全新版大学英语听说教程4听力原文

1

全新版大学英语听说教程第四册 听力原文（ Part B，C 部分）

Unit 1

Part B

Birthday Celebrations Around the World

Chairman: Welcome to this special birthday edition of One World. Yes, folks, we've been on the air for

exactly one year now, and we thought it would be a nice idea to have a special program dedicated to

birthday celebrations around the world. With us in the studio tonight we have Shaheen Hag and Pat

Cane, who have a weekly column on birthdays in the Toronto Daily Star. Shaheen: Good evening.

Pat: Good evening.

Chairman: Shaheen, perhaps we could begin with you. How are birthdays celebrated in India?

Shaheen: Well, perhaps we're all assuming that everyone in the world celebrates their birthday. This

just isn't the case. Low-income families in India, for instance, simply can't afford any festivities. And

most Muslims don't celebrate their birthdays.

Pat: I think Shaheen has raised an interesting point here. The Christian church, too, was actively

against celebrating birthdays, and in any case most people, until a couple of hundred years ago,

couldn't even read and wouldn't have even been able to spot their birthday on a calendar anyway.

Shaheen: Of course some Muslims do celebrate their birthdays. In Egypt, Turkey and Indonesia, for

example, the rich people invite friends and families around. But not in small villages. Chairman: Here in

England your twenty-first used to be the big one. But now it seems to have moved to eighteen. Is that

true?

Pat: Yes, in most parts of the West eighteen is now the most important birthday. In Finland, for example,

eighteen is the age when you can vote, you know, or buy wines, drive a car and so on. But in Japan I

think you have to wait till you're twenty before you can smoke or drink. Shaheen: I know in Senegal,

which is another Muslim country, girls get to vote at sixteen and boys at eighteen. And in Bangladesh,

girls at eighteen and boys at twenty-one.

Chairman: That's interesting. I mean is it typical that around the world girls are considered to be more

mature than boys?

Shaheen: Yes, I think so, and there are some countries, particularly in South America, which have a big

party only for girls. In Mexico and Argentina, for example, they have enormous parties for 15-year-old

girls.

Pat: You know in Norway they have a great party for anyone who's not married by the time they're thirty.

It's kind of embarrassing. I mean you get pepper thrown at you.

Chairman: Pepper? Why pepper?

Pat: I'm not really sure.

Shaheen: So does that mean that on your 29th birthday you can start thinking 'God I better get

married'?

Pat: Well, I'm not sure how seriously they take it.

Chairman: In England we have quite big parties for your fortieth, fiftieth, sixtieth and so on.

Pat: Well, in Japan your eighty-eighth is considered ...

Chairman: Eighty-eighth?

Pat: ... to be the luckiest birthday. Eight is a very lucky number in Japan.

Part C 2

Unit 2 Part B Last Gasp for Smokers

It was a normal day and in their New York office, Ken and his colleagues stopped for their coffee

break. But while his colleagues were able to sit at their desks and drink their coffee, Ken had to go

outside. He couldn't stay inside, because he wanted to smoke. If the smokers of the Big Apple want to

enjoy a cigarette, the authorities have decided they must go out into the street or up onto the rooftops.

Throughout the United States, the number of places where people are allowed to smoke has

gradually dwindled. First it was banned on trains, buses, and planes, then in public places such as

theaters and airports. Now you can't smoke in any workplace. Nonsmokers are definitely winning the

battle. "Why should we breathe their smoke?" they say.

If they're lucky, smokers can still find some bars and restaurants or parks and recreation centers

where they can light up a cigarette, but it may soon be banned there, too. In fact, smoking in parks and

recreation centers is already banned in California. On August 9, 2001, Los Angeles City and County

officials announced the implementation of a smoke-free park policy, officially designating smoke-free

zones in all 375 parks and recreation centers in the city. And since January 1, 2002 all parks in

California have become smoke-free to safeguard children from the harmful effects of secondhand

tobacco smoke and dangerous tobacco waste. Anti-smoking groups even think that smoking ought to

be banned in people's homes. Under new plans you won't be able to smoke in any house where there

are more than ten visitors in a week, or where there are children.

In 1996, nicotine was classed as a drug, like cannabis, cocaine or heroin. And scientists all over