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发表于 2011-12-9 15:29:33
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英文版终于出来了,贴上!
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VOX POPULI: Spare a thought for the humble sparrow
I wrote about "mejiro" (Japanese white-eyes) in this column in the summer, and received many letters from readers, some of whom sent snapshots of these yellow-green birds. There are plenty of mejiro fans out there.Poet Hiroshi Takeyama (1920-2010) was one of them, apparently.
He penned this subtly humorous piece: "Mejiro are starting to come to my osmanthus tree/ Suzume (sparrows) can keep coming, too, but I won't miss them if they don't." Takeyama's indifference to sparrows makes me feel sorry for them, but there is no denying that they are just too common. "Suzume no namida," or "a sparrow's tear," means an utterly insignificant amount. Someone who wears the same clothes every day is called a "kitakiri suzume." And "suzume no senkoe tsuru no hitokoe," which literally translates as "a sparrow's 1,000 calls and a crane's single call," implies that a single command from a person in authority can silence 1,000 opinions voiced by the masses.All these sparrow-related idioms show how lightly this bird is taken in Japan. We need to think again.
Japan's sparrow population is said to have plummeted dramatically. A group of Rikkyo University and Iwate Medical University researchers recently announced that the population has declined by an estimated 60 percent over the past 20 years. The numbers are based on the results of bird-banding projects carried out by the Yamashina Institute for Ornithology. Sparrows are in big trouble.
Recent changes in their behavior are also worrying. Although the birds coexist with humans, they are extremely timid by nature and do not trust humans. However, all around the nation, there are now flocks of sparrows that beg food from people and even eat from the hand. The experts are stumped. Something is happening to the sparrow.
In traditional Japanese children's songs, sparrows "study at school," as do "medaka" (killifish). The latter, too, were once seen in any freshwater stream or body of water, but are now in danger of extinction because of development and agricultural chemicals. "They are all playing together," go the lyrics, but these days that doesn't happen very often.
Sparrows puff up their feathers in winter to stay warm. They look like darling little balls, bundled in their speckled overcoats. I don't want these humble and ubiquitous creatures to disappear.
--The Asahi Shimbun, Dec. 6 |
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