阅读理解
China and Western countries may have different cultural beliefs
about certain animals, but when it comes to pigs, we have somehow reached an agreement—that
pigs are ugly, lazy, stupid and shameless.
Just look at the idioms and phrases in our languages. In Chinese,
we have the likes of "Boiling a dead pig" and "A pig looking in the
mirror is still a pig". And in English, there are expressions such as
"eating like a pig" and "sweating like a pig". None of them
are exactly praise.
But truth is that pigs do have some fine qualities. And maybe
there's no better time to clear their names than now, with the arrival of Year of
the Pig on Chinese Spring Festival.
For starters, science had proved that pigs aren't stupid at all.
According to a paper published last year in the International Journal of Comparative
Psychology, pigs are "mentally and socially similar to dogs and chimpanzees(黑猩猩)". By training, pigs can learn some
skills, such as dancing and swimming. They like to play. They have good long-term
memories. And they can tell between who treat them well and those who don't.
There are popular pig characters in cartoons too. In the UK cartoon
series Peppa Pig, the four members of the cartoon's pig family teach children from
all over the world about love, friendship, and the value of family. And in China,
the adventures of McDull, a piglet who works hard toward his dreams even though
he keeps failing, have been recounted in films since 2001. "People care too
much about the immediate results, but McDull is slow and patient, and not
afraid of repeating failure," said McDull's creator Brain Tse. "He has
a heart of gold."
Perhaps these are the qualities of pigs to keep in heart when
we celebrate the New Year—their wisdom, cuteness, patience and bravery.
