美丽中国全集英语字幕文稿.doc

1、美丽中国 Wild China1 BBC龙之心 Heart of the DragonThe last hidden world, China. For centuries, travelers to China have told tales of magical landscapes and surprising creatures. Chinese civilization is the worlds oldest and today, its largest, with well over a1.3 billion people. Its home to more than 50 di

2、stinct ethnic groups and a wide range of traditional lifestyles, often in close partnership with nature. We know that China faces immense social and environmental problems. But there is great beauty here, too. China is home to the worlds highest mountains, vast deserts ranging from searing hot to mi

3、nd-numbing cold. Steaming forests harboring rare creatures. Grassy plains beneath vast horizons. And rich tropical seas. Now for the first time ever, we can explore the whole of this great country, meet some of the surprising and exotic creatures that live here and consider the relationship of the p

4、eople and wild life of China to the remarkable landscape in which they live. This is wild China. Our exploration of China begins in the warm, subtropical south. On the Li River, fishermen and birds perch on bamboo rafts, a partnership that goes back more than a thousand years. This scenery is known

5、throughout the world, a recurring motif in Chinese paintings. And a major tourist attraction. The south of China is a vast area, eight times larger than the UK. Its a landscape of hills but also of water. It rains here for up to days a year, and standing water is everywhere. In the floodplain of the

6、 Yangtze River, black-tailed godwits probe the mud in search of worms. But isnt just wildlife that thrives in this environment. The swampy ground provides ideal conditions for a remarkable member of the grass family. Rice. The Chinese have been cultivating rice for at least , years.It has transforme

7、d the landscape. Late winter in southern Yunnan is a busy time for local farmers as they prepare the age-old paddy fields ready for the coming spring. These hill slopes of the Yuanyang County plunge nearly , metres to the floor of the Red River valley. Each contains literally thousands of stacked te

8、rraces carved out by hand using basic digging tools. Yunnans rice terraces are among the oldest human structures in China. Still ploughed, as they always have been, by domesticated water buffaloes, whose ancestors originated in these very valleys. This man-made landscape is one of the most amazing e

9、ngineering feats of pre-industrial China. It seems as if every square inch of land has been pressed into cultivation. As evening approaches, an age-old ritual unfolds. Its the mating season and male paddy frogs are competing for the attention of the females. But it doesnt always pay to draw too much

10、 attention to yourself. The Chinese pond heron is a pitiless predator. Even in the middle of a ploughed paddy field, nature is red in beak and claw. This may look like a slaughter but as each heron can swallow only one frog at a time, the vast majority will escape to croak another day. Terraced padd

11、ies like those of the Yuanyang County are found across much of southern China. This whole vast landscape is dominated by rice cultivation. In hilly Guizhou Province, the Miao minority have developed a remarkable rice culture. With every inch of fertile land given over to rice cultivation, the Miao b

12、uild their wooden houses on the steepest and least productive hillsides. In Chinese rural life, everything has a use. Dried in the sun, manure from the cow sheds will be used as cooking fuel. Its midday, and the Song family are tucking into a lunch of rice and vegetables. Oblivious to the domestic c

13、hit-chat, Granddad Gu Yong Xiu has serious matters on his mind. Spring is the start of the rice growing season. The success of the crop will determine how well the family will eat next year, so planting at the right time is critical. The ideal date depends on what the weather will do this year, neve

14、r easy to predict. But there is some surprising help at hand. On the ceiling of the Songs living room, a pair of red-rumped swallows, newly arrived from their winter migration, is busy fixing up last years nest. In China, animals are valued as much for their symbolic meaning as for any good they may

15、 do. Miao people believe that swallow pairs remain faithful for life, so their presence is a favour and a blessing, bringing happiness to a marriage and good luck to a home. Like most Miao dwellings, the Songs living room windows Iook out over the paddy fields. From early spring, one of these window

16、s is always left open to let the swallows come and go freely. Each year, granddad Gu notes the exact day the swallows return. Miao people believe the birds arrival predicts the timing of the season ahead. This year, they were late. So Gu and the other community elders have agreed that rice planting should be dela