VOA标准英语2012--Lantern Festival Shines Light on Chinese Culture

Lantern Festival Shines Light on Chinese Culture

Even though the Saint Louis, Missouri area has a small Chinese population, the midsize city on the Mississippi River is going Chinese in a big way.

The Missouri Botanical Garden, an urban oasis¹ of plants, trees, flowers and biological research, is staging a Chinese Lantern Festival. And it is quite a show.

At the 32-hectare Missouri Botanical Garden, musicians, dancers and other performers helped inaugurate what organizers say is first event of its kind ever staged in the United States.

Dozens of artisans worked to create 26 displays highlighting culture, history and folklore² from China. Some of the scenes are modest, like one featuring child-sized pandas, displayed amid a stand of their dietary staple³, bamboo, growing in the Botanical Garden.

Other lanterns are enormous, like the towering four-faced Buddha⁴, whose golden silk costume sparkles in the sun, rustling⁵ in the breeze.

At night, brilliantly illuminated⁶, it appeals to local visitors like Darren Monahan. "I like the Buddha one, so far that's been my favorite. There's something very, very unique about it that just stood out to me."

A dragon made of thousands of plates, cups and spoons, hand-tied together with string, at the Missouri Botanical Garden's Chinese Lantern Festival. (V. LaCapra/VOA) 

Other lantern displays conjure⁷ up folk tales or historical personalities⁸. The Botanical Garden rejected some proposed contemporary lantern scenes, such as Disney characters and Hello Kitty, in favor of more traditional subjects.

"I want to celebrate the Chinese culture and the history, so that this is an experience that is unlike anything anybody in St. Louis or the United States has seen," said exhibits manager Lynn Kerkemeyer.

Chinese artisans came from Zigong, in Sichuan province, to create the lanterns. They did most of the work on-site, making the steel skeletons and covering them with hand-cut silk panels, stitched together using foot-powered, treadle sewing machines.

It took four shipping⁹ containers to bring in all of the materials and equipment, including a ton of rice to feed the 33 artisans for two months while they worked here.

They prefer the taste of rice from home, said Spencer Tan with LanternFest, the Chinese company that produced the displays, adding that food is "definitely" important.

"I think that my policy is that, in order to move your people, the first thing you need to take care of is the stomach. So we bring our own rice. And not only that, we bring our own chef as well."

Most of the lanterns are made of silk, lit from within. But perhaps the most impressive display in the Lantern Festival is one made of 40,000 plates, spoons and cups hand-tied together with string to form a pair of enormous, undulating porcelain¹⁰ dragons. The two white creatures face each other contesting over a giant silk pearl between them. The display stretches almost 100 meters.

And Spencer Tan said the dragons do more than look at each other. "The dragon heads start to move, there's smoke, and in between there is a pearl. The petal¹¹ will open up, it will spin, and then smoke will come out from there."

Biologist Mike Amspoker of Westminster College, about 180 kilometers away in Fulton, Missouri, brought his photography class to the botanical garden, unaware¹² of the lantern festival.

"This is, this is spectacular, and I can't believe that these are all plates," he said.

The Porcelain Dragon is only one of several dragons on display. According to the Chinese calendar, this is the year of the dragon - a symbol of good fortune. And as China's acting¹³ Chicago consul¹⁴ general, Kun Lu, suggests, the dragon and other lanterns offer a good introduction to Chinese culture.

"The people here in St Louis can look at the Chinese lantern and they can have the idea of the Chinese tradition. And also, it's very, very beautiful, especially at night. It's very, very vivid and very, very beautiful here," Lu said.

The Missouri Botanical Garden is one of the world's leading plant research and conservation institutions. The Lantern Festival coincides with the garden's "Year of China" observance, marking decades of research and collaboration¹⁵, including an ongoing¹⁶ project - The Flora¹⁷ of China - to document the more than 30,000 native plant species in the country.

But on a cool, misty¹⁸ evening, that probably was not what attracted most Lantern Festival visitors like Ann Mitori, who said "there were pictures in the paper about this, but when you see it, life-size, it's just awesome¹⁹."

The Lantern Festival continues through mid-August at the Missouri Botanical Garden.

