牛仔

Cowboys are a true symbol of the USA. The life of a cowboy was anything but glamorous. It entailed hard work and long lonesome hours. Cowboyclothing is an everyday part of their wardrobs. Today they are remembered in "Spaghetii Westerns". many country and western songs try to capture the true cowboy spirit. This fasination with the "Old West" is still popular today. Music has made cowboys more and more popular. The cowboy's real job isn't singing though, it's looking after cattle. Hence the name "cowboy". When the Civil War ended, many of the soldiers had no home ti return to and started drifting to the West on horseback. Then ranch owners hired these hard working men as ranch hands and they were the first cowboys. When the time came to sell the beef, the hands would round-up the cattle from the open prairie and take them to market. The West stopped being wild and barbed wire was invented and soon it was almost impossible to roam around freely as they had done before. So as Western America developed, the cowboys' jobs became less and less. Nowadays no one thinks of these origianl cowboys, only the ones we see in the movies.

牛仔是真正能代表美国的象征。牛仔的生活一点也不诱人，他们必须承受繁重的劳动和长期的寂寞孤独。牛仔服就是他们的日常服饰。今天他们留给人们的记忆仍然是他们在意大利式西部片中的形象。正是这些影视作品在上世纪五六十年代引发了一阵热潮。很多乡村音乐和西部歌曲都试图表现真正的牛仔精神。这种对“老西部”的迷恋至今仍还很流行。音乐让西部牛仔变得越来越有名。不过，牛仔的真正的工作并不是唱歌那么轻松，而是照看牛群，所以他们才被叫做“牛仔”。内战结束时，很多士兵都无家可归，于是他们就骑着马漂泊到了西部地区。那里的大牧场主就雇佣这些勤劳的人做牧场的帮手，他们也就成为了最早的牛仔。到了出售牛肉时节，这些劳工们就从空旷的大草原把牛群集拢到一起，把它们赶到市场。因为西部不再荒凉，而且人们发明了带刺的铁丝网，这样牛仔再也不能像以前那样自由自在地四处游逛了。所以随着美国西部的发展，牛仔的工作变得越来越少。现在人们知道的不是这些最初的牛仔，而是我们在电影中看到的那些人物形象。