Wild China (2008–…): Season 1, Episode 1 - Heart of the Dragon - full transcript

The last hidden world

China

For centuries, travellers to China have told tales of magical landscapes

and surprising creatures

Chinese civilization is the world's oldest

and today it's largest

with well over a billion people

It's home to more than 50 distinct ethnic groups(ͬ??ͬ?Ļ?֮????)

and a wide range of traditional life styles

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 from searing(???ȵ?) hot

to mind numbing cold

steaming forests

harboring 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 landscaping which they live

This is wild China



Our exploration of China begins in the warm subtropical south

On the Li River(?콭), fishermen and birds perch(??Ϣ) 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(???ʤ??)

The south of China is a vast area

eight times larger than the UK

It's a landscape of hills

but also of water

It rains here for up to 250 days a year

and standing water is everywhere

In a floodplain(??̲) of the Yangtse River

black-tailed godwits(??β??) probe(̽??) the mud in search of worms

But it isn't just wildlife that thrive in this environment

the swampy ground provides ideal conditions for the remarkable member of the grass family

rice

The Chinese have been cultivating rice for at least 8 thousand years

It has transformed a landscape

Late winter in southern Yunnan, it's a busy time for local farmers

as they prepare the age-old paddy field(????)
ready for the coming spring

These hill slopes of Yuanyang(Ԫ??[??]) county

plunge nearly 2 thousand meters to the floor of the Red River Valley

each contains literally thousands of stack terraces carved out by hand using basic digging tools

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 preindustrial 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 females

But it dosen't always pay to draw too much attention to youself

The Chinese Pond Heron(????) is a crapulous(??ʳ??) predator

Even in the middle of a ploughed paddy field

nature is red in beacon 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(???ɽ?) another day

Terrace paddies like those of Yunyang county are found across much of southern China

This whole vast landscape is dominated by rice cultivation

In here in 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 houses on the steepest and least productive hillsides

In Chinese rural life, everything has a use

dried in the sun, manure(????) from the cowsheds(ţ??) would be used as cooking fuel

It's midday and the Song family are
tucking into(ʹ???) a lunch of rice and vegetables

Oblivious(??ȴ??) to the domestic chitchat(????)

granddad Guyong Song has serious maters on his mind

Spring is a start of the rice growing season

the success of the crop will determin 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 Song's living room
a pair of red-rumped swallows(??????) newly arrive from their winter migration

is busy fixing up last year's nest

In China, animals have value does much for their symbolic meaning as for many good they may do

Miao people believe that swallow pairs remain faithful for life

so their presence is a favor and a blessing(????)

bringing happiness to a marriage and good luck to a home

Like most Miao dwellings, the Song's 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 knows the exat day the swallows return

Miao people believe the birds arrival predicts the timing of a 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

the swallows collect mud to repair their nests

and chase after insects across the newly ploughed paddies

Finally, after weeks of preparation

the ordained(ע??) time for planting has arrived

but first the seedlings(????) must be uproot(????) from the nursery beds(?紲)

and bundled up ready to be transported to their new paddy

higher up the hillside

All the Song's neighbors have turned out(?ۼ?) to help with the transplanting

It's how the community has always worked

when the time comes, the Songs will return the favor

While the farmers are busy in the fields

the swallows fly back and forth with material for their nest

Many hands make light work

planting the new paddy takes a little more than an hour

Job done, the villagers can relax

at least until tomorrow

But for the nesting swallows, the work of raising a family

has only just begun

In the newly planted fields

little egrets(????) hunt for foods

The rice paddy(????) harbor tadpoles, fish and insects

and egrets have chicks to feed

This colony in Chongqing province is established in 1996

when a few dozen birds build nests in the
bamboo grove(????) behind Yanguang village

Believing they were assigned of luck

local people initially protected the egrets and the colony grove

But their attitude change when the head of the village fell ill

They blame the birds and were all set to destroy their nests

when the local government stepped in to protect them

Bedny(?????) bamboo may not be the safest nesting place

but at least these youngsters won't end up at someone's dinner

These chicks have just had a meal delivered by their mom

quite a chance for litter beaks

Providing their colonies are protected

wading birds like egrets are among the few wild creatures which benefit directly from intensive rice cultivation

