This is Tibet, the song is called "Antelope Crossing The Ridge"

Photo source: Leo's post.

那一天羚羊过山岗, 回头望, 清晰的身影, 很苍凉, 天那么低, 草那么亮, 亚克摇摇藏红花, 想留住羚羊
那一天羚羊过山岗, 回头望, 清晰的身影, 很苍凉, 天那么低, 草那么亮, 低头远去的羚羊, 过了那山岗

Tibetan antelope is dubbed as “Fairy on the Plateau”, a rare species of wild animals exclusively existing on Qinghai-Tibet Plateau in China. The main cluster area for the species, Kekexili (可可西里) in Qinghai Province, is deemed to be a “Forbidden Zone for Living Creatures”. The plateau is 4000-5000m above sea level, featuring rarefied air and sparse plants and is hard for human and many sorts of animals to survive, the Tibetan antelope not only can survive the harsh condition but also is able to scamper without stop for 20-30 kilometers at 60km/h under this anoxic environment... However, the population of the wild animals have reduced by 2/3 in recently years since 1984 due to poachers' large scale illegal hunting, the local people tried so hard to fight against the poachers under extremely difficult conditions, no funding and human resources, some of them sacrificed lives to protect the animals. It's documented in this short film Kekexili 可可西里, once the film was aired it moved many people and drew enormous response from around China, which is embodied by the establishment of Tibetan antelope salvation fund directing at raising money for the protection zone. Finally in 2000, Tibetan antelope became Grade I animal under state protection and was listed as an endangered species.

Digest from Culture China

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周末BBQ, 意外地发现一棵金桔树，于是摘了起来, 原来新鲜金桔的皮是甜的，瓤是酸咸的...

When I was little my parents would give me some sugar-dried kumquats to eat if I caught a cold coughing, it helps relieve cold. I once asked why all kumquats are sugar-dried, I was told that because it was difficult to preserve, kumquats grew in Guangdong province, it took time to transport. Even though I have seen decorating kumquat plants at homes (Kumquat is called 金桔 in Chinese, meaning golden tangerine, a lucky symbol) I don't remember I had fresh kumquats before.

Last weekend I discovered a real kumquat tree at a professor's home garden, where we had a BBQ summer celebration. When I told the couple that this was the first time I saw kumquats on a big tree, they said: Go and pick as many as you wish, there are too many, more than we can eat. So I picked kumquats! The interesting thing about fresh kumquats is that its rind (skin) tastes sweet, the meat inside sour and a bit bitter, different from other citrus. ... Maybe this is another reason kumquats are sugar-dried in China. I also found that it is indeed not easy to preserve kumquats, those ripe ones start to spoil even in refrigerator.

According to Chinese medicine, Kumquat is categorized as "mild warm", good for reducing high blood pressure, improving flexibility of blood vessels, and preventing winter flu as well. Its fragrance can help digesting etc. .....

金桔药用: 金桔对防止血管破裂，减少毛细血管脆性和通透性，减缓血管硬化有良好的作用，并对血压能产生双向调节。高血压、血管硬化及冠心病患者食之非常有益。金桔的香气令人愉悦，具有行气解郁、生津消食、化痰利咽、醒酒的作用，为脘腹胀满、咳嗽痰多、烦渴、咽喉肿痛者的食疗佳品。常食金桔还可增强机体的抗寒能力，防治感冒。

(This post is finished late, on Aug. 5th, 2009 )

The Red-Crowned crane has been called 仙鹤 (xian he) which literally means fairy crane since ancient time in China. Legend holds that the crane is the prince of all birds and lives for a thousand years due to exceptional long life span (a crane can live for over 70 years long), so it stands for peace, harmony and immortality and often featured together with ancinet pine trees in Chinese paintings where the pine trees also symbolize strong and long life, as seen in this 松鹤图 (Crane and pine tree painting) of Qing Dynasty.

The Red_Crowned cranes are one of the most beautiful dancers in the birds' world, they live in pairs, dance all the time. It was said that they dance to form a strong bond between the pair, look at these pictures taken by photographer 温雨露 to see how beautiful they are! They are like fairy birds sent from heaven, this must be why we call them 仙鹤.

The Red-crowned Cranes, candidate for China's national bird
However, there are only about 1500 of these beautiful Red-Crowned cranes left in the world, they are one of the most endangered of the 15 crane species. The main threat is habitat destruction of land and long grasses due to development. The Red-crowned cranes mostly live along the Heilongjiang River of China and Lake Xingkai (Lake Khanka in Russian) which is a transboundary region between China and Russia, the two countries are cooperating to protect these precious birds.

China is the home of 9 of the 15 world total crane species, about 1200 Red-Crowned cranes live in China, the rest live in Japan, Russia, north and south Korea. In 2004, Chinese netizens voted the Red-Crowned crane as our national bird among 10 candidates. But we are still waiting for the final approval by the State Council, sighed, It takes too long...

P.S. Another beautiful bird among the 10 candidates is this 红腹锦鸡 i.e. Chinese Pheasant/Golden Pheasant, it's very beautiful too.

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