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1、Unit 1The Sea GypsiesIt was Christmas night in the United States a year ago that a giant wave of Tsunamihit South Aisa. It sweptaway at least 200,000 Indonesians, Sri Lankans, Thaisand tourists from around the world on their Christmasvacations. But there s one group who live precisely where the tsun
2、amihit hardest who suffered no casualties at all.They are the sea gypsies of the Andaman Sea, or as they call themselves, the Moken .They velived for hundreds of years on the islands off the coast of Thailand March, they are, of all the peoples of the world, among the least touched miraculously they
3、 survived the tsunami because they knew it was coming.and Burma. As reported last by modern civilization . AndIts their intimacy with the sea that saved them. They re born on the sea, live on the sea, die on the sea. They know its moods and motions better than any marine biologist . Theyre nomads, c
4、onstantly moving from island to island, living more than six months a year on their boats.At low tide , they collect sea cucumbers and catch eels. At high tide , they dive for shellfish. And theyve been living this way for so many generations that theyve become virtually amphibious . Kids learn to s
5、wim before they can walk. Underwater, they can see twice as clearly as the rest of us, and by lowering their heart rate , can stay underwater twice as long. They are truly sea urchins.This old man decided he wanted to fish for breakfast. It was a pufferfish. If its notcut properly, it can killyou. T
6、he Moken cut it properly.We found this Moken village on an island two hours by speedboat from the coast of Thailand . It had become something of an exotic tourist Mecca before the tsunami. A Bangkok movie star and amateur photographer named Aun was here on December 26, taking pictures of Moken villa
7、ge life, when someone noticed the sea receding into the distance.Correspondent:“ How far?”Aun: “ Like.you see the blue one?”Correspondent: “ Yes. ”Aun: “ Can you see the blue water? Youdidn tsee any water.”Correspondent:“No kidding . You could walk all the way out there?”Aun: “ Yeah. ”Aun continu ed
8、 taking pictures. They show ed the Moken on the beach crying.Correspondent:“ Did you have any idea why they were crying?”1Aun: “ I feel like they know what bad will happen, but I don t know how much bad.”And Aun s pictures showedthe Moken fleeing towards higher groundlong before the first wave struc
9、k.Aun: “ The first water, just come like., over here.”Correspondent:“ The water got that high?”Aun: “ Yeah.”And that was just the first wave. The worst was yet to come, as the Moken knew because of signs from thesea.It wasn t only the sea that was acting strangely. It wasthe animals , too. On the ma
10、inland,elephants startedstampeding toward higher gro und. Off Thailand s diverscoast, noticed dozens of dolphins swimming for deeperwater, And on these islands, the cicadas, which are usually so loud, suddenly went silent.And the silence was heard by Saleh Kalathalay , that skilled spear-fisherman w
11、ho was on a different part ofthe island. He ran around warning everyone.Correspondent:“ When you told people in the village, you said something was wrong, did they believe you?Kalathalay:“ The young people called me a liar. I said, we ve told the story of the wave since the old times, butnone of the
12、 kids believed me. I grabbed my daughter by the hand and said, Child, get out of heredie! She said, You re a liar, father, youI hadn thadre drunkadrop. to drink.”Saleh brought the skeptics to the water edge,s where they, too, saw the signs. Eventually, everyone, theMoken and the tourists, climbed to
13、 higher ground and were saved. But the village itself? ThereCorrespondent:“ Why do you think the tsunami happened?”Kalathalay:“ The wave is created bythe spirit of the sea. The Big Wave had not eaten anyone for a long time, andit want ed to taste them again.”Correspondent:“ Do you think that they co
14、nsider themselves very unlucky because their village was destroyed orlucky beca use they survived?”Hinshiranan:“I think they just take it as a matter of fact. ”Dr Narumon Hinshiranan is an anthropologist, one of the very few who speaks the Moken language.Correspondent:“Tell me what is it in you mind
15、 that permitted the Mokento know that the tsunami wascoming? ”Hinshiranan:“The water receded very fast and one wave, one small wave, came so they recognized that is notordinary. And then they have this kind of legend that passed from generations to generations about seven2waves. ”It sa legend recite
16、d around campfires, bearing an astonishing resemblance to what actually happened onDecember 26. They call it the Laboon the wave that eats people and it s brought on theby angry spirits of the ancestors. Before it com es, the sea recedes. Then the waters flood the earth , destroy it, and make it cle
17、an again.Correspondent:“So basically, this tsunami myth is that the world is rebornafter it is covered withwater.”Ivanoff:“ Yes. ”Correspondent:“ So, we re back*theto Biblical flood. ”Ivanoff:“ Yes. ”French anthropologist Jacques Ivanoff isthe world s foremost authority on the Mokenand has been livi
