poeny洛阳牡丹英语导游词.doc

Luoyang Peony Dear Guests, now its my turn to accompany you to enjoy and admire the Luoyang Peony. Peony is a famous Chinese traditional flower. The flower originally grew in wilderness,which was described as nothing different from brier. Peony mainly grows in the Tibetan Plateau, the Yellow River valley, the Ba and Chin Mountains, the Zhongtiao Mountains inShanxi Province. Funiu and Mang Mountains in Henan Province . The origin of peonys ancestry can be traced back to 3,000 years ago. According to historical record, the growth of peony in Luoyang started from the Sui Dynasty. flourished in the Tang Dynasty, and became well known in the North Song Dynasty. It says in the historical record of the Sui Dynasty that five days after Qing Ming Festival,peony flowers are blooming. Ever since the Sui Dynasty when folk planting of peony was prevalent, it gradually gained the favor of the royal. In 604 A.D.,Emperor Sui Yang set up his capital in Luoyang and the area within 100 kilometers around Xiyuan was built into the frist royal peony garden with varieties of peony. Till the Tang and Song Dynasties, Luoyang maintained as capital and at the same time growing and appreciating peony became more and more popular.The famous Tang Dyansty poet Bai Juyi wrote the whole city is crazy during the twenty days when the peony bloom and fade . This gives a vivid picture. We can imagine the popularity and spectacular view of the peony flowers at that time from the famous sentence: The best festival is Han Shi, while the best gardens are in Luoyang. Royal palaces, temples,gardens,and private parks were everywhere. When in spring, the spring of the capital has come; the city is noisy and crowded with people and vehicles; everyonetalks about peony and poes to buy it. There are two poets poems best tell you the craze when people appreciated peony flowers, which are Liu Yuxis only peony is the real beauty; its bloom shocks the whole capital and Sima Guangs the most prosperous is Luoyangs spring; millions of families are enjoying its bloom; someone says the peony flower are imitating the beautiful things; people take beautiful things after the peony flowers. There are over 360 kinds of different famous flowers in China, and each has its own specialty. But peony flowers take higher position over others, They are big in flowers and rich in variety, therefore are praised as the king of the flowers. With its mild climate and moderate rain, Luoyang is a suitable place for peony flowers to grow. When literateur Ouyang Xiu of the Song Dynasty was an official in Luoyang, he visited all the places of interest there, and favored especially the Luoyang peony flowers. He wrote in his well-known A Written Narration on Peony Flowers of Luoyang, the most suitable place for peony flowers to grow is Luoyang, and the rarest plant in the world is the peony. It is said that long, long ago people living in Mang Mountain used not to regard peony flowers as elegant and often burnt them as firewood. A young man took great pity on this and transplanted peony flowers into his yards, giving them great care. At night of a mid-autumn day, a beautiful girl came into his yards gracefully and presented him a set of bedding and a handkerchief embroidered with big peony flowers. Just when he was about to ask, the beauty disappeared suddenly. Opening the handkerchief, he found a poem on it sating:my name is peony and my home is Mang Mountian; to thank for your love and care, rare flowers are to bloom nest spring . In the following spring , penoy flowers in his yard were really colorful and flourishing , and lovely as well . Since then , he began to live on planting penoy flowers and led a better life . For over one thousand years since the Tang Dynasty , there have been many skillful peony planters in Luoyang . Record of Long says , Song Danfu , citizen of Luo , and whose another name is Zhong Ru , was good at poetry and techniques of planting . He could culture peony flowers into thousands of different colour . Nobody knows how he did it . Emperor Tang Xuan called him to Li Mountain to plant peony flowers of various colours in great number . He was granted tons of gold when he went back home and thereafter was called Master of the Penoy Flowers . There is a popular story taking place in the Tai He Period of Tang. One day in spring , when Emperor Li Ang was apprciating peony flowers in the inner palace, he asked the painter Cheng Xiuji , who is best in writing poems about peony ? Cheng answered , poet Li Zhengfeng said ,real beauty made people drunk . The emperor was full of praise , and then called Luoyang peony flowersheavenly beauty of the nation , and this is where the reputation heavenly beauty of the nation comes from . Talking about the varieties of Luoyang peony , there have been excellent kinds coming out , all fascinating over one thousand years . The number of its kinds amounted to 199 at the most flourishing period in history , while nowadays it has reached over 500 kinds . Generally speaking , peony flowers can be classified into three kinds , nine colors ,and ten typs . Three kinds refers to single-headed , heavy -headed and mixed , classified according to the flower number on each branch every year :one flower is single -headed peony . Nine colors refer to red , pink , purple , blue , yellow , white , and green colors of the flowers , based on the colors of peony flowers . Ten typed are mainly classified according to the number , size , and arrangement of Luoyang peony petals . Darwin , in his Origin of Species , quoted the ecological aberrance of Luoyang peony as proof of his theory of evolution. IntheSong Dynasty,Yao Huang bred by a Yao-family in Luoyang and Purple of the Wei Dynasty bred by Wei Renfu , prime minister of Zhou, were called the Queen of Peony and the King of peony , which was described in a poem Yao Huangs flower in bloom would top all other beautiful flowers off . During the Yuanfeng years , Emperor Song Shenzong was presented with a Yao Huang flower , which had a diameter of one ruler and two inches and he was very excited about it . Despite of his prestigious status, he put the flower into his hair. We can tell from this how crazy the emperor was about