新视野大学英语读写教程听力 第二册 unit9c_new

[by:和谐英语学习网|http://www.hxen.net|和谐英语||和谐英语学习网]
[00:00.00]喜欢hxen.net，就把hxen.net复制到QQ个人资料中！We Share the Same Heritage
[00:04.18]"I was only thirteen when four of my team members and I
[00:10.84]were chosen by my swim coach to train with the Chinese National Team.
[00:17.78]The following piece shows how that experience has influenced me."
[00:24.05]The night before I left for China, my mother called me into her room
[00:30.71]I entered not knowing what to expect
[00:35.06]I sat down at the end of her very neatly made bed,
[00:40.93]opposite the bedroom table on which she kept a Ming-style vase
[00:47.20]illustrated in great detail.
[00:51.26]She told me that my great-grandmother was still living
[00:56.70]in the surroundings of Beijing
[01:00.77]Her name was Ren Li Ling and she was 97 years old.
[01:07.32]This was the first time I had ever heard of her.
[01:12.47]The dragon on the vase snaked through the flowers and vines
[01:18.62]as my mother said, "Pu Pu, look at me.
[01:23.27]You need to hear this so that when you go to China you will understand
[01:29.32]You must keep this knowledge in your heart.
[01:34.28]She told me a story about my grandfather,
[01:39.22]Ren Li Ling's son,
[01:42.71]who left Beijing to go to college in Taiwan.
[01:48.14]She told me how the Chinese civil war
[01:53.33]kept him away from his mother for fifty years,
[01:58.58]so neither of them even knew that the other was alive.
[02:04.13]No one from Taiwan could visit, write, or call anyone on the mainland
[02:12.30]All lines of communication were cut off.
[02:17.74]She told me of my grandfather's devotion to his own children,
[02:23.60]and how difficult it was for him to send his daughter to America
[02:30.26]for her education, fearing that same separation
[02:35.92]He gave my mother all that he could give
[02:40.38]nineteen years of love and fifty years of savings.
[02:46.36]I learned how my mother, through means only available in this country,
[02:53.30]would finally be able to unite my great-grandmother
[02:59.06]with my grandfather again.
[03:02.74]The dragon curled around the vase,
[03:07.38]connecting the separate vines.
[03:11.56]For a fleeting second, I felt it was present in my mother's room.
[03:17.93]It was all very strange, yet very clear.
[03:22.97]I began to understand that this trip to China was not just for me
[03:29.34]it was for my mother, and her father, and his mother.
[03:35.50]Now, I had not only a future, but more significantly, a past.
[03:42.84]I saw the world with new eyes.
[03:47.48]And so I went to China and met my great-grandmother.
[03:53.86]My great-aunt picked me up at the training center,
[03:58.79]and we rode in a taxi through the crowded city.
[04:03.94]The noise of the taxi and the city united into a deep roar.
[04:10.31]We finally stopped in front of a narrow street
[04:15.35]lined on either side with small one-level houses.
[04:21.22]As we made our way to a house like all the others,
[04:26.90]I drew the stares of many people in the street.
[04:32.05]My great-aunt led me through a rotting doorway into a room
[04:38.60]with a furnace, table, and a rocking chair
[04:43.97]where an old woman wearing gloves sat facing the doorway,
[04:49.73]covered with a worn brown blanket.
[04:55.20]I walked over and immediately embraced this frail woman
[05:01.46]as if I had known her all my life.
[05:06.22]My limited, broken Chinese
[05:10.28]wasn't up to expressing my complicated feelings.
[05:15.97]And even though I couldn't completely understand what she was saying
[05:22.81]in her thick Beijing accent, I knew
[05:27.85]the same way I knew what my mother had been trying to tell me
[05:33.50]before I left.
[05:37.07]Her joy shone through her toothless smile
[05:42.00]She wouldn't let go of my hand.
[05:46.14]I haltingly asked her how she had managed to live such a long life.
[05:53.09]She answered in words I will never forget,
[05:58.02]"Hope has kept me alive.
[06:02.09]I have lived this long because I wanted to see my son before I died
[06:09.22]My fellow team members must have wondered how two people
[06:15.48]separated by three generations could be so close.