Growing rice needs lots of water

but even in the rainy south, there are landscapes where water is surprisingly scarce

This vast area of southwest China

the size of France and Spain combined

is famous for its clusters of conical(׶??) hills

like giant upturned egg carton(ֽ????)
seperated by dry empty valleys

This is the karst(??˹??)

a limestone terrain which has become the defining image of southern China

Karst landscapes are often
studed with(ɢ????) rocky outcrops

forcing local farmers to cultivate tiny fields

The people who live here
are among the poorest in China

In neighboring(??????) Yunnan province

limestone rocks have taken over entirely

This is the famous Stone Forest

the product of countless years of erosion

producing a maze of deep gullets(ʳ??) and sharp-edged pinnacles(?ⶥ)

Limestone has a strange property that is dissolves in rain water

Over many thousands of years, water has corrode(ʴ) its way deep into the heart of the bedrock itself

This natural wonder has a famous tourist spot

receiving close to 2m visitors each year

The Chinese are fond of curiously shaped rocks

and many have been given fanciful names

No prices for guessing what this one is called

But there is more to this landscape
than meets the eye

China has literally thousands of mysterious caverns(?޶?)

concealed(????) beneath the visible landscape of the karst

Much of this hidden world has never been seen by human eyes

And it's only just now being explored

For a growing band of intrepid(??η??) young Chinese explorers

caves represent the ultimate adventure

Exploring a cave is like taking the journey through time

a journey which endless raindrops would have followed over countless centuries

Fed by countless drips(ˮ??) and trickles(????)

the subterranean(???µ?) river carves ever deeper into the rock

The cave river's course is channeled(????) by the beds of limestone

A witness in the rock can not allow the river to increase its gradient(б??) to flow in

providing a real challenge for the cave explorers

The downward rushes halted when the water table(????ˮλ) is reached

Here the slow flowing river carves tunnels with a more rounded profile(????)

This tranquil world is home to specialized cave fishes

like the eye-less Golden Barb(????)

China may have unique kinds of cave evolved fishes

than anywhere else on Earth

Above the water table

ancient caverns abandoned by the river slowly fill up with stalactites and stalagmites

Stalactites form as trickling water deposites tiny quantities of rock

over hundreds or thousands of years

Stalagmites grow up where lime laid and drips hit the cave floor

So far, only a fraction of China's caves have been thoroughly prospected(̽??)

and caves are constantly discovering new subterranean marvels(?漣)

many of which are subsequently developed into commercial show caves

Finally escaping the darkness

the cave river and its human explorers emerge in a valley far from where their journey began

or now the adventure is over

Rivers which issue(????) from caves

are the key to survival in the karst country

This vertical gorge in Guizhou province

is a focal point(????) for the region's wildlife

This is one of the world's rarest primates

Fran'c'ois' langur(??Ҷ??)

In China, they survive in just two southern provinces

Guizhou and Guangxi

always in ragged limestone terrains

Like most monkeys, they're social creatures

and spend a great deal of time grooming(ʹ????) each other

Langurs are essentially vegetarian with a diet of buds, fruits, and tender young leaves

Babies are born with jinger fur

which gradually turns black from the tail end

Young infants have a (??ǯ)vise-like grip(ǯ)

used for cling on to mom for deer life

As they get older

they get bolder and take more risks

Those are the survive spend a lot of time travelling

Yet experienced adults know exactly where to find seasonal food

in different parts of their range

In such steep terrain

travel involves a high level of climbing skill

These monkeys are spectacularly good rock climbers from the time they learnt to walk

In langur(Ҷ??) society

females rule the roost

and take the lead when the family is on the move

One section of cliff

woops(Ż????) is a trickle of mineral-rich water

which the monkeys seem to find irresistible

These days there are few predators in the Mayanghe(??????) Reserve which might pose a risk to baby monkey

but in past centuries, this area of south China

was home to leopards, pythons, and even tigers

To survive dangerous night prowlers(DZ????)

the langurs went underground

using their rock climbing skills to seek shelter in inaccessible caverns

Filmed in near darkness using a night vision camera

the troop clmbers(??) along familiar ledges(?ڼ?)

worn smooth by generations before them

During cold winter weather

the monkeys venture deeper underground

where the air stays comparatively warm

At last, journeys end,

a coated niche beyond the reach of even the most enterprising(??ȡ??) predator

But it's not just monkeys that find shelter in caves

These children are off to school

In rural China, that may mean a long trek each morning

passing through a cave or two on the way

But not all pupils have to walk to school

These children are boarder(??????)

