CNN: Premier Li, my question pertains to the missing airplane of Malaysia Airlines. First of all, our sympathy goes to the families of the passengers and crew members of MH370. It’s day 6 now and there is confusion and frustration. What’s your reaction to the current situation? What is China doing to harness all your resources, civilian, military, satellite imaging to assist in the search and rescue? And down the road, how will this incident impact China’s attitude and policies on opening-up including inbound and outbound tourism? What measures will you take to ensure the safety of Chinese citizens in and outside China? Will you tighten up the already tight security? Thank you.

My comments:

Down the road means further down the road, as if one is walking down a country road.

As one walks on, different scenes are going to appear, round the corner of the forest or up the mountain slope.

In our example, the CNN reporter wonders what happens next, later on, that is, after the dust has settled – though it perhaps never will for the grieving families.

In other words, in the aftermath of the MH370 tragedy, what’s going to happen? Will Chinese tourists continue to travel abroad in throngs? To Malaysia or, indeed, get on board a Malaysian airliner again, and things of that nature.

They will. But the lessons from MH370 must, somehow, be learned.

Related stories:

take sth in stride

Sour puss 酸貓？

in double time

out of the bottle

national god

give my right arm

sit sb down

hitch one's wagon to a star

fighting without fighting

on the back of

the buck stops there?

bargain for jobs

Build the case

Sound bites

Keep out of the park

Go places

Go to Zhang Xin's column

本文僅代表作者本人觀點(diǎn)，與本網(wǎng)立場(chǎng)無關(guān)。歡迎大家討論學(xué)術(shù)問題，尊重他人，禁止人身攻擊和發(fā)布一切違反國家現(xiàn)行法律法規(guī)的內(nèi)容。

About the author:

Zhang Xin（張欣） has been with China Daily since 1988, when he graduated from Beijing Foreign Studies University. Write him at: zhangxin@chinadaily.com.cn, or raise a question for potential use in a future column.