Wild China
- Year:
- 2008
- 60 min
- 212 Views
(SQUAWKING)
NARRATOR:
The last hidden world,China.
For centuries, travellers to China have
told tales of magical landscapes
and surprising creatures.
Chinese civilisation
is the world's oldest
and today, its largest,
with well over a billion people.
It's home to more than
and a wide range
of traditional lifestyles,
often in close partnership with nature.
We know that China faces immense
social and environmental problems.
But there is great beauty here, too.
China is home to
the world's highest mountains,
vast deserts ranging from searing hot
to mind-numbing cold.
Steaming forests
harbouring rare creatures.
Grassy plains beneath vast horizons.
And rich tropical seas.
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 Wild China.
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 Chinese paintings.
And a major tourist attraction.
The south of China is a vast area,
eight times larger than the UK.
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 search 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 Chinese 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.
These 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
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.
(SQUAWKS)
Even in the middle
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
Terraced paddies like those
of the Yuanyang County
are found across much of southern China.
dominated by rice cultivation.
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.
everything has a use.
Dried in the sun,
manure from the cow sheds
will be used 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 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,
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
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,
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 notes
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,
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
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"Wild China" Scripts.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 19 Apr. 2024. <https://www.scripts.com/script/wild_china_23470>.
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