精品BBC美丽中国英文字幕word第二集.docx

1、精品BBC美丽中国英文字幕word第二集【关键字】精品Beneath billowing clouds,in Chinas far southwestern Yunnan province,lies a place of mystery and legend.Of mighty rivers and some ofthe oldest jungles in the world.Here, hidden valleys nurture strangeand unique creatures,and colourful tribal cultures.Jungles are rarely foun

2、d thisfar north of the tropics.So, why do they thrive here?And how has this rugged landscape come to harbourthe greatest natural wealth in all China?In the remote southwest corner of China,a celebration is about to take place.Dai people collect water forthe most important festival of their year.The

3、Dai call themselves the people of the water.Yunnans river valleys have been their homefor over , years.By bringing the river water to the temple,they honour the two things holiest to them -Buddhism and their home.The Dai give thanks for the rivers and fertilelands which have nurtured their culture.T

4、hough to some it might seem just an excusefor the biggest water fight of all time.Dai lives are changingas towns get bigger and modernizebut the Water Splashing Festivalis still celebrated by all.The rivers which lie at the heart ofDai life and cultureflow from the distant mountains of Tibet,southwa

5、rd through central Yunnanin great parallel gorges.The Dai now live in the borders of tropicalVietnam and Laos,but their legends tell ofhow their ancestors came hereby following the rivers from mountain landsin the cold far north.Lying at the far eastern end of the Himalayas,the Hengduan mountains fo

6、rm Yunnansnorthern border with Tibet.Kawakarpo, crown of the Hengduan range,is a site of holy pilgrimage.Yet, its formidable peak remains unconquered.Yunnans mountains are remote,rugged and inaccessible.Here the air is thin and temperaturescan drop below minus degrees.This is home to an animal thats

7、 foundnowhere else on Earth.The Yunnan snub-nosed monkey.Its found only in these fewisolated mountain forests.No other primate lives at such high altitudes.but these are true specialists.These ancient mountain dwellershave inspired legends.Local Lisu people consider them their ancestors,calling them

8、 the wild men of the mountains.During heavy snowfalls,even these specialists cannot feed.It seems a strange place for a monkey.Between snows, the monkeys wasteno time in their search for food.At this altitude,there are few fruits or tender leaves to eat.% of their diet is made up ofthe fine dry wisp

9、s of a curious organism.Half fungus, half plant -its lichen.How have monkeys,normally associated with lowland jungle,come to live such aremote mountain existence?This is not the only remarkableanimal found within theseisolated high peaks.A Chinese red panda.Solitary and quiet, it spends muchof its t

10、ime in the tree tops.Despite its name,the red panda is only a very distantrelative of the giant panda.Its actually more closelyrelated to a skunk.But it does share the giantpandas taste for bamboo.Southwest Chinas red pandas areknown for their very strongfacial markingswhich distinguishthem from red

11、 pandas foundanywhere else in the Himalayas.Like the monkeys, they wereisolated in these high forestswhen the mountains quiteliterally rose beneath themin the greatest mountain-buildingevent in recent geological history.Over the last million years,the Indian subcontinent has beenpushing northwards i

12、nto Eurasia.On the border between India and Tibetthe rocks have been raisedeight kilometres above sea level,creating the worlds highestmountain range, the Himalayas.But to the east,the rocks have buckled into a seriesof steep north-south ridges,cutting down through theheart of Yunnan,the parallel mo

13、untains ofthe Hengduan Shan.These natural barriers serve toisolate Yunnans plants and animalsin each adjacent valley.While the huge temperaturerange between the snowy peaksand the warmer slopes belowprovides a vast array ofconditions for life to thrive.Through spring,the Hengduan slopes stage one of

14、Chinas greatest natural spectacles.The forests here are among the mostdiverse botanical areas in the world.Over , plant species grow here,of which , are foundnowhere else.Until little more than a century ago,this place was unknown outside China.But then news reached the Westof a mysterious, hiddenwo

15、rld of the orient.Hidden among the mountains,a lost Shangri-la paradise.Western high society, in the gripof a gardening craze,was eager for exotic speciesfrom faraway places.This gave rise to a newbreed of celebrity adventurers,intrepid botanist-explorersknown as the Plant Hunters.Yunnan became thei