As the day pupils near journey's end

the boarders are still making breakfast

In the school yard, someone seems to have switched the lights off

But this is no ordinary play ground

and no ordinary school

Its house

inside a cave

A natural vault(????) of rock keeps out the rain

so there is no need for a roof on the classroom

Zhongdong cave school is made up of 6 classes

with a total of 200 children

As well as a school, the cave houses 18 families

together with their livestock

This could be the only cave dwelling cows on Earth

With school work over, it's play time at last

In southern China, caves aren't just used for shelter

they can be a source of revenue for the community

People have been visiting this cave for generations

The cave floor is covered in guano(???)

so plentiful that 10 minutes' work can fill these farmer's baskets

This used as a valuable source of fertilizer

A clue to the source of the guano can be heard above the noise of the river

The sound originates high up in the roof of the cave

The entrance is full of swifts

They are very sociable birds

more than 200,000 of them share this cave in southern Guizhou province

The biggest swift colony in China

These days, Chinese house swifts
mostly nest in the roofs of buildings

but rock crevasses(??϶) like these were their original home

long before houses were invented

Though the swifts depend on the cave for shelter

they never stray(????) further than the limits of daylight

as their eyes can't see in dark

However, deep inside the cavern

are the creatures are better equipped

for subterranean life

A colony of bats is just waking up

using ultrasonic squeaks to orientate themselves in the darkness

Night is the time to go hunting

Rickett's mouse-eared bat(?????????) is the only bat in Asia which specializes in catching fishes

tracking them down from the sound reflection of ripples(С????) on the water surface

This extraordinary behavior was only discovered in the last couple of years

and has never been filmed before

If catching fish in the dark is impressive

imagine eating a slippery minnow(??ŵ??) with no hands while hanging upside down

Dawn, over the karst hills of Guilin

These remarkable hills owe their peculiar shapes

to the mildly(??΢) acid waters of the Li River

whose meandering(???ѵ?) course over eons of time has corrode(??ʴ) away their basis

until only the rocky course remained

Li is one of the cleanest rivers in China

a favorite spot for fishermen with their trained cormorants(???)

The men, all called Huang, come from the same village

now in their seventies and eighties

they've been fishermen all their lives

Before they release the birds

they tie a noose(??Ȧ), loosely around the neck

to stop them swallowing any fish they may catch

Chancing and dancing, the Huangs encourage their birds to take the plunge

Underwater

the cormorant's hunting instinct kicks in(?ɸ??Լ?Ӧ???IJ???)

turning them into fish seeking missiles(????)

Working together,

a good cormorant team can catch a couple of dozen decent-sized fish in a morning

The birds return to the raft with their fish because they've been trained to do so

From the time it first hatched

each of these cormorants has been reared to a life of obedience to its master

The birds are, in effect, slaves

But they are not stupid

It's said the cormorants can key(????) the tally(????) of the fish they catch

at least up to seven

So unless they get a reward now and then,
they simply withdraw their labor

The fishermen of course keep the best fish for themselves

The cormorants get the leftover tiddlies(y,??)

With its collar removed
the bird can at last swallow its prize

Best of all(??õ?),
when it isn't meant to have...

These days,
competition for modern fishing techniques

means the Huangs can't make a living from traditional cormorant fishing alone

And this 1300-year old tradition

is now practiced mostly to entertain tourists

But on Caohai(?ݺ?) lake in nearby Guizhou Province

an even more unusual fishing industry is alive and well

Geng Zhongsheng is on his way to set out his net for the night

Geng's net is a strange tubular(??״??) contraption(װ??) with a closed off end

More than a hundred fishermen make their living from the lake

Its mineral-rich waters are highly productive

and there are nets everywhere

The next morning, Geng returns with his son to collect his catch

At first sight, it looks disappointing

Tiny fishes, lots of shrimps, and some wriggling(e,Ť??) bugs

Geng doesn't seem too
downhearted(??????)

