Unit 1 Our world
Life in a day高中英语课文
What do you love? What do you fear? What’s in your pocket? These are the questions from the film Life in a Day. Director Kevin Macdonald asked people around the world to answer the questions and send in a video clip from a typical day. He was interested in creating a picture of the world, a digital time capsule for the future. On 24 July 2010, people from Africa, Europe, America, Antarctica and Asia recorded events on their mobile phones and digital cameras and uploaded them onto the Internet. In all there were 81,000 video clips. It took Macdonald and a team of researchers seven weeks to make them into a film.
你喜欢什么?你害怕什么?在你的口袋里是什么?这些问题来自电影《一天的生活》。导演凯文·麦克唐纳要求世界各地的人们回答这些问题，并发送一条有代表性一天的视频片段。他对创造一幅世界图景感兴趣，一个未来的数字时间胶囊。2010年7月24日，来自非洲、欧洲、美洲、南极洲和亚洲的人们用手机和数码相机记录下日常琐事并上传到互联网上。总共有81
000个视频片段。麦克唐纳和一组研究人员花了7周的时间将其拍成电影。
The film starts at midnight. The moon is high in the sky, elephants are washing themselves in a river in Africa and a baby is sleeping. At the same time, in other parts of the world, people are getting up, brushing their teeth and making breakfast. In the next minutes of the one-and-a-half-hour-long film, we watch everyday routines from more than 140 different countries and see the connections between them. In one short scene an American girl is playing with her hula hoop. In another, a child is working at a shoeshine stand in Peru. One looks well off, the other is poor, but then the shoeshine boy shows us his favorite thing—his notebook computer. He’s very proud of it because he earned the money to pay for it.
电影于午夜开始。月亮高高地挂在天空中，大象在非洲的一条河里洗澡，一个婴儿在睡觉。与此同时，在世界的其他地方，人们起床，刷牙，做早餐。在这部长达一个半小时的影片中，接下来的几分钟，我们将看到来自140多个国家的人们的日常生活，以及它们之间的联系。在一个简短的场景中，一个美国女孩正在玩她的呼啦圈。在另一幅画中，秘鲁的
一个小孩在擦鞋摊工作。一个看起来很富裕，另一个很穷，但是后来擦鞋童向我们展示了他最喜欢的东西——他的笔记本电脑。他很自豪，因为是他自己挣钱买来的。
“We all care about the same things,” says the director and in some ways he’s right. Family and friends are the things most people love and many of them are keen on sports, like football. But then one man says he loves his cat and another loves his fridge because it doesn’t talk back!
“我们都关心同样的事情，”导演说，在某些方面他是对的。家人和朋友是大多数人所喜欢的，他们中的许多人热衷于运动，比如足球。但是，一个人说他爱他的猫，另一个人说他爱他的冰箱，因为它不会顶嘴!
Monsters, dogs and death are the things most people fear. One young girl is worried about growing up and a man in Antarctica says, “I’m afraid of losing this place.” But when asked, “What’s in your pocket?”, the answers are surprising. We don’t see an ID card, a shopping list, or a bus ticket. Instead, one person has a paper towel, and another shows us a button. A poor man says he has nothing. He’s not ashamed of his poverty—he’s sim
ply happy to be alive.
怪物、狗和死亡是大多数人害怕的东西。一个年轻的女孩担心长大，一个在南极洲的男人说:“我害怕失去这个地方。但是当被问到“你口袋里有什么?”，答案令人惊讶。我们看不到身份证、购物清单或公交车票。相反，一个人拿着纸巾，另一个人给我们看一枚纽扣。穷人说他一无所有。他并不为自己的贫穷感到羞耻——他仅因为能活着就感到高兴了。
The film ends just before midnight, with a young woman in her car. It’s raining outside and she’s recording a short clip on her phone. “I just want people to know that I’m here,” she says. In other words, she wants to show that her life matters.
电影在午夜前结束，一个年轻的女人在她的车里。外面下着雨，她正在用手机录一段短片。“我只是想让人们知道我在这里，”她说。换句话说，她想表明她的生命很重要。
Even though their lives are very different, the people in Life in a Day have one thing in common: each of them is able to find meaning and happiness, no matter what his or her life is like.
即使他们的生活是非常不同的，人们在一天的生活中有一个共同点:他们每个人都能到意义和幸福，无论他或她的生活是什么样子。
Unit 2  Places
Where history comes alive
Xi’an, China
Xi’an is no doubt one of the most popular tourist destinations in China. Every year, millions of travelers visit the Terracotta Army of Emperor Qin Shihuang about 42 kilometres from the city centre, which is one of the most amazing historic sites in the world.
西安无疑是中国最受欢迎的旅游目的地之一。每年，数以百万计的游客参观距离市中心42公里处的秦始皇兵马俑，它是世界上最令人惊叹的历史遗迹之一。
As one of China’s great former capitals, Xi’an grew to be the largest city in the world durin
g the Tang Dynasty, a golden age of art and poetry. Chang’an, as it was known at the time, was the starting point of the Silk Road, which connected China to the world. It was here that Xuan Zang set out on his famous travels, which became the basis of Journey to the West. Historic sites from that time include the two Wide Goose Pagodas and the remains of the Daming Palace, which was the centre of the Tang court.
作为中国伟大的前首都之一，西安在唐朝发展成为世界上最大的城市，唐朝是艺术和诗歌的黄金时代。当时的长安是连接中国与世界的丝绸之路的起点。正是在这里，玄奘开始了他著名的旅行，这也成为了《西游记》的基础。从那时起，包括两个宽鹅塔和大明宫遗址的历史遗迹，便是唐代宫廷的中心。
Today, Xi’an is a modern city, at the heart of China’s Belt and Road initiative, but its long history can be seen everywhere: it is one of the few cities in the world that still have city walls. The wall, almost 14 kilometres in length, was originally built for the purpose of defence, but nowadays, it’s a great way to experience Xi’an: from here,you can get an amazing view of the city.