peony flowers and it becam a much - told story ever since. Since the Tang and Song Dynasties, many literaties had produced works of art concerning peony flowers. Therefore, a Peony Culture came into being gradually , and a lot of myths , legends and anecdotes appeared. There is a story going like this. In the second year of Tianshou , it snowed heavily in the western capital Xian ,and the women emperor Wu Zetian was drinking and writing poems. While in high spirits , she wrote a poem down which commanded that all the flowers should be in bloom overnight . The flowers were so scared by this order and bloomed overnight but the peony flowers refused to do so for it was still not the right season. Under great fury , Wu Zetian ousted peony flowers out of the capital ,exiled them to Luoyang and convicted fire on them. Even having gone through the inexorable doom , peony flowers still stood strong in the cold wind , though with coke - like body, its root and branches still held closed together . When breeze blew the followig spring , the flowers were in brighter colors , and were thus honored as peony flowers with coking bones. Another legend about peony flowers took place when Li Longji, Emperor Tang Ming , accompanied by Yang Yuhuan ,toured Chenxiang Pagoda in Changan palace . Yang Yuhuan was the highest - ranking imperial concubine of Emperor Tang Ming and was portrayed as the only beauty faored by the emporer among three thoudand beauties of the king in the royal palace . When she heard that the Luoyang peony flowers were in its full bloom , while the ones in the royal garden still in buds , she sent people to strike drund to urge the flowers to bloom , but they stayed the same . She was so angry that she convicted all the peony flowers to Luoyang . It was queer that whenecer the peony flowera arrived at the eastern capital Luoyang , the flowers bloomed to their full length all at once , shining and magnificent . In fact , to study it scientifically, though Xian is at almost the same latitude with Luoyang . its temperature and humidity are somewhat lower than those of Luoyang . Luoyang is far away from high mountains , at the southern side of Mang Mountain , so spring comes eariler to it than to Xian .The famous genius poet Li Bai wrote in his Qing Ping Diao , elegant flower and attractive beauty are in perfect harmony ; they always win the appreciation from the emperor Yang Yuhuan tothe attractive peony flowers . All these legends tell us about the peony flowers character of not yielding to the despotic power , which is valued as the vivid description of the Chinese traditional determination and perseverance . Since Luoyang peony become well known to the word , people come in an endless stream to buy them . With the frequent communication between China and Japan in the Sui and Tang Dynasties , peony flowers were spread to Japan and treasured and worshipped . They were also nprevalent in the neighboring South band North Korea . Thereafter , the trend was followed also in America and Europe . They called peony flowers Chinese flowers or magical flower from the heaven . At the end of the Northen Song Dynasty , the Middle China was occpiued and the palaces in Luoyang were destroyed completely . The planting and growing of the peony flowers declined in Luoyang and the plants were transferred to the new capital of South Song , Huazhou .During Jiajing period of the Ming Dynasty , resadent in Haozhou and Caozhou bagan to transplant peony flowers where the new peony resort emerged . Some elegant breeds could be seen in Tianpeng of Sichuan Province and Salt City of Zhejiang . Since then ,Luoyang peony has started to reach every corner of China jradually . Ofter the new China was founded , having gone through various, there were only about 30 kands of Luoyang peony left. In the fall of 1959, when Premier Zhou Enlai visited Luoyang Tractor Factor, he especially asked about Luoyang peony. His care greatly enhanced the Luoyang governments attention to peony. Very soon the government restored and enlarged the planting area of peony flowers , and successively opened up peony viewing sections in Wangcheng, Mudan, Xiyuan, and Nanguan parks, a masterwork peony flowers garden in Mang Mountain, a pen-kilometer-long peony corridor in Luo-pu park and specially a one-thousand-mu gene storage base. Luoyang Peoples Standing Committee claimed peony city flower and an annual Peony Festival has been held since 1983. Thereafter ,the variety of peony increases to over 500 and you can see peony flowers everywhere. Every year,Yellow of the Yao family , Purple of Wei, Black Lying Dragon in Ink Pool, the Drunk Beauty, and some other elegant breeds will show their unique glamour to the admirers, making them feel as if they were a sweet dream. Wangcheng Park has once got the highest record of 100 thousand visitors a day. In season of full bloom , residents in the city will pour to view the flowers , leaving the streets deserted. Just like the poem says:When watching peony flowers in their full bloom, you will forget all the other things. Equally attractive event with the peony is the Luoyang Lantern Festival that started since the Sui and Tang Dynasties. Over one thousand years, it has become one of the significant customs people celebrate on holidays. In recent years, Luoyang Lantern Festival is becoming more and more popular and is regarded as one of the greatest lantern festivals in China. The colorful lanterns will bring you to a wonderland with the mystery of both fairyland and the real world. To be more worth mentioning , in the early winter of 1994, the leading group of the national contest of national flower exposed to the press that the candidate national flower scheme was:one nation, one flower-peony. At that time, an early-fallen snow covered the ancient nine-dynasty capital Luoyang with beautiful silver dress; however, a peony plant in the garden of Luoyang Fireproof Academy was in its full bloom magically. People were then telling one another to take the pleasure to see the flowers. Xinhua News Agency and scores of other news media competed to report this wonder of the recent one hundred years. In recent years, Luoyangpeony stepped into the international market to Japan