1 oasis   

n.（沙漠中的）绿洲，宜人的地方

参考例句：

• They stopped for the night at an oasis.他们在沙漠中的绿洲停下来过夜。
• The town was an oasis of prosperity in a desert of poverty.该镇是贫穷荒漠中的一块繁荣的“绿洲”。

2 folklore   

n.民间信仰，民间传说，民俗

参考例句：

• Zhuge Liang is a synonym for wisdom in folklore.诸葛亮在民间传说中成了智慧的代名词。
• In Chinese folklore the bat is an emblem of good fortune.在中国的民间传说中蝙蝠是好运的象征。

3 staple   

n.主要产物，常用品，主要要素，原料，订书钉，钩环；adj.主要的，重要的；vt.分类

参考例句：

• Tea is the staple crop here.本地产品以茶叶为大宗。
• Potatoes are the staple of their diet.土豆是他们的主要食品。

4 Buddha   

n.佛；佛像；佛陀

参考例句：

• Several women knelt down before the statue of Buddha and prayed.几个妇女跪在佛像前祈祷。
• He has kept the figure of Buddha for luck.为了图吉利他一直保存着这尊佛像。

5 rustling   

n. 瑟瑟声，沙沙声 adj. 发沙沙声的

参考例句：

• the sound of the trees rustling in the breeze 树木在微风中发出的沙沙声
• the soft rustling of leaves 树叶柔和的沙沙声

6 illuminated   

adj.被照明的；受启迪的

参考例句：

• Floodlights illuminated the stadium. 泛光灯照亮了体育场。
• the illuminated city at night 夜幕中万家灯火的城市

7 conjure   

v.恳求，祈求；变魔术，变戏法

参考例句：

• I conjure you not to betray me.我恳求你不要背弃我。
• I can't simply conjure up the money out of thin air.我是不能像变魔术似的把钱变来。

8 personalities   

n. 诽谤，（对某人容貌、性格等所进行的）人身攻击； 人身攻击；人格, 个性, 名人( personality的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• There seemed to be a degree of personalities in her remarks.她话里有些人身攻击的成分。
• Personalities are not in good taste in general conversation.在一般的谈话中诽谤他人是不高尚的。

9 shipping   

n.船运（发货，运输，乘船）

参考例句：

• We struck a bargain with an American shipping firm.我们和一家美国船运公司谈成了一笔生意。
• There's a shipping charge of ￡5 added to the price.价格之外另加五英镑运输费。

10 porcelain   

n.瓷；adj.瓷的，瓷制的

参考例句：

• These porcelain plates have rather original designs on them.这些瓷盘的花纹很别致。
• The porcelain vase is enveloped in cotton.瓷花瓶用棉花裹着。

11 petal   

n.花瓣

参考例句：

• Each white petal had a stripe of red.每一片白色的花瓣上都有一条红色的条纹。
• A petal fluttered to the ground.一片花瓣飘落到地上。

12 unaware   

a.不知道的，未意识到的

参考例句：

• They were unaware that war was near. 他们不知道战争即将爆发。
• I was unaware of the man's presence. 我没有察觉到那人在场。

13 acting   

n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的

参考例句：

• Ignore her,she's just acting.别理她，她只是假装的。
• During the seventies,her acting career was in eclipse.在七十年代，她的表演生涯黯然失色。

14 consul   

n.领事；执政官

参考例句：

• A consul's duty is to help his own nationals.领事的职责是帮助自己的同胞。
• He'll hold the post of consul general for the United States at Shanghai.他将就任美国驻上海总领事(的职务)。

15 collaboration   

n.合作，协作；勾结

参考例句：

• The two companies are working in close collaboration each other.这两家公司密切合作。
• He was shot for collaboration with the enemy.他因通敌而被枪毙了。

16 ongoing   

adj.进行中的，前进的

参考例句：

• The problem is ongoing.这个问题尚未解决。
• The issues raised in the report relate directly to Age Concern's ongoing work in this area.报告中提出的问题与“关心老人”组织在这方面正在做的工作有直接的关系。

17 flora   

n.(某一地区的)植物群

参考例句：

• The subtropical island has a remarkably rich native flora.这个亚热带岛屿有相当丰富的乡土植物种类。
• All flora need water and light.一切草木都需要水和阳光。

18 misty   

adj.雾蒙蒙的，有雾的

参考例句：

• He crossed over to the window to see if it was still misty.他走到窗户那儿，看看是不是还有雾霭。
• The misty scene had a dreamy quality about it.雾景给人以梦幻般的感觉。

19 awesome   

adj.令人惊叹的，难得吓人的，很好的

参考例句：

• The church in Ireland has always exercised an awesome power.爱尔兰的教堂一直掌握着令人敬畏的权力。
• That new white convertible is totally awesome.那辆新的白色折篷汽车简直棒极了.