题目内容
For many years it was common in the United States to associate Chinese Americans with restaurants and laundries. People did not realize that the Chinese had been driven into these occupations.
The first Chinese to reach the United States came during the California Gold Rush of 1849. Like most of the other people there, they had come to search for gold. In that largely unoccupied land, the men staked a claim for themselves by placing marks in the ground. However, either because the Chinese were so different from the others or because they worked so patiently that they sometimes succeeded in turning a seemingly worthless mining claim into a profitable one, they became the scapegoats of their envious competitor. They were harassed in many ways. Often they were prevented from working their claims; some localities even passed regulations forbidding them to own claims. The Chinese, therefore, started to seek out other ways of earning a living. Some of them began to do the laundry for the white miners; others set up small restaurants. (There were almost no women in California in those days, and the Chinese filled a real need by doing this "woman's work". ) Some went to work as farmhands or as fishermen.
In the early 1860 's many more Chinese arrived in California. This time the men were imported as work crews to construct the first transcontinental railroad. They were sorely needed because the work was so strenuous and dangerous, and it was carried on in such a remote part of the country that the railroad company could not find other labourers for the job. As in the case of their predecessors, these Chinese were almost all males; and like them, too, they encountered a great deal of prejudice. The hostility grew especially strong after the railroad project was complete, and the imported labourers returned to California—thousands of them, all out of work. Because there were so many more of them this time, these Chinese drew even more attention than the earlier group did. They were so very different in every respect: in their physical appearance, including a long "pigtail" at the back of their otherwise shaved heads; in the strange, non-Western clothes they wore; in their speech (few had learned English since they planned to go back to China); and in their religion. They were contemptuously called "heathen Chinese" because there were many sacred images in their houses of worship.
When times were hard, they were blamed for working for lower wages and taking jobs away from white men, who were in many cases recent immigrants themselves. Anti-Chinese riots broke out in several cities, culminating in arson and bloodshed. Chinese were barred from using the courts and also from becoming American citizens. Californias began to demand that no more Chinese be permitted to enter their state. Finally, in 1882, they persuaded Congress to pass the Chinese Exclusion Act, which stopped the immigration of Chinese labourers. Many Chinese returned to their homeland, and their numbers declined sharply in the early part of this century. However, during the World War II, when China was an ally of the United States, the exclusion laws were ended; a small number of Chinese were allowed to immigrate each year, and the Chinese could become American citizens. In 1965, in a general revision of our immigration laws, many more Chinese were permitted to settle here, as discrimination against Asian immigration was abolished.
Chinese Americans retain many aspects of their ancient culture, even after having lived here for several generations. For example, their family ties continue to be remarkably strong (encompassing grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins and others). Members of the family lend each other moral support and also practical help when necessary. From a very young age children are imbued with the old values and attitudes, including respect for their elders and a feeling of responsibility to the fami
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Which of the following Chinese characteristics is NOT mentioned in the passage？
Which statement is the true description about IWC？
The concern throughout the world in 1988 for those three whales that were locked in the Arctic ice was dramatic proof that whales, several species of which face extinction, have become subjects of considerable sympathy.
These are the recorded voices of whales. These monstrous creatures have been trumpeting their songs, one to another, in the world's oceans since the dawn of time, while overhead, great empires and civilizations have come and gone. Now, their time of decline has come. It began a long time ago.
Four-thousand-year-old rock carvings show that the people who lived in what is now Norway were probably the first to seek out and kill whales in the sea. By around 890 AD, 3,000 years later, the practice had spread to the Basque people of France and Spain, who hunted whales from boats in the Bay of Biscay. In the centuries that followed, whaling became an important industry in Denmark, England, Germany, the Netherlands, and, finally, in what would become America.
Whaling went into dramatic decline, beginning around 1900. Today, whales are hunted commercially only by Norway, Iceland and Japan. The world's fascination with them, however, is at an all-time high, because so few of them are left, given their tragic history.
Richard Ellis writes about whales, takes pictures of whales in the open sea, and sketches whales stranded on the beach. He says it's a 20-year obsession that began in the mid-1960s, when he designed a model of a great blue for the Museum of Natural History in New York.
"As I began to do the research. I realized that nobody knew anything about whales. And I couldn't really find any pictures of what they looked like: all I could find was pictures of dead whales. And I became very excited at the prospect of doing what seemed to be original research on something that was so peculiar, which was the largest animal that has ever lived on earth. "
So large, he discovered, that the largest dinosaur weighed only half as much as the female blue whale. As he continued his research he boarded scientific vessels. Dove with whales in the Pacific, and even watched whales die at the hands of modern, explosive-tipped harpoons. His sketches appeared in magazines and encyclopedias and at the center of what was then the beginning of a movement to save the whales.
