běi jí guāng 北极光 ,也叫 " 欧若拉...ōu ruò lā "

breakdown:

北....bei...north

极....ji...extreme [or pole in this context...bei ji is north pole]

光...guang....light or ray

and

" 欧若拉...ōu ruò lā "...looks almost certainly a transliteration to me.

Interesting that an mdbg search under aurora only brought up northern lights and not the aurora australis..southern lights.I suppose many more have seen the northern lights,though travel to the antarctic seems to have increased in recent years.I presume the southern lights are simply:

南极光...nán jí guāng

Wow, everything is astro at the moment! I saw them once at home, they were really far south that year. Was pretty amazing!

sebire,

You're so lucky.That would be awesome to see.I'd love to see them someday.Whenever I think of either Aurora's [mdbg didn't have specific translation for either borealis or australis btw] I always recall one of my favourite films which also has a great sound track including Dire Straights on the theme song.The film?...Local Hero 1983 with Burt Lancaster and Peter Riegert.Burt Lancaster is the head honcho in a Texas oil company and sends Peter Riegert to Scotland [a lesser known employee chosen on the mistaken assumption that he had Scottish heritage because he was called McIntyre...emigrating parents had changed their surname] to buy up an entire village.He was very interested in the Northern Lights and got Peter Riegert's character to report to him if he saw them.Here is the scene:

I thought this was a very special heartwarming movie.When I went to Scotland I went to that phone box in the scene,but alas had no luck seeing the lights.hehe

Here's a link to the trailer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4WQZbGMrl4

And here's a link to the theme song ,"going home":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9R2dsmggw6E

北极光 (aurora borealis)
南极光 (aurora australis)
北极星 = 北辰（bei3chen2） = polar star

And I like to eat 北极贝 (bei3ji2bei4), which is very popular here in northeast China, but I don't know how to say it in English.

http://images.google.cn/images?hl=zh-CN&newwindow=1&q=%E5%8C%97%E6%9E%81%E8%B4%9D&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi

changye,

Thanks for the link to all the pics of 北极贝.Are they imported from the Arctic,or are they found further south such as North East China?

Hi bababardwan

I guess 北极贝 is imported from Russia and North Korea. Anyway, it's the shell which came in from the cold, haha.

changye,

哈哈;我喜欢你的笑话