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【原文地址】http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/why-the-games-bring-out-ugly-side-of-the-chinese-20080729-3msf.html
【发表媒体】澳大利亚《时代报》(The Age)
【翻译方式】原创翻译
【原文标题】Why the Games bring out ugly side of the Chinese
【中文翻译】为什么奥运会暴露出中国人丑陋的一面
Keane Shum
凯恩·夏姆
July 30, 2008
2008年7月30日
It is time to heal from the colonial scars and look forwards.
这是治愈殖民地创伤向前看的时候了。
THE slogan for the Beijing Olympics is "One World, One Dream". It is plastered in huge print on billboards across China, but no one can tell me which "one dream" it is that we are all supposed to be chasing. And as the nation fires up its Games preparations, it's also starting to look less like we all come from the same "one world".
北京奥运会的口号是“同一个世界,同一个梦想”。这个口号被印刷张贴在中国各地的广告牌上,不过没人能告诉我,我们共同追寻的那“一个梦想”是什么。当这个国家激起准备奥运会的激情时,它也开始变得不太像是我们来自同“一个世界”的了。
I am working in Beijing for the summer. More than anything else, this is because I wanted to be here for the Olympics. I wanted to be a part of what is supposed to be a seminal moment for my people. My parents are Chinese originally from Hong Kong and Indonesia who migrated to Australia in the 1960s. I was born in Sydney. I have never lived in mainland China full-time and may never do so, but because I am Chinese, what happens in China happens to me. Ethnicity runs deep in this country, among its people, and across the oceans of our diaspora. I want China to win the most gold medals. I want Chinese brands sold in American department stores. But in the past six months, Chinese nationalism has started to scare me. I was shocked at how fiercely young Chinese fought back against Tibet supporters. I have been saturated by the Chinese media's self-congratulatory glorification of the response to an earthquake that should not have killed 70,000 people. As I get the chance to work on the Olympics and watch them, I am not elated, as the Chinese Government tells me to be, but, instead, disappointed.
今年夏天我正在北京工作。毋庸置疑,我想来这里是因为奥运会。我希望能投身于这个可能会是我们华人开创未来的时刻。我父母是来自香港和印度尼西亚的华人,他们在1960年代移民到澳大利亚。我出生在悉尼。我以前从来没有可能也再也不会在中国大陆生活了,但是因为我是华人,发生在中国的一切就像发生在我身上一样。在华人群体中民族感深深地联系着这个国家,也包括了大量像我们这样的游子。我希望中国赢得大部份金牌。我希望在美国的百货商店能看到中国品牌。但是在过去的六个月间,中国人的民族主义开始让我害怕了。我震惊于年轻的中国人那样猛烈地回击那些西藏支持者。我被淹没在中国媒体对于中国面对地震的反应的自我欢庆赞美声中,那场地震本不应该夺走7万条生命。当我获得机会为奥运会工作并可以观看比赛时,我并不像中国政府告诉我的那样兴高采烈,反而相反,我感到失望。
I am disappointed that many Chinese people seem to have abandoned the Olympic spirit in the name of patriotism. I am disappointed that they are claiming sole ownership of these Games as theirs alone to organise as they please so they can prove how far they have come. With less than two weeks to go, the Olympics no longer feel as if they are about nations coming together, leaving their baggage behind, and competing on a level playing field; they seem more about just us Chinese coming together, and dramatically showing ourselves why we are so great and strong. A friend of mine is willing to bet that the Chinese athlete chosen to light the Olympic flame and officially open the Games will be Jin Jing, the Paralympic fencer who became a national hero when she was accosted in her wheelchair by protesters while she was carrying the Olympic torch through Paris.
我失望于许多中国人似乎已经以爱国主义的名义抛弃了奥林匹克精神。我失望于他们对于这些比赛单独操控的所有权,他们想怎样就怎样地按照他们喜欢的方式来组织这次活动。在(离开幕)不到两周的时候,奥运会不再让人感到似乎应该是所有国家团聚的时刻,把行李放在一旁在同一个场地竞赛;这些比赛似乎更像是就是我们中国人聚在一起,引人注目地显示我们自己如何伟大和强壮。我的一个朋友打算打赌,那个点燃奥运圣火正式开启奥运会的运动员将会是金晶,她是一名已经成为民族英雄的残疾击剑运动员,当她在巴黎传递火炬时坐在轮椅上遭到了抗议者的威胁。
What scares me — in addition to a mob mentality in a country of 1.3 billion people — is that I think at least part of this mentality comes from refusing to be the white man's lackey, from wanting to emerge triumphantly from oppression, from a need to say, "I told you so" to former imperial powers. It scares me because I think it comes from a place not so different from where conversations with my own friends sometimes end up, a place in which young people want not only to deconstruct the mainstream but fight it as well. I fear that the difference between asking why a white French youth clings to exotic, romanticised notions of Tibet and boycotting French goods because Parisians protested against the Olympic torch relay is sometimes only a matter of degree. And that the difference, then, between boycotting European goods and expelling Europeans from the country altogether is also only a matter of degree. I fear that a young Robert Mugabe or Than Shwe also once sat around with his classmates and had passionate discussions about how white people just don't get it. Post-colonial empowerment is vital to development and still has a surprisingly long way to go. But too often it masquerades as an excuse for angry, anti-colonial nationalism.
此外,让我感到恐怖的是在有着13亿人口的国家有着一种暴民心态,我认为这种心态至少一部分是来自那种拒绝对白人卑躬屈膝,想显露成功摆脱压迫,和一种渴望面对以前的帝国主义势力说“我早跟你说过”的心理。这让我害怕,因为与其说这句话和我有时候跟自己的朋友结束谈话不同,倒不如说这句话是来自一种感受,那就是年轻人不仅想拆析主流思想也更希望与之争斗。对于质问一个白人法国青年为什么固守对西藏奇异和浪漫化的观念,与由于巴黎人抗议奥运火炬传递而抵制法国商品这些争斗之间的不同之处,我害怕它们有时候仅仅是一个程度上的问题。那么抵制欧洲商品与把欧洲人从中国全部赶出去之间的不同,也仅仅是一个程度上的问题。我感到恐怖年轻的罗伯特·穆加贝(译者注:津巴布韦的总统,西方人认为他是独裁者)或丹瑞(译者注:缅甸总理,西方人也认为他是独裁者)也曾经如此坐在他的同学中间,和他们热烈讨论如何让白人不要得到这一切。后殖民地时期的权利授予是非常需要建设的,并还仍然有着惊人的长路要走。但是这种赋予权利的机制建设经常被掩饰成愤怒或反抗殖民统治的民族主义借口。
These feelings cannot be ignored; in fact, a fundamental problem with how Western powers often deal with former colonies is that they do simply ignore what to them seem like irrational hang-ups. These feelings need to be acknowledged and only then can we put them behind us. Our colonial pasts must matter and then, as soon as they do, they must start to matter less.
这些感情不能被忽视;实际上,西方政权处理与前殖民地关系时的一个根本问题在于,他们确实忽略了对西方人来说似乎是不合理的苦恼。需要承认这种感情的存在,仅仅这样就能使我们把这些感情置之脑后了吗。我们的殖民历史必须重视,然后他们应该尽快地开始不要过于强调。
So here in Beijing, China deserves to show off how far it has climbed, but now it must invite others to join in and take the next steps forward, together. It can be