, this time, abroad. I discovered that I had got so many things to take with me that I once again determined to leave the atlas in China, which turned out to be a total mistake. The first book I bought in Japan was an A4 sized atlas named World and Japan Atlas with which I started my new life in Japan. I traveled a great deal around Japan: almost half of Japan, from the north of Hokkaido to the south Okinawa. What I was accompanied by was the atlas.

The atlas is mysterious and magic. It records different lands and various regions on which cultures of diversity are given to birth, and it can lead its readers to different parts of the world. When opening the atlas, you will feel the whole world.

（532 words）