To Find Our Lost Friends
——Dragonflies
(寻找我们失去的朋友
——蜻蜓)
Distinguished Teachers, fellow students,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Good morning! My name is Wang Hong-qian. You may call me Thomas. I am a second-year student in the High School of Tsinghua University in Beijing. Thanks for the opportunity to represent the Beijing team to explain our research project. Great to see you all today.
I attended a summer camp held by the Hong Kong Academy of Youth Sciences this July/August, where we learned and made a micro film about dragonflies. Hong Kong is known for its skyscrapers. However Hong Kong is also heaven for dragonflies. Most parts of Hong Kong land, roughly 76% are in the undeveloped primitive state, that provides an ideal place for a lot of small species. According to books, Hong Kong has 123 kinds of dragonflies in numerous ponds, rivers and wetlands. When we visited the ponds of the Hong Kong Park which was described as “kingdom of dragonflies”, we are very disappointed. We discovered not so much dragonflies! Where are they, our friends? Instead we found a lot of red-eared sliders in the ponds. Hong Kong people call them brazilian turtles. We discovered that many years ago they were sold to Hong Kong from America as pet. This creature has very strong ability to reproduce. The big trouble is that they don’t have any predators except we human being of course. People cannot afford to raise so many at home and therefore abandon them in public water, without realizing they are predators of dragonflies! Our friends, the beautiful dragonflies become delicious food of the turtles. The purpose of making this micro film is to let people have a deeper understanding of the small creatures that often appear around us but are not given enough attention.
This was something I hadn't thought of before We human being are too selfish. Only for our entertainment we actually mobilize wars amongst species. Many useful friends like dragonflies are killed in endless wars. We want to open our eyes to observe the nature, and to find the biological mystery in the place where the city and nature may combine. We want to explore the truth of that ignored world and look for answers to improve. Next we plan to ask the Hong Kong government to improve its relevant policies and laws to create a more favorable environment for dragonflies and other small creatures to live and grow.
I learned a lot from this research project. I now have observant eyes and heart of perseverance. I want to see the truth of that beautiful ignored world with my video camera and image how to help. As my teacher said in class, imaging makes science more beautiful. Most importantly I realized that the earth is not only belongs to us human being, but also to the dragonflies, the birds, the trees. They are all our friends. Whenever we try to do something, we need to consider more the various effects to all our friends. One day when all our friends disappeared, we will also disappear. I believe this the truth. Thank you.
Wang Hong-qian
Tsinghua University High School