英国新闻听力 清明节雇人扫墓（在线收听）

For those of you outside China who don’t already know it, one of the biggest festivals Qingming or the Day of Tomb Sweeping is about to take place. This is when traditionally family members honor their ancestorsby sweeping their grave sides offering up food and drink and sometimes weeping. Now there is a new take onan ancient custom. Some enterprising businesses are offering those relatives too distant or too busy to get to their ancestors’ tombs the possibility of paying someone else to do it. Tim Franks has been talking to a Chinese writer based in London.

Actually it is a festival. It’s a quite big festival and also has almost 2,500 years’ history. As a Chinese brought up in China, educated in China, I admire my country culture. So this event actually in Chinesewe call that “Qingming”. So that means you take your whole family to the tomb to have a conversation, you report your daily life to your elder generations.

Eurovision Song Contest is celebrating its sixtieth birthday today in London featuring contestants old andnew. And while we can’t take you to the event, it’s sold out, we thought we’d bring you a selection of some of our favorite performances over the years. You are not old enough to have seen every single Eurovision contest there’ve been, but you’ve seen a fair few, haven’t you? Which have been the standing out memories for you?

You know, when I like Eurovision best is when it gets most nakedly political. And my favorite moment from Eurovision was last year in Denmark when the audience was wholeheartedly booing the Russian entry because of anger at Russian anti-gay laws and the conflict in Ukraine. It is political. It is political contest. And the political things count. And I have fantastic memories of Ani Lorak from Ukraine singing Shady Lady in 2008.

Have things changed? Often people have parties, don’t they, around Eurovision Song Contest, but now we’ve got social media and everyone can join in with comments throughout the performance. Has that made it more fun and has it changed the crazy voting patterns at all?

No. The voting patterns are crazy, but of course every country gets an equal vote. And there’ve been always those accusations of neighboring countries voting for each other. These things changed. You know, Ukraine and Russia always used to vote for each other reliably. That pattern was broken last year. You have to be the most popular song. Otherwise, you know, how would Germany have won the thing? How would Finland have won? How would Britain have won?

你们中有些人不在中国生活，或许还不知道，中国即将迎来一年中最大的节日之一——清明节（扫墓的节日）。传统上，家人在这一天去扫墓、上供吃喝，有时还在坟前哭泣，他们以这样的方式祭祖。如今，一些新兴的商业模式为远在外地或太忙而到不了先人坟前的家属提供了雇人扫墓的可能性。蒂姆·弗兰克斯采访了住在伦敦的一位中国作家。

它是一个节日，是一个相当大的节日，有将近2500年的历史。作为一个在中国长大、在中国接受教育的中国人，我仰慕我们祖国的文化。在汉语里，我们称这个节日为“清明”。这一天，你带着全家人到坟地里和故去的亲人对话、向他们汇报你的日常生活。

今天，欧洲歌唱大赛在伦敦庆祝了它60岁的生日，新老选手齐聚一堂。虽然我们不能带你走进现场，因为票已经卖完了，但我们想，还是可以为你带来历年我们最喜欢的一些节目。你的年龄还是不够大，没有见证每一届的欧洲歌唱大赛，但你也看了不少年了，有哪些让你印象最深刻？

你知道吗，我最喜欢欧洲歌唱大赛的时候就是它的政治性最一览无余的时候。我最喜欢的欧洲歌唱大赛时刻是去年在丹麦，观众出于对俄罗斯反对同性恋法律及其与乌克兰的冲突的愤怒，在俄罗斯选手入场时集体起哄。这就是政治。这是一场具有政治性的比赛。政治对比赛至关重要。另外，我对2008年来自乌克兰的安妮·罗拉克印象非常好，她演唱的歌曲是Shady Lady。

情况有变化吗？通常围绕着欧洲歌唱大赛人们是分派别的，但现在我们有了社交媒体，人人都能参与整个过程的评论。这种形式会让大赛变得更有趣吗？它有没有改变以前那种疯狂的投票模式？

没有。投票模式还是疯狂，但当然，每个国家都有平等的表决权。一直有人指责邻国之间互相投票。这种情况有所改变。你也知道，乌克兰和俄罗斯以前总是相互信任、相互投票，但去年这种模式被打破了。最受欢迎的歌曲才胜出。否则，德国怎么会赢？芬兰怎么会赢？英国怎么会赢？