16、r Holy Grail.Indiana JonesThe most famous was Joseph Rock,a real life Indiana Jones.Remarkable film footage captured hisentourage on a series of expeditions,as they pushed into thedeepest corners of Yunnan.In glorious colour he recordedthe plant life he foundon special photographic glass plates.Send

17、ing thousands ofspecimens back to the West,the Plant Hunters changed thegardens of the world forever.Rocks success was bornof a massive effort.For, to find his Shangri-la,not only had he to traverseendless mountain ranges,but some of the deepestgorges in the world.The Nujiang is calledThe Angry Rive

18、r.This -kilometre stretchof raging rapidsis as much a barrier to lifeas are the mountains above.WAVES CRASHBut the plant hunters werent thefirst people to travel here.Along the Nujiang,less than rope crossings allowlocals passage across the torrents.Tiny hamlets cling to the slopes.This morning, its

19、 market day,drawing people from upand down the valley.PIG OINKSGOAT BLEATSHanging from simple rope slings,people have been using the crossingsfor many hundreds of years.In such narrow, precipitous gorgesits by far the easiestway to get around.Once across, the steepsides mean its still a hike.Many tr

20、ek for hours byfoot before they get to the market.The immense valley ishome to over a dozen ethnic groups.Some, like the Nu people,are found only here.The markets bring themountain tribes together.To continue his expeditions,Rock had to get his entire entourageacross the giant Yunnan rivers.He commi

21、ssioned especially thickropes made from forest rattanand filmed the entire event.With yak butter to smooth the ride, men and mules made the journey.Not all made it across.On the far side of thegreat Nujiang gorge,the Plant Huntersmade a remarkable discovery.Far from the tropics,they seemed to be ent

22、ering a steamy,vibrant tropical jungle,the forest of Gaoligongshan.The flora here is unlikeanywhere else in the world.Next to subtropical species,alpine plants grow in giant form.Crowning the canopy, rhododendrons,up to metres high.In April and May, their flowersturn the forests ruby red,attracting

23、bird speciesfound only here.Constant moisture in the airmeans that the branches are ladenwith flowering epiphytes,fiercely guarded by tiny sunbirds,unique to these valleys.Nectar feeders, these are the hummingbirds of the Old World tropics.The forests of Gaoligongshan are hometo some of Chinas rares

24、t wildlife.This is a female Temmincks Tragopan.She has a colourful male admirer.Hes hoping to woo her with hispeculiar peekaboo displaybut shes not about to be rushed.His colourful skin wattlereflects more light than feathers do.To her, this is like a neon sign.Seeing his chance,the male makes his m

25、ove.Constant moisture inthe Gaoligongshan forestsmeans that throughout the yearthere are always fruits on the trees.Such abundance of food encouragesa high diversity of fruit eatersmore commonly found in the tropics.The black giant squirrel is foundonly in undisturbed rainforest.At close to a metre

26、in length, itsone of the worlds largest squirrels.The mystery is that these forestsare growing well outside the tropics.By rights, none of this jungle,or its animals, should be here.These are bear macaques.Theyre found only intropical and sub-tropical jungle.With a tiny home range ofjust a few squar

27、e kilometres,they depend on the abundant fruitthat only true rainforestscan provide all year round.To the European plant hunters,these northern rainforests must haveseemed a fantastic andmysterious lost world.Yet, when they came here, they wouldhave found beautifully constructedancient stone pathway

28、son which the forestcould be explored.Winding westwards into the hills,these were once some of the mostimportant highways in Asia,the southwestern tea and silk road.Built thousands of years ago,the southwestern tea and silk roadgave access to the worldbeyond Chinas borders,carrying tradesmen and tra

29、vellersfrom as far away as Rome.Wars were fought over accessto this tiny path,the only sure route inor out of China,that was guaranteed tobe clear of snow all year round.So, what causes Gaoligongshansstrange and remarkable climate?In late May, gusts of wind arrive,bringing with them the key toGaolig

30、ongshans mystery.The winds are hotand saturated with water.They come all the wayfrom the Indian Ocean.Channelled by Yunnansunique geography,they bring with them themoisture of the tropical monsoon.The giant river valleys,created millions of years ago,act like immense funnels.The gorges are so deep a

31、nd narrow,that the moist warm air is drivenright up into the north of Yunnan.The result is rain, in torrents!Four months of daily rainstormssustain luxuriant vegetation.The arrival of the monsoonawakens one of the forestsmost extraordinarymoisture-loving inhabitants.The crocodile newt is one ofthe most unusua