The larger fish are kept alive

the only way they'll stay fresh in the heat

Surprisingly, some of the bugs are also singled out for special treatment

They are the young stage of dragonflies

predators that feed on worms and tadpoles

Nowhere else in the world are dragonfly nymphs(Ӽ) harvested like this

Back home,
Geng spreads his catch on the roof to dry

It's being China, nothing edible would be wasted

There is a saying in the far south

"We will eat anything with legs, except a table;

and anything with wings, except a plane."

Within a few hours, the dried insects are ready to be backed up(ʹ?ۼ?) and taken to market

Its the dragonfly nymphs that fetch the best price

Fortunately, Caohai's dragonflies are abundant and fast breeding

so Geng and his fellow fishermen have so far had little impact on their numbers

But not all wildlife is so resilient

This buddhist temple near Shanghai

has an extraordinary story attached to it

In May 2007

A Wild China camera team filmed this peculiar Swinhoe's turtle(?߹?)

in the temple's fishpond

According to the monks, this turtle had been given to the temple during the Ming dynasty

over 400 years ago

It was thought to be the oldest animal on Earth

Soft shell turtles are considerd a good-made delicacy by many Chinese

and when it was filmed

this was one of just three Swinhoe's Turtles left alive in China

The rest of its kind

having been rounded up and eaten

Sadly, just a few weeks after filming

this ancient creature died

The remaining individuals of its species are currently kept in seperate zoos

and Swinhoe's Turtle is now reckoned extinct in the wild

In fact, most of the 25 types of fresh water turtles in China

are now vanishingly rare

The answer to extinction

is protection

And there is now a growing network of
nature reserves through southern China

Of these, the Tianzi(????) Mountain Reserve at Zangjiajie is perhaps the most visited by Chinese nature lovers

who come to marvel at(??????) the gravity-defying landscape of soaring sandstone(ɰʯ) pinnacles

Winding between Zhangjiajie's peaks

crystal clear mountain streams are home to what is perhaps China's strangest creature

This bizarre animal

is a type of newt(???)

the Chinese Giant Salamander

In China, it is known as the baby fish

because when distressed(ʹ???),
it makes a sound like a crying infant

It grows up to a meter and a half long

making it the world's largest amphibian

Under natural conditions, a Giant Salamander may live decades

But like so many Chinese animals

it is considered delicious to eat

Despite being classed as protected species

giant salamanders are still illegally sold for food

and the baby fish is now rare

and endangered(??Σ??) in the wild

Fortunately in a few areas like Zhangjiajie,

Giang Salamanders still survive
under strict official protection

The rivers of Zhangjiajie flow northeast into the Yangtse floodplain

known as the land of fish and rice

On an island in a lake in Anhui province

a dragon is stirring

This is the ancestral home of China's larges and rarest reptile

A creature of mystery and legend

Dragon eggs are greatly prized

these babies need to hatch out quick

It would seem someone is on their trail

For a helpless baby reptile

imprisoned in a leathery membrane
inside a choky(??Ϣ??) shell

a process of hatching

is a titanic straggle

And time is running out

It's taken 2 hours for the little dragon to get its head out of this egg

It needs to gather its strength now

a final massive push

Free at last

the baby Chinese alligators instinctively head upwards toward the surface of the nest

and a ... side world

But the visitors are not what they seem

Sheshuzhen and her son live nearby

She has been caring for her local alligators for over 20 years

so she had fair idea
when the eggs will likely to hatch

Back home, she's built a pond,

surrounded by netting to keep out predators

where her charges will spend the next 6 months

until they are big enough to fend for themselves

For the past twenty years

small scale conservation projects like this are all that have kept China's 150 wild alligators from extinction

Just south of the alligator country

dawn breaks over a very different landscape

The 1800 meter high granite(??????) peaks

of the Huangshan

or yellow mountain

To the Chinese

Huangshan's pines(????) are peak mines,
the strength, and resilience of nature

Some of these trees are thought to be over a thousand years old

Bellow the granite(??????) peaks

steep forest in the valleys
shelter surprising inhabitants

Huangshan macaques(⨺?)

rare descendents of the Tibetan macaques of western China

are unique to these mountain valleys where they enjoy strict official protection

After a morning spent in the treetops

the troop is heading for the shade of the valley

a chance for the grownups escape the heat

and maybe pickup a lanch snack from the stream

As in most monkey societies

social contact involves a lot of grooming

Grooming is all very well for grownups

But young macaques have energy to burn

Like so much monkey business

what starts off is a bit of playful(??Ƥ??) rough-and-tumble(??ս)

soon begin to get out of hand(ʧ??)

The alpha male has seen it all before

he's not in the least(һ??Ҳ??) bothered

but someone or something is watching
with a less than(??????) friendly interest

The Chinese Moccasin(?岽??/?ٲ???/??????) is ambush predator with a deadly bite

This is one of China's largest and most feared varmint(??å) snakes

But the mondkeys have lived alongside these dangerous serpent for thousands of years

They use this, specific alarm call, to warn each other whenever a snake is spotted

Once its cover is blown, the bite proposes no threat to the monkeys

now safe in the treetops

And life soon returens to normal

By later summer, the rice fields of southern China

have turn to gold

The time has come to bring in the harvest

Nowadays, modern high yield strains(?˹???ֲ??) are grown throughout much of the rice lands

Boosted by chemical fertilizers

and reaped by combine harvesters(?????ո??)

This is the great rice bowl(ˮ????ֲ??) of China

producing a quarter of the world's rice

Insects, stirred up by the noisy machines,

are snapped up(Ѹ?ٵõ?) by gangs of red-rumped(??) swallows

including this year's youngsters

who have fledged(??ë) several keeks ago

This could be their last feast before they head for the winter

Mechanized farming works best in the flat bottom valleys of the lowland

To the south, in the terraced hills in Zhejiang province

an older and simpler lifestyle persists

It's 7 in the morning

and Longxian's(????[??]) most successful business man

is off to work

In the golden terraces surrounding the village

the ears(??) of rice are plump(??????) and right for harvesting

But today, rice isn't at the most in Mr Yang's mind

He has bigger fish to fry

Further at valley, the harvest has already began

Yang's fields are ripe too

but they haven't been drained yet

That's because for him, rice is not the main crop

The baskets he's carried up the hillside give a clue to Yang's business

But before he starts work

he needs to let some water out of the system

As the water level drops

the mystery is revealed

golden cub

Longxian villages discoverd the benefits of transferring wild caught cub into their paddy fields long ago

The tradition has been going on here
for at least 700 years

As the water level in the paddy drops

bamboo gate stop the fish's escaping

The beauty of this farming method

is that it delivers two crops
from the same field at the same time

fish

and rice

Smart ecology like this

is what enables China to be largely self-sufficient in food

even today

Back in the village

Yang has his own smoke house(??Ѭ??)

where he preserves his fish ready for market

Longxian cub have unusually soft scales

and a very delicate flavor

perhaps as a result of the local water

Meanwhile, outside the smoke house

there is something fishy(???ɵ?) going on

To mark the harvest

the village is staging a party

Children from Longxian school

have spent weeks preparing for their big moment

Everyone from the community is here to support them

The rice growing cycle is complete

By November

northern China is becoming distinctly chilly

but the south is still relatively warm and welcoming

Accross the vast expanse of Poyang lake

the birds are gathering

Tundra swans(???) are long-distance migrant from northern Siberia

To the Chinese, they symbolize the essence of natural beauty

The Poyang Lake Nature Reserve offers winter refuge to more than a quarter of a million birds

for than 100 species

creating one of southern China's finest wildlife experiences

The last birds to arrive at Poyang

are those which have made the longest journey to get here

All the way from the arctic coast of Siberia

The Siberian Crane, known in China, the White Crane

is seen as a symbol of good luck

Each year, almost the entire world population of these critically endangered birds

make a 9000km round trip(????????)

to spend the winter at Poyang

Like the white cranes

many of southern China's unique animals face pressure from exploitation and competition with people

over space and resources

But if China is leaving proof of anything

it is that wildlife is surprisingly resilient

Gien the right help

even the rarest creatures can return from the brink(?±?)

If we show the will

nature

will find the way.

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