[Grammar] The little snail hear this and starts to cry.

We rely on ourselves

“Mom, why do we have to carry this hard and heavy shell? It’s so exhausting!” The little snail asked its mother.

“Because we don’t have bones, dear. We have to crawl, and crawl slowly.” Mother answered.

“But Miss Caterpillar has no bones and crawls slowly, why isn’t she carrying a shell?”

“Because she can turn into a butterfly. The sky will be her protector.”

“Mr. Earthworm has no bones, crawls slowly, and doesn’t turn into anything else. But why isn’t he carrying a shell?”

“Because the earthworm can dig into the soil. The earth will be his protector.”

The little snail hear this and starts to cry. “Why are we so pitiful? The sky doesn’t protect us, and neither does the earth.”

“That’s why we have shells!” Mother snail comforts the little snail. “We don’t rely on the sky, and we don’t rely on the earth. We rely on ourselves.”
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This story was originally written in Chinese, and then was translated into English by an American-born Chinese. As we can see, the first part (blue) is in the past simple, while the second part (green) is in the present simple. I am wondering why. Does it sound natural?

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(Source)

The rule is that, when you start writing in a particular tense, you have to be consistent unless there is a valid reason to switch tenses, but I'm not an author, so I can't say whether the change in tenses is valid or not. I would personally keep it in the past tense as I see no reason to change it to the present tense.

Also, beware of the grammatical and punctuation mistakes in the english text.

Sneymarin said:

mistakes in the English text.

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Note the correction, and please include "Not a Teacher" in your posts if you are going to offer answers. You can add that in your profile as a signature.

kadioguy said:

As we can see, the first part (blue) is in the past simple

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How so?

teechar said:

How so?

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The comments in the first part are in the past simple while those at the end are in the present simple.

Kadioguy, this establishes that the last part of the story is in a later time frame than the beginning was. (I did the same thing in the previous sentence.)

GoesStation said:

The comments in the first part are in the past simple

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Most of them are in the present (simple and continuous). The only verbs in the past are the reporting ones.

teechar said:

Most of them are in the present (simple and continuous). The only verbs in the past are the reporting ones.

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I think Kadioguy and GoesStation are referring to the narrative, which is in the past tense in the "blue" part and in the present tense in the "green" part.

Thank you all.

GoesStation said:

Kadioguy, this establishes that the last part of the story is in a later time frame than the beginning was. (I did the same thing in the previous sentence.)

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But I think that all of the story happen in a continuous time frame. It is not that, say, the beginning happened yesterday and the last part is happening now. It is more reasonable to see the whole story happen, say, in the same five minutes. So I would keep it all in the past tense or in the present tense. :-?

It is an on-going conversation from the beginning to the end without any time lapse. I see no reason for the change of tense in the later part of the narrative.

I can only suppose that the writer liked the effect of bringing the narrative into the present.

It's not uncommon for writers to play around like this.