第一篇：英文導游詞：昆明湖名稱含義西堤東堤湖中諸島

題三：頤和園昆明湖景區（昆明湖名稱含義；西堤；東堤；湖中諸島）

The Summer Palace

Good morning, ladies and gentleman, today we are going to visit the Summer Palace.Let’s start our interesting visit now.We usually enter it from the East palace gate.Now we are standing in front of the Pavilion of Flourishing Culture(文昌閣).It is a three-story gated tower, in which a bronze statue of emperor Wen Chang is worshipped.Emperor Wen Chang was the god of governing emolument and official preacher of Taoism.He was especially respected by ancient scholars.Empress Dowager Cixi, in her early days of using electric light, had an electric generator installed in a courtyard outside the Pavilion of Flourishing Culture.Now we come to the Yeluchucai Temple(耶律楚材祠).It is located at the east dike of the Kunming lake.Yeluchucai was a famous politician of the Yuan Dynasty.He contributed greatly to the upholding of China’s interests during his lifetime.When he died, he was buried at the foot of the jar hill.The temple was built to commemorate him.The lake around us is called “kunming Lake”(昆明湖), It has an area of 220 hectares, consists of three fourths of the whole garden.Originally, it was a natural lake, since then, it has a history of more than 3500 years.The Kunming Lake was formed by water from a spring known as West Sea.Its original size was half of the present one with lakes, ponds and pools scattered around it.In 1749, the fourth emperor Qianlong in Qing Dynasty built the Garden of Clear Ripples in light of the practice of navy, and then he had the lake dredged and deepened.Thus a larger lake came into Beijing.The emperor Qianlong made the lake in the shape of a peach for the celebration to his mother’s birthday.To improve the quality of water, maintain the complete of the bank.Beijing municipal government organized 200000 workers from 1900-1911 to clean the mod of the lake use more than 100 machines.Can you see a pavilion stands in the Kunming lake? A number of willow trees and peach trees were planted on this islet.The pavilion is embraced by water on all sides, in early spring, when the ice begins to melt, peach trees are red in pink blossoms, willow trees turn a tender green signaling that the earliest spring has returned.Hence the name “Heralding Spring Pavilion”(知春亭).To the east of the 17-Arch Bridge there is a Bronze Ox(銅牛)placed on a marble terrace with carved sea waves.In ancient china, ox was used as a symbol of the flood control.This has been a tradition, since the Tang Dynasty, people placed an iron ox on the bank of the river.This Bronze Ox1

has its head raised, its horns turned upward and its eye fixed ahead.The “Golden Ox Inscription” with 80 words was cast on the back of the Bronze Ox, just to explain for its presence.This pavilion is called Spacious Pavilion(廊如亭), located at the eastern of the 17-Arch Bridge.It is a wooden structure of unusual size.It is an eight-sided and double-eaved pavilion with an area of over 130 square meters.Supported by 40 wooden pillars in all, 24 round pillars and 16 square pillars made it the biggest pavilion of its kind in China.During the Qing Dynasty, emperor Qianlong and his scholars often drank wine and composed poetry here.The bridge looks like a rainbow is called “17-Arch Bridge”(十七孔橋).It is the largest bridge in the Summer Palace.It links East Dike at its eastern and connects South Lake Island at its western end.It is 150 meters long and 8 meters wide with 17 arches.There are 544 stone lions in different sizes and postures carved on the top of the balusters.The number 17 was adopted because seen from either left or right, the ninth arch is in the middle, and the number nine was the lucky number in Chinese.Passing through the bridge, we come to the South Lake Island(南湖島).It is the biggest island on Kunming Lake.On the island are ancient pines and cypresses, halls, pavilions and a temple of the Dragon King, who is also the god of Rain.In ancient times, people had the customs of building the temple of the Dragon King on the bank of a river or a lake to control water.So the Temple of Dragon King was built here not only with the purpose to decorate the island but also to control water.Ok, Ladies and gentleman, May I have your attention please? We get to the well-known western dike stretching from north to south of Kunming Lake.The six varied bridges lie along the western dike, namely, jiehu Bridge, Binfeng Bridge, Yudai Bridge, Jing Bridge, Lian Bridge and Liu Bridge, between the Lian Bridge and Liu Bridge ridge erecting the Jingming Tower Modeled the well-known Yueyang Tower, The exuberant trees set off the beauty of the Kunming Lake.In particular, with the flowering in the lovely March, the dike appears incomparably inviting to tourists.The first bridge Jiehu Bridge(界湖橋Lake Boundary Bridge)is located at the turning point of Kuning Lake and Back Lake, so known as Lake Boundary Bridge.In the times of Qianlong, its name was Willow Bridge.Also at that time, the willow Bridge at the southern end of the present day West Dike was named Lake Boundary Bridge.When the Summer Palace was rebuilt, the names of the bridges were exchanged.Binfeng Bridge(豳風橋 State Song Bridge)was called the Mulberry and Ramie Bridge in the times of Qianlong.It received its present name after it was rebuilt.Both the old and the new name

related to agriculture since there are many carvings depicting farming and weaving on the western side of this bridge.Using Binfeng to name the bridge imparts the meaning of the songs and rural landscape to all who walk upon it.The third one is Yudai Bridge(玉帶橋 Jade Belt Bridge), Since the bridge looks like a flying arch-shaped jade passage, when Emperor Qianlong took a dragon boat from Kunming Lake to Jade Spring Hill, it was named thus.This bridge is also the water entrance of the Kunming Lake.The Jing Bridge(鏡橋 Mirror Bridge)received its name from a well-known poem by Li Bai of Tang Dynasty.The double-eaved octagonal pavilion on the bridge was reconstructed on the basis of the original one after 1949.Lian Bridge(練橋 Bridge of White Silk)get its name from a poem.Lian means white silk.The Lian Bridge was named so because it spanned the silk-like water.The last one at the southern end of the western dike, is the Liu Bridge(柳橋 Willow Bridge), a verse of the Tang poet Du Fu inspired this name: on a fine day, catkins fly over the bridge.It means that the bridge is located among the willows with flying catkins over it.Since there are many willow trees on the West Dike and the bridge and willows set each other off, hence it got its name-Willow Bridge.Thank you for you attention.This is today’ itinerary, I think everybody is tired now, let’s go back the hotel to have dinner.Tomorrow we will continue.,