In Africa, listening is a guiding principle .It’s a principle that’ been lost in the constant chat of the Western world .From my own past experience , I noticed how much faster I had to answer a question during a TV interview .It is as if we have completely lost the ability to listen .We talk and talk , and we end up frightened by silence .
Everywhere, people on the African continent write and tell stories. Even the nomads(流浪者)who still live in the Kalahari Desert are said to tell one another stories on their daylong wanderings, during which they search for roots and animals to hunt.
A number of years ago I sat down on a stone bench outside the Teatro Avenida in Maputo, Mozambique, where I worked as an artistic consultant. It was a hot day, and we were taking a break, hoping that a cool gentle wind would move past. Two old African men were sitting on that bench, but there was room for me, too. In Africa people share more than just water. Even when it comes to shade, people are generous.
I heard the two men talking about a third old man who had recently died. One of them said, “I was visiting him at his home. He started to tell me an amazing story about something that had happened to him when he was young. But it was a long story. Night came, and I decided that I should come back the next day to hear the rest. But when I arrived, he was dead.”
The man fell silent. I decided not to leave that bench until I heard how the other man would respond to what he’d heard. Finally he, too, spoke. “That’s not a good way to die—before you’ve told the end of your story.”
What separates us from animals is the fact that we are storytelling creatures and we can listen to other people’s dreams, fears, joys, sorrows, desires and defeats—and they in turn can listen to ours.
Many people make the mistake of confusing information with knowledge. They are not the same thing. Knowledge involves the interpretation of information. Knowledge involves listening.
Many words will be written on the wind and the sand, or end up in store. But the storytelling will go on until the last human being stops listening. Then we can send the great record of human out into the endless universe.
Who knows? Maybe someone is out there, willing to listen…
小题1:From the very beginning of the passage, we can know Europeans ________.A．actually lose the ability to listenB．seldom chat constantly with each otherC．feel frightened when they are alone and silentD．tend to talk more and listen less小题2: It can be inferred from the passage that if you are in Africa, you will _______.A．suffer hot weather and lack of waterB．be certainly helped when in trouble C．often hear the stories told by strangersD．have no choice but to listen during a talk小题3:According to the last three paragraphs, we can know _________.A．no one knows exactly why Africans are willing to listenB．information is hard to understand without interpretationC．listening makes the difference between information and knowledgeD．the existence of humans’ recordings totally depends on the way of storytelling小题4:The passage mainly talks about __________.A．the experience of the authorB．the art of listening in Africa C．the importance of storytellingD．the life styles of Africans