18、ngwith themon and offfor more than 20 years. We joined him on a voyage of discovery,who was going to theMoken islands off the coast ofBurma ， *a military dictatorship closed to the outside world. There d beennonews of what had happened to these Moken since the tsunami.Correspondence:“ We knew that t
19、he Moken survived the tsunami, the Moken in Thailand survived. We reallydon t know for sure what happened in Burma , don t we? ”Ivanoff:“ Nobody can know,because no informationgets out of Burma.Everybodyhas to say nothinghappened.* That means the tsunami stopped at the border that s it, finished, en
20、d of the story.”Ivanoff s boat,converted cargo ship called“ the Moken Queen* could” have sailed right off the pages ofJoseph Conrad. The captain was called“ Long Ear,” the crew all Burmese,hroudedthedeckin nets to protect usfrom malarial mosquitoes .*All sense of time of the 21 st century seemed to
21、evaporate into the tropical night airas we probed fartherand farther into what often seemed to be the heart of darkness.Correspondent:*“ It s really difficult to get more remote than this, isn t it?”Ivanoff:“*Not the best part of the story . You are outside of everywhere. You are nowhere, in fact.”A
22、nd at dawn, two Moken boatscame out of nowhere. They invited us down. The Moken on the two boatshadn seent each other since the tsunami and started exchanging tales of survival.*While the Moken offThailand had been on dry ground , these Moken in Burmese waters had been in their boats, at sea.A Moken
23、 Man:“ The water had such unbelievable strength. It was swirling like a whirlpoolas if it was boilingand coming from the depths of the earth . ”Like theirThai cousins , these Moken also knew what to do.Since they were at sea, they made for deeper3water and were spared. Others, like some Brumese fish
24、ermen near them, were not.Correspondent:“ When you can, I wanna ask him a question, which is, how come he knew something was wrong,and the Burmese fishermen did not ? They weren t Burmese businessmen;they were fishermen. They shouldknow the sea, too.”A Moken Man:“They were collecting squid; they wer
25、e not looking at anything. they saw nothing, they looked atnothing. They don t know how to look. Suddenly,everything rose up. Their boats were thrown up in the air .The violence was unbelievable”When we got to shore, we talked to a family of Moken living on their boat on the beach. But during the ts
26、unami, they d also been at sea.We started by introducing ourselves.Correspondent:My“ name is Bob”Moken man :“ Bob, Bob, Bob, Bob.”We came here to find out whether or not these people had survived tsunami.We wound up captivated by theirculture . We had never seen anything like it.Correspondent:“ How
27、old is this gentleman?”Ivanoff:“He don t doesn t”know.Correspondent:Why,“ I mean, every, everyone we asked how old they are, the answer is the same-they don tknow? How do you explain that?”Ivanoff:“Time is not the same concept as we have. You can t say for instance,When,Whenitdoesn. t exist inMoken
28、language .Correspondent:“When doesn t ,existthe word, the question When doesn t exist?”Ivanoff:“ No, no.”And Ivanoff says“ when” is not the only word missing from the Moken language.Ivanoff:“Want”Correspondent:“ Want? ”Ivanoff:“ Yes, you use it very often. Take that out of your language and you see
29、how often you use it.I want that.”Correspondent:“ There is no word for want . ”Ivanoff:“No , there is a word for take . You take something, you give or you take. You don t want.”4The fact is, the Moken want very little . What they don t want is to accumulate anythingBaggage. is not goodfor a nomadic
30、 people .It ties you down . They have no notion and no desire for wealth.Remember Saleh, thespear fisherman, that was breakfast. He will think about lunch later on.Correspondent:“ Ok, there is no word for“ when” , there is no word for“ want ” Anything else that weIvanoff:“ No goodbye, No hello.”Corr
31、espondent :“ No goodbye or hello?”Ivanoff:“ Ahem,That s quite difficult.You know, after.imagine after one year, you live with them,and then yougo. You go. That s it. Finished.”No greetings. While we were on a Thai Moken island, a flotillafrom Burma dropped by. They didn seemtterribly excited by this
32、. Visits from relatives, and they re all relatives, happen alltheretismeno.And sincenotion of time, it doesn matter if the last visit commingling. And, in the wake of the tsunami , theywas a week ago or five years ago. There just a constant re all busy now, rebuilding their boats and their lives.Iva
33、noff:“ And what I saw since the tsunami is yes, they take this opportunity, you know, to make the strong groupstronger. For instance. You are sitting on his boat.”Correspondent :“ Is it OK with him?”Ivanoff:“ Yeah, no problem.Correspondent:“But it s just.he thought.he should point it out that he wan
34、teduseto the boat? ”Ivanoff:“ No,he wanted to work a bit on the boat, but.”Correspondent :“ But he doesn t mind waiting?”Ivanoff:“ Of course not.”Correspondent :“ Are you sure it s not a problem?”Ivanoff:“ I m sure. ”But the Moken do have problems. The Burmese have turned some of their islands into
35、military bases.TheThais are having them make trinkets for tourists, a trend which could ultimately threaten their way of life far morethan any number of tsunamis. Butthe Mokendon tseem terriblyworried by all this. Perhaps that because“ worry” is just one more of those words which doesn t don t exist in their language.5