吃瓜不易 | 一只远道而来的西瓜 The introduction of watermelon in...
夏日吃西瓜对我们国人来说是一件稀松平常的事情，但说来你不信，在某些国家，尤其是日本和韩国，西瓜还是只能论片买的奢侈品。我国是世界上最大的西瓜生产国和消费国，而这个大瓜可是历尽千辛万苦，还要有很多机缘巧合才“滚”到中国。
In China, it's common to see people enjoying fresh and juicy watermelons in hot summer. The country has become the world's largest producer and consumer of watermelons. But this popular summer fruit is in fact an exotic crop which had traveled a long way to settle in China.
西瓜的故乡目前公认在非洲南部荒漠地区，后引种到北非的埃及与利比亚一带。早在4000多年前，尼罗河沿岸地区就已大规模种植西瓜，考古学家曾在埃及古墓中发现了不少西瓜的壁画。
The homeland of watermelon is generally believed to be the desert regions of southern Africa. Wild watermelons were domesticated about 4,000 years ago and were widely cultivated in ancient Egypt and Libya. Archaeologists have found seeds and drawings of watermelons in pharaohs' tombs of ancient Egypt.
古埃及人对西瓜十分喜爱，他们把西瓜放进金字塔，作为法老的墓葬品。Ancient Egyptians were especially fond of watermelons. They put the fruit in pyramids as a treat for the afterlife.
后来，西瓜跟随粟特人贸易的脚步传播到了花剌子模、布哈拉、撒马尔罕地区（今属乌兹别克斯坦），西瓜种植开始在中亚兴起。中亚一带的摩尼教教团，崇尚瓜类食物，他们接过西瓜东传的接力棒，把西瓜带到漠北回纥，给西瓜东传蒙古高原创造了条件。
From Africa, watermelon embarked on its journey to go global. As the Sute (Chinese for Sogdians) merchants who lived in Central Asia expanded trade routes between the East and the West, watermelons were spread to states of Khwarezm, Samarkand and Bukhara in present-day Uzbekistan.
Many Sogdians practiced the religion of Manichaeism and adhered to a vegetarian diet. They believed melons were particularly rich in 'light', an ingredient of divinity.
From 763, the Huihe people (i.e. the Uyghurs), who inhabited around the borders in northern China, adopted Manichaeism as their official state religion and began to grow watermelons on the Mongolian Plateau.
五代时期，契丹人向漠北回纥人发动战争，无意中获得西瓜种子，以“牛粪覆棚”技术在辽上京一带（今内蒙古赤峰市巴林左旗）种植，这是西瓜最早出现在中国的记载。
Watermelon was documented to debut in China during the period of the Five Dynasties (from 907 to 960). Qidan (or Khitan), a nomadic ethnic tribe in northeast China that established the Liao Dynasty, invaded the Huihe Khanate and accidentally obtained the seeds of watermelon.
The Qidan brought the seeds back to the capital of Liao Shangjing (in modern Bairin left Banner, Chifeng city of Inner Mongolia), and planted them inside sheds instead of on uncovered farmland.
1995年，考古人员在内蒙古敖汉旗羊山一号辽墓壁画中，发现了我国已知年代最早的“吃西瓜”图。A mural of a Qidan nobleman enjoying watermelons, discovered in a tomb of Liao Dynasty in Inner Mongolia. It was the oldest known scene of ancient Chinese eating the exotic fruit.
辽墓壁画临摹图。A facsimile of the mural.
到南宋以前，西瓜基本都只在北方传播，而且产量很少，普通百姓别说尝了，连见一眼这个绿皮宝贝都难。把西瓜引种到南方，让天下百姓实现“西瓜自由”的，还得感谢一个人——南宋使者洪皓。
For more than a century before the Southern Song Dynasty, watermelon had remained a rare species in China, cultivated in only a few areas in the north and offered exclusively to the upper class.
赤峰市宁城县出土的辽代瓜条纹三彩罐 A tri-color glazed pot painted with watermelon stripes, Liao Dynasty, unearthed in Chifeng city
洪皓出使金国后，把西瓜种籽带回江淮地区，并在南方大力推广种植。到了南宋中晚期，西瓜在中国南北方都非常普遍了。
In 1143, Hong Hao, an envoy of Southern Song to the Jin Empire, brought seeds of watermelon to the Yangtze-Huaihe River basin and promoted planting of the fruit in South China. By the mid-Southern Song Dynasty, watermelon was widely grown throughout the country.
不过近代历史考古中不断有新的发现，说明西瓜的传入历史可能更为悠久。
However, in recent years, there were new archaeological discoveries suggesting that watermelon may have arrived in China much earlier than previously thought.
陕西历史博物馆馆藏唐三彩西瓜 A tri-colored glazed watermelon of Tang Dynasty, housed in Shaanxi History Museum
在陕西历史博物馆中，藏有一个“唐三彩西瓜”。在1976年，广西贵县西汉墓椁室淤泥中发现类如西瓜籽的种子。1980年，江苏省扬州邗江县汉墓中也发现了西瓜籽，说明汉唐时期我国就出现了西瓜。
A tri-colored glazed watermelon displayed in the Shaanxi History Museum in Shaanxi province dates back to the Tang Dynasty. Also, seeds of watermelon were uncovered from tombs of Han Dynasty in Jiangsu province and the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.
These findings indicate that the existence of the fruit in China can be traced back to as early as the Han Dynasty (202 B.C. to 220 A.D.).
虽然两汉到隋唐的历史上没有对西瓜的记载，但有学者指出，汉武帝曾经派使者和商队乘船向西到达过“已程不国”后返回，开辟了海上丝绸之路。
Despite the fact that there was no record of people growing and eating watermelon between the Han and Tang dynasties, some researchers pointed out that watermelon might still have found its way into China through the ancient Maritime Silk Road.
这个神秘的“已程不国”，据记载是中国、波斯与印度商船交汇的要地，一般认为是今天印度以南的斯里兰卡，或是东非。
In early years of the Western Han Dynasty, Emperor Wu dispatched envoys and merchants on a voyage to what considered to be present-day Sri Lanka or East Africa, a place where ships from India, China and Persia converged. The voyage marked the opening of the ancient Maritime Silk Road.
因此，非洲的西瓜有可能通过水路抢先在中国南方登陆，并在数百年的漫长时光后，与从北方南下的同族相会，借着大规模种植推广的东风，“滚”入寻常百姓家”。
Therefore, watermelons from Africa may probably be imported to South China via sea trade routes and later join melon varieties from the north to finally become a fruit enjoyed by every household.
从非洲传来的珍稀贡品，到扎根华夏沃土，培育出众多良种，西瓜一路东传、一路演变，征服了广大“吃瓜群众”，成为夏季的水果之王。
Over the course of history, watermelon has evolved from a precious offering to pharaohs in ancient Egypt to the most popular summer fruit in China. Today, Chinese people is able to enjoy numerous varieties of watermelons.