英语听力：Wild China 美丽中国 -3（在线收听） |
The ideal date depends on what the weather will do this year, never 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 year's nest. In China, animals are valued as much for their symbolic meaning as for any good they may do. Miao people believe that swallow pairs remain faithful for life, so their presence is a favor and a blessing, bringing happiness to a marriage and good luck to a home. Like most Miao dwellings, the Songs' living room windows look out over the paddy fields. From early spring, one of these windows is always left open to let the swallows come and go freely. Each year granddad Gu knows 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 delayed accordingly.
As the Miao prepare their fields for planting, the swallows collect mud to repair their nests and chase after insects across the newly ploughed paddies.
Finally, after weeks of preparation, the ordained time for planting has arrived. But first the seedlings must be uprooted from the nursery beds and bundled up ready to be transported to their new paddy higher up the hillside. All the Songs' neighbors have turned out to help with the transplanting. It's how the community has always worked. When the time comes, the Songs will return the favor.
While the farmers are busy in the fields, the swallows fly back and forth with material for their nest.
Many hands make light work. Planting the new paddy takes a little more than an hour. Job done, the villagers can relax, at least until tomorrow. But for the nesting swallows, the work of raising a family has only just begun.
In the newly planted fields, little egrets hunt for food. The rice paddies harbor tadpoles, fish and insects, and the egrets have chicks to feed. This colony in Chongqing Province was established in 1996 when a few dozen birds built nests in the bamboo grove behind Yangguang Village. Believing they were a sign of luck, local people initially protected the egrets, and the colony grove. |
| 原文地址：http://www.tingroom.com/lesson/wenhuabolan/2008/340501.html |