中国的龙为什么不喷火？
What does the Chinese dragon mean?
Name: ________________ Date: ________
我的英国朋友汤姆第一次在中国过春节。他在街上看见很多人在舞龙，大家都很高兴，他却有点儿紧张。“在我们的故事里，龙是坏东西。它会喷火，会把公主带走，最后被一个勇敢的人杀死。你们为什么这么喜欢它？”
其实，中国的龙和西方的龙，几乎是两种完全不同的动物。西方的龙一般有翅膀，住在山洞里，守着一堆金子。中国的龙没有翅膀，却能飞上天。它的身体很长，像一条蛇，而且它大多住在水里，比如河、湖和大海。
这一点非常重要。在古代，大部分中国人靠种地生活，下不下雨，决定了这一年有没有饭吃。人们相信，是龙在管着雨和水。天太干的时候，大家就去龙王庙，请龙王下雨。所以对中国人来说，龙不是要打败的敌人，而是能带来好日子的力量。
那龙到底长什么样子？汉朝有一位学者叫王符，他说龙身上有九种动物的样子：鹿角、骆驼的头、蛇的脖子、鱼的鳞、鹰的爪子……也就是说，世界上并没有真的龙，是人们把很多动物的样子放在一起，才有了龙。
龙的历史也很长。一九八七年，考古学家在河南濮阳发现了一座六千多年前的墓。墓里有人用很多贝壳摆成了龙的样子，差不多有两米长。后来，龙慢慢成了皇帝的标志。皇帝说自己是“真龙天子”，衣服上、椅子上都有龙。到了明朝和清朝，五个爪子的龙只有皇帝能用，别人用了，可能会被杀头。
今天，龙早就不只属于皇帝了。中国人常说自己是“龙的传人”。父母希望孩子将来有出息，叫“望子成龙”。很多人还相信，龙年出生的孩子运气好，所以在中国和不少华人地区，龙年出生的孩子常常比别的年份多。
因为这些不同，有人觉得，把中国的龙翻译成英文里那个喷火的词，很容易让人误会，所以建议给它起一个新的英文名字。
汤姆听完，点了点头，说：“我明白了。我们的龙喷火，你们的龙下雨。”我说：“对。所以在中国，看见龙，不用害怕，跟着它走就行了。”
Key words
| Word | Pinyin | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 紧张 | jǐnzhāng | nervous; tense |
| 勇敢 | yónggǎn | brave; courageous |
| 完全 | wánquán | completely; entirely; totally; complete; whole |
| 管 | guǎn | to manage; to run |
| 打败 | dǎbài | to defeat; to beat |
| 样子 | yàngzi | appearance; look |
| 座 | zuò | constellation; zodiac sign (as in 巨蟹座) |
| 父母 | fùmǔ | parents; father and mother |
| 龙 | lóng | dragon |
| 翅膀 | chìbǎng | wing |
| 堆 | duī | to pile up; to heap up; pile; heap; stack |
| 蛇 | shé | snake |
English (for the teacher)
My English friend Tom was spending Spring Festival in China for the first time. He saw crowds dancing a dragon in the street, everyone delighted, and he was a little nervous. “In our stories the dragon is the bad guy. It breathes fire, it carries off princesses, and in the end a brave hero kills it. Why do you love it so much?”
In fact, the Chinese dragon and the western dragon are almost two completely different animals. A western dragon usually has wings, lives in a cave and guards a pile of gold. A Chinese dragon has no wings, yet it can fly up into the sky. Its body is long, like a snake, and it mostly lives in water: rivers, lakes and the sea.
That matters a great deal. In ancient times most Chinese people lived off the land, and whether it rained or not decided whether there would be food that year. People believed it was the dragon who looked after rain and water. When the weather was too dry, everyone went to the Dragon King's temple and asked him for rain. So for Chinese people the dragon wasn't an enemy to defeat but a power that could bring good times.
So what does a dragon actually look like? A Han dynasty scholar called Wang Fu said the dragon's body has the look of nine animals: a deer's antlers, a camel's head, a snake's neck, a fish's scales, an eagle's claws… In other words, there's no such thing as a real dragon: people put the looks of lots of animals together, and that gave them the dragon.
The dragon's history is long, too. In 1987 archaeologists in Puyang, Henan found a tomb more than six thousand years old. Inside, someone had laid out the shape of a dragon in shells, almost two metres long. Later the dragon slowly became the emperor's symbol. The emperor called himself the “true dragon, son of heaven”, and there were dragons on his clothes and on his throne. By the Ming and Qing dynasties only the emperor could use a dragon with five claws; anyone else who did could lose his head.
Today the dragon has long stopped belonging only to the emperor. Chinese people often call themselves “descendants of the dragon”. Parents hoping their child will make something of themselves is called “hoping your son becomes a dragon”. Many people also believe children born in a Year of the Dragon are lucky, so in China and many Chinese communities more babies are often born in dragon years than in others.
Because of all these differences, some people feel that translating the Chinese dragon with the English word for the fire-breathing one invites misunderstanding, so they suggest giving it a new English name.
Tom listened, nodded, and said: “I get it. Our dragons breathe fire; yours bring rain.” I said: “Right. So in China, when you see a dragon, don't be scared: just follow it.”