COP15: Netizen writes prose letter in tone of elephant herd
Editor's note:
The 14 roaming Asian elephants in Yunnan province entered the traditional home safe and sound on August 8. On the special occasion, a local netizen were impressed by the news and wrote a prose-like letter in the tone of the now southbound herd.
A letter to humans
Fall is coming. It’s time to go home.
On the day for closing the Tokyo Olympic Games, we Asian elephants continued moving southward. Having crossed the Yuanjiang River in mid-south Yunnan, we’re nearing our traditional home in Xishuangbanna southernmost of the province.
‘The world offers us so much to see!’ With this idea in mind, our family kicked off an unplanned tour in April, heading all the way to the north.
We’ve been told that the place where we live is called Yunnan, so we deemed Yunnan to be the rainforest surrounding our old house. Unexpectedly, we are still in Yunnan after a 1,000-kilometer journey that lasted for more than 100 days.
Yunnan is larger than we imagined.
Indeed, Yunnan is a sizeable place for sightseeing.
We’ve gained a lot during the journey.
We learned that outside our home there are not only forests, grasslands and streams, but also high buildings, villages and those ‘mechanical animals’ that run on the road all day long.
When we first went out, we were worried about how we would stand the test of the sun and rain after we walked out of the woods. After coming out, we found that there were also flowers, plants, and tall trees along the way.
We went into the cornfield for food when we were hungry. Instead of expelling us, the farmers gave us more because they saw we liked our meals.
Yunnan is also a scenic place.
The villages along the way all looked beautiful. We visited a few houses at will and the water from the tap was as lucid as that in the forest.
The trip is wonderful on the whole, but there were slight pities:
We were looking forward to tasting the famed Yunnan rice noodles, but you guys just gave us corns and bananas. In fact, we’d like try something new.
Also, we failed to reach Kunming International Convention and Exhibition Center, where the COP15 is said to take place.
We saw the Dianchi Lake in distance, but we did not climb onto the lakeside hill that resembles a sleeping beauty, for fear that we could wake her up from the sweet dream.
Here, we’d like to say a bit about you humans.
You were kind enough to offer us food and make way for us. Guided by your high-tech drones in the sky, we never got lost, always having the short cut.
But you were also very naughty. You exposed our private affairs by putting pictures on the internet: our sleeps, swims, falls and fights. Now we’re quite shy and a bit worried for the photos are said to have been seen by netizens in China and around the world.
The photos about our journey were admired by Yunnan snub-nosed monkeys, green pea cocks and black-necked cranes, as well as our relatives in Africa.
On the whole, we’re grateful to you humans. Along the way, whether we move north or return south, we are very happy. It is a sightseeing tour, a gourmet tour and a peaceful tour.
More importantly, we have a better understanding of you.
Your kindness made us see that we can live in harmony, and the earth is our shared home.
Let's take good care of Mother nature! Since it was an unplanned tour, we caused some trouble, but we’ll try to minimize it next time.
Thanks again! May our shared home a better future.
A happy family of Asian elephants
August 8, 2021
Source: Yunnan Release; Trans-editing by Wang Shixue and Li Jingshuo