(SQUAWKING)
NARRATOR: The last hidden world,
总经理China.
For centuries, travellers to China have told tales of magical landscapes
and surprising creatures.
Chine civilisation is the world's oldest
and today, its largest,
with well over a billion people.
It's home to more than 50 distinct ethnic groups
and a wide range of traditional lifestyles,
often in clo partnership with nature.
We know that China faces immen social and environmental problems.
最吃香的职业
But there is great beauty here, too.
China is home to the world's highest mountains,
成人零基础学英语vast derts ranging from aring hot
十月的阳光to mind-numbing cold.
Steaming forests harbouring rare creatures.
dvd激光头Grassy plains beneath vast horizons.
And rich tropical as.
中国建筑美学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 people and wildlife of China
to the remarkable landscape in which they live.
This is <i>Wild China.</i>
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 throughout the world,
a recurring motif in Chine paintings.
And a major tourist attraction.
The south of China is a vast area,
eight times larger than the UK.
临安浙西大峡谷It's a landscape of hills but also of water.
(THUNDER RUMBLING)
It rains here for up to 250 days a year,
and standing water is everywhere.
(THUNDER RUMBLING)
In the floodplain of the Yangtze River,
black-tailed godwits probe the mud in arch of worms.
But isn't just wildlife that thrives in this environment.
The swampy ground provides ideal conditions
for a remarkable member of the grass family.
Rice.
The Chine have been cultivating rice for at least 8,000 years.
It has transformed 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.
The hill slopes of the Yuanyang County plunge nearly 2,000 metres
to the floor 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.
诚信名人名言
Still ploughed, as they always have been,
by domesticated water buffaloes,
who ancestors originated in the very valleys.
This man-made landscape
is one of the most amazing engineering feats
of pre-industrial China.
It ems as if every square inch of land
has been presd into cultivation.
As evening approaches, an age-old ritual unfolds.
It's the mating ason
and male paddy frogs are competing for the attention of the females.
But it doesn't always pay to draw too much attention to yourlf.
The Chine pond heron is a pitiless predator.
(SQUAWKS)
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 tho 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 hous
on the steepest and least productive hillsides.
In Chine rural life, everything has a u.
Dried in the sun, manure from the cow sheds
will be ud as cooking fuel.
(WOMEN CHATTERING IN CHINESE)
It's midday, and the Song family
are tucking into a lunch of rice and vegetables.
(SPEAKING IN CHINESE)
Oblivious to the domestic chit-chat,
Granddad Gu Yong Xiu has rious matters on his mind.
Spring is the start of the rice growing ason.
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 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,
