节目资讯
刊物:空中英语教室
日期:2014-04-09
难易度:Low
关键字:misty, detail, make up, memorable, intestine
Hello, and welcome back.
When was the last time you visited a place and thought, "This looks just like a
picture"?
In today's lesson we are discussing a small, old village in China that many
people think looks like a picture.
The village is Hongcun.
And if you do happen to see a picture of it, perhaps you would find that it
seems familiar.
It seems like a scene from a movie.
Yes. Indeed it was the location used for part of the shooting of the movie
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.
But did you know that Hongcun is shaped like an ox?
Let's find out more about this odd detail now.
(Music).
The Villages of Old China.
A hill is the bull's head, and two trees are its horns.
Hongcun's homes make up the body with a pool at the center for a stomach.
Called Moon Pond, the pool comes from a natural spring.
Villagers get water here or from the stream that winds around town, the bull's
intestines.
Last, the four bridges into Hongcun act as the animal's legs.
These are only three of the memorable villages China has to offer.
Yet traveling to each one shows a new side to the ancient country.
(Music).
(Chinese).
And now let's go to our teachers.
Thank you, Michelle.
Well, before the break we had learned about the shape of this small village.
It is shaped like an ox, which is a male cow.
I thought a male cow was a bull.
Well, it is.
Actually, some would say that there is no such thing as a male cow because the
word cow means female cattle.
Oh, that's right.
But you know what, today cow can mean any kind of bovine.
Whoa, whoa, whoa... bovine?
All right. Since we see two related words in our lesson, ox and bull, we may as
well teach bovine.
It comes from a Latin word, bovine includes all kinds of cattle: cows, bulls,
steers, buffalo and oxen.
Wait. Did you say oxen?
That is one of those strange plural words in English.
The plural form of ox is oxen, O-X-E-N, not oxes.
Right. And you could say the oxen are in the field.
And if we really wanted to be exact, we would say that an ox is a kind of bull.
And so for the rest of this section, Hongcun is described as a bull.
We read: A hill in the bull's head and two... a hill is the bull's head, and two
trees are its horns.
And we get the rest of the description here using words.
You know I tried to find a picture to help explain this.
That way we wouldn't have to use a thousand words, but I couldn't find any
pictures.
Well, it doesn't take that many words to describe it.
Now we read that Hongcun's homes make up the body with a pool at the center for
a stomach.
All right.
Well, it's time for us right now to go and see what the guys have for us in the
Information Cloud.
I remember when Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon came out in the U.S., it's such a
mysterious movie title people were asking what's that about.
That's why sometimes when a foreign film comes to town, local theaters won't
translate the film's title directly.
They'll modify it to make it more appealing to the public.
But sometimes it seems they go a bit too far.
Here are a few American movies which, when screen overseas were given new
titles,
the foreign titles were then translated back into English for your amusement.
OK, the first example is the 1999 blockbuster The Matrix.
In France, it was advertised as the young people who traverse dimensions while
wearing sunglasses.
Doesn't quite have the same pizzazz as the original title, does it?
No, not really.
Next, perhaps the most entertaining example of a misconstrued movie title comes
from the 1997 film As Good As It Gets.
In Hong Kong, they gave it the title Mr. Cat Poop, but there's actually a good
reason for that.
Um...
OK. Well, the next time you see a translated movie title of a foreign film, see
if you can make the connection between it and the original title.
(Chinese).
Thanks, guys.
You know, I only saw part of Mr. Cat Poop.
I need to see the rest.
But back to the lesson, we have a short concluding paragraph here which tells us
these are only three of the memorable villages China has to offer.
Right.
Cuandixia, Wuzhen and Hongcun are just three out of many splendid locations we
could visit if we went to China.
But traveling to each one shows a new side to the ancient country.
And right now it's time for us to enjoy a review skit.
And of course, then we'll visit Linda for the Editor's Summary.
We love the splendid locations of modern China: Beijing, Shanghai and um...
Chongqing.
Right.
But now we're visiting other corners of China that show the beauty of its past.
Yeah.
First we visited um...
Cuandixia.
Right! It's a tiny village in the mountains on a hill, and there are mountains
everywhere.
The homes were built by one family during the Ming Dynasty.
It has courtyards, walls with messages and a temple.
Yeah. History and nature make it a popular spot for photographers.
It's an eye-opening trip into the past.
After Cuandixia, we travel to Wuzhen.
It's a busy village that prospered on the Grand Canal.
It has a water market.
And entertainment, water boat boxing and bamboo pole acrobatics.
Yeah. Um...
Wuzhen.
Yeah. It's located in the land of silk and has many bridges you can cross going
from one sight to another sight.
It's a wonderful place.
Yes. And now, we're here in Hongcun.
This place looks so familiar.
Yeah. Oh! That's because scenes from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon were filmed
right here.
Oh. I've heard that on a misty morning, this place looks like a beautiful
picture.
I've heard it looks like an ox.
An ox?
Yeah.
I didn't notice.
Well, most visitors don't.
I'll tell you the details as we go along, OK?
You see, the head is up there.
Oh, and the stomach is over there.
See all those intestines?
Not really.
And then there's the four legs.
And over there is an eyeball... Ew!
Hongcun in Anhui province seems to resemble a beautiful picture to many.
When you see the city on a misty day, the reason some... seems to come clear
according to our author.
If you stand and look carefully at the town, you can see that it is shaped like
an ox with a clear head, a hill with trees as its horns.
And the body has details as well.
And there are even four bridges to make up the ox's legs.
Sounds interesting!
So this ends our three days of visiting some of China's rural villages.
You know, I think I'd like to take a tour of these areas.
It sounds educational and fun.
Thanks, Linda.
And thank you for joining us for a quick trip into the villages of China's past.
And of course we hope you have a chance to visit these places for real sometime.
And we'll see you next time right here at Studio Classroom.
(Music).