I think you probably know that penguins are one kind of birds. When we heard “birds”, most of time we popped up bird flying image in our mind. Penguins do have a pair of wings, but sadly they can’t fly. Why penguins can’t fly? Keep your curious mind alert; we are going to learn why penguins are good swimmers, but not flyers, and some other interesting, fun facts about them. For example, why they wear white and black tuxedos, but not colorful one like rainbow fish does?
[audio:http://www.chinesetolearn.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Listen-to1.mp3|titles=Listen to]
How to say ” Penguins are flightless birds and they live in Antarctica” in Mandarin Chinese : Qìé shì bú huì féi de niǎo, tāmen zhù zài nánjízhōu 企鹅是不会飞的鸟，他们住在南极洲. Qìé (企鹅 noun, penguins) shì (是 verb, are) bú (不 negate word, not) huì(会 modal verb, can) féi (飞 verb, fly) de (的 particle to connect the attributive and the noun it modifies) niǎo (鸟 noun, bird), tāmen (他们 pronoun, they) zhù (住 verb, live) zài (在 preposition word, in) nánjízhōu (南极洲 proper noun, Antarctica).
Why penguins are black and white, but not orange and pink? The reason is: When they’re swimming, their predators (掠 夺 者 [lüèduózhĕ] ) below them will have a hard time seeing their white fronts against the light coming from the water surface; if predators are above them will also have a hard time recognize (认 出 [rènchū]) their dark backs against the dark water below them. This is a form of counter shading. Counter shading is a common color pattern ( 花 样 [huāyàng] ) in animals. The dorsal side (upper side) of the animal is darker than the ventral (lower) side. This kind of color pattern offers camouflage (伪 装 [wĕizhuāng] or 保 护 色 [băohùsè] ) and protection ( 保 护 [băohù] ) for the animals, because of counter shading, animals have a better chance to escape predators’ attack. So, next time when you plan to go scuba diving, for your safety, remember to buy a wet suit with black back and white front to increase your chance of not getting eaten by sharks.
A lot of people wish to have a pair of magic (神 奇 的 [shénqí de] ) wings to fly with. However, not all wings are equal at flying. Some are just fake wings like penguins’ — with no flying ability at all.
The reason that penguins cannot fly in air is their wings are too small for their body weight (重 量 [zhòngliàng] ). Penguins have very small wings, yet very heavy. Besides, penguins do not have hollow ( 空 的 [kōng de] ) bones like majority (大 多 数 [dàduōshù] ) of other flying birds do, so penguins are much heavier and harder, and they are not able to support the action of flying with their little dwarf (矮 小 的 [ăixiăo de] ) wings.
Did you become blue or produce burning angry flame ( 怒 火 [nùhuǒ] ) in your body when you lost something or when you didn’t have things that most people had? If you did, then those sad blues and the flaming emotional fires were not helpful at all on increasing your emotional or physical health level. You certainly or surefirely need to learn from this wise old man who lived thousand years ago on the border line of northern China.
We have a Chinese idiom 塞翁失马 sài wēng shī mǎ which means “Misfortune might be a blessing in disguise.” The story goes like this:
Once upon a time, on the border of ancient China, lived a wise old man who made his living by raising horses. One day one of his horses ran away. His neighbors felt sorry for him and went to comfort him, but he said: “I just lost a horse, there is nothing to feel sad about. Maybe this misfortune will bring something good to me; you never know.” A few days later, just like the wise border man had said, not only the lost horse came back, the horse also brought back another fine horse. Again, came the neighbors to offer congratulations to the border old man. However, the border man said : “Who knows what will happen after this good fortune.” A few days later, wise man’s son got thrown off from the horse back and broke his leg. Again, neighbors came to comfort the wise man, and the wise man said: “Broken a leg is bad, but maybe some goodness will come after it.” As he had predicted, the broken leg gave wise man’s son the rightful excuse not to be recruited to go to battle; thus, this bad thing — the broken leg — saved his life and prevented him from getting killed in the battles.
[audio:http://www.chinesetolearn.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Listen-to3.mp3|titles=Listen to]
This idiom can also be expressed as:
塞翁失马 焉知非福 Sāi Wēng Shī Mǎ, Yān Zhī Fēi Fú
Border old man lost his horse, how can you know it won’t be something fortunate?
Border old man lost his horse, blessing or bane?
[audio:http://www.chinesetolearn.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Listen-to4.mp3|titles=Listen to]
So, in today’s post, the penguins sadly don’t have good wings to fly. But, it is not necessary a bad thing either. The short heavy wings serve as good, strong paddles which are great tool for swimming, and they are also fast at catching fish too. Therefore, even penguins can’t fly in the sky, they do fly under water! Their clumsy unable flying wings help penguins with hunting for fish, and also the extremely (非 常 [fēicháng] ) efficient ( 效 率 高 的 [xiàolù gāo de] ) wings make them so chubby (肥 胖 的 [féipàng de] ) and adorable too. Always see things from the bright side, no matter what happened or will happen.
Even most of penguins live in icy places, they are warm blooded like humans. Penguins are social creatures and they love their fellow penguins’ company a lot. Penguins live in large colonies called rookeries. They love penguin city life for they don’t like to live in a little town with just a few penguin citizens; they definitely don’t want to be a recluse. Penguins are good learners of sign language ( 手 语 [shŏuyŭ] ); they talk with their head and flippers (the so called flightless wings). They are good at using body language, but, when they got mad, they don’t use their head to knock or their flippers to slap, they use their beak to bite to defend themselves and their nests. Speaking of beak, do you know that penguins don’t chew food? They just swallow it as a whole; it can be a fish, cephalopods or krill.
Penguins spend most of their lives in water. Practice makes perfect, so they all are perfect swimmers. How many minutes can you hold your breath underwater? Three minutes, five minutes? For penguins, they can hold their breath for about 20 minutes underwater.
The way they walk is called waddling. Waddling sounds like silly and slow, yet sometimes they can waddle (摇 摇 摆 摆 地 行 走 [yáoyáo băibăi de xíngzŏu] ) faster than humans walk. They are speedy, plumpy, shaky waddlers.
Most people know penguins’ worst enemies are sea lions (海 狮 [Hǎishī]) . However, sea lions are not as lethal as global warming ( 全 球 变 暖 [quánqiú biànnuăn] ), oil spills or water pollution. Penguins have become endangered (面 临 绝 种 危 机 的 [miàn lín jué zhǒng wēi jī de] for many reasons. The biggest one is global warming. It causes penguins to die. Human related pollution （ 污 染 [wūrăn] ） deepens global warming and global warming makes the temperatures get higher. When the sea temperatures become high, a lot of sea ice will be melted. without the land to stand upon, penguins will be greatly endangered for they won’t have many places to call home. What can we do to prevent global warming? Sound like an interesting topic to learn later.
Before we conclude today’s post, let’s learn one more thing – penguins and stones or penguins and pebbles. Some penguins build nests of small stones. They might take stones from other nests. Sometimes, a penguin might return to the nest bringing its mate a stone as a courtship gesture. Instead of buying a bouquet of flowers like some people do for their partners, penguins seem more practical （切 合 实 际 的 [qièhé shíjì de] ） and economical 🙂 Now you will be able to comprehend better about this song.
Now and Forever- The Pebble and the Penguin with lyrics
Angela Zhang – Invisible Wings For the lyrics, pinyin and English translation see
http://www.chinesetolearn.com/?p=2046
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