BBC美丽中国英文字幕.doc

第一集
The last hidden world,China. For centuries, travellers to China have told tales of magical landscapes and surprisin of the Red River valley. Each contains literally thousands of stacked terraces carved out by hand using basic digging tools. Yunnan's 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 engineering 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. It's the mating season and male paddy frogs are competing for the attention of the females. But it doesn't always pay to draw too much 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 paddies 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 build 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. It's midday, and the Song family are tucking into a lunch of rice and vegetables. Oblivious to the domestic chit-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, never e