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Preface
Locating in the east of Asia and on the west coast of Pacific Ocean, China has been a country with vast territory featuring complex land Forms and inhabited by numerous ethnic groups since ancient times. It boasts the world's richest and most beautiful natural and cultural landscape, which can be broken down into Forms oF beauty unique to different regions over the four seasons oF each year. Readers will be able to gain a better understanding oF seasonal changes across the country from south to north, and back again.
Topographically speaking, China resembles a giant flower basket. From the eastern and southern coasts of China, with the lowest elevation, to the western highland areas crowed by the vast Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, there are different types of natural landscape such as plains, hills, basins and mountains. Impacted by Factors such as geographical position and climate, such landscapes vary with the changes of season. In special cases, a high mountain range could have landscapes unique to the Four annual seasons existing at the same time on opposite sides.
In traditional Chinese aesthetics, spring is the season oF recovery. After the long winter, everything returns to life and begins to grow, becoming full of vitality. Su Dongpo (1037-1101), one of the eight most famous scholars and literati in the Tang and Song Dynasties (618 - 1279), once wrote lyrically in a poem, "Two or three boughs of peach bloom beyond the bamboo grove； when the water in the Spring river becomes warm, ducks are the First to know it." The monotony of Nature in winter is suddenly greeted by gentle spring breezes, colorful flowers bloom. Spring brings new life after a long winter.