"I was one of those people who used to stand on street corners and ask for people to sign petitions, which at that time were directed towards the Japanese and the Soviets. Because in that period of time—late 60s, early 70s—the Japanese and the Soviets were killing tens of thousands of sperm particularly in the North Pacific, And we thought that getting the world's opinion on paper would make them say, 'Oh look, all these people don't like what we are doing. We will stop. ' Well, of course, they didn't stop. "
Not at first, commercial whaling peaked in the mid-1960s, with more than 60,000 whales killed each year. The International Whaling Commission, a group of member nations aimed at regulating the industry, began to make recommendations to end commercial whaling entirely. Why kill whales for soap, or fuel or paints and vernishes, even margarine, if we had substitutes for all those products？ The seemingly senseless slaughter focused the world's attention on the whale and consequently the International Whaling Commission or IWC.
"And since it's said nowhere in the constitution of the IWC that you had to be whaling nation to join, you have countries like Kenya and the Seychelles. Switzerland is a member of the IWC, a country not known for its whaling history. Countries joined because they felt that this was something that needed to be done. "
By 1986, the Commission had passed a moratorium on commercial whaling. But since the organization had no enforcement powers, it could and can not impose sanctions on violators. Only a f
The world seems increasingly divided into those who favor genetically modified (GM) foods and those who fear them. Advocates assert that growing genetically altered crops can be kinder to the environment and that eating foods from those plants is perfectly safe. And, they say, genetic engineering—which can induce plants to grow in poor soils or to produce more nutritious foods—will soon become an essential tool for helping to feed the world's burgeoning population. Skeptics contend that GM crops could pose unique risks to the environment and to health—risks too troubling to accept placidly. Taking that view, many European countries are restricting the planting and importation of GM agricultural products. Much of the debate hinges on perceptions of safety. But what exactly does recent scientific research say about the hazards？
Advocates of GM, or transgenic, crops say the plants will benefit the environment by requiring fewer toxic pesticides than conventional crops. But critics fear the potential risks and wonder how big the benefits really are. "We have so many questions about these plants," remarks Guenther Stotzky, a soil microbiologist at New York University. "There's a lot we don't know and need to find out. "
As GM crops multiply in the landscape, unprecedented numbers of researchers have started fanning into the fields to get the missing information. Some of their recent findings are reassuring; others suggest a need for vigilance.
Every year U. S. growers shower crops with an estimated 971 million pounds of pesticides, mostly to kill insects, weeds and fungi. But pesticide residues linger on crops and the surrounding soil, leaching into groundwater, running into streams and getting gobbled up by wildlife. The constant chemical trickle is an old worry for environmentalists.
In the mid-1990s agribusinesses began advertising GM seeds that promised to reduce a farmer's use of toxic pesticides. Today most GM crops—mainly soybean, corn, cotton and canola—contain genes enabling them to either resist insect pests or tolerate weed-killing herbicides. The insect-resistant varieties make their own insecticide, a property meant to reduce the need for chemical sprays. The herbicidetolerant types survive when exposed to broad-spectrum weed killers, potentially allowing farmers to forgo more poisonous chemicals that target specific weed species. Farmers like to limit the use of more hazardous pesticides when they can, but GM crops also hold appeal because they simplify operations (reducing the frequency and complexity of pesticide applications) and, in some cases, increase yields.
But confirming environmental benefit is tricky. Virtually no peer-reviewed papers have addressed such advantages, which would be expected to vary from plant to plant and place to place. Some information is available, however. According to the U. S. Department of Agriculture, farmers who plant herbicidetolerant crops do not necessarily use fewer sprays, but they do apply a more benign mix of chemicals. For instance, those who grow herbicide-tolerant soybeans typically avoid the most noxious weed killer, turning instead to glyphosate herbicides, which are less toxic and degrade more quickly.
Insect-resistant crops also bring mixed benefits. To date, insect resistance has been provided by a gene from the soil bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt). This gene directs cells to manufacture a crystalline protein that is toxic to certain insects—especially caterpillars and beetles that gnaw on crops—but does not harm other organisms. The toxin gene in different strains of Bacillus, thuringiensis can affect different mixes of insects, so seed makers can select the version that seems best suited to a particular crop.
Defining the environmental risks of GM crops seems even harder than calculating their benefits. At the moment, public attention is most trained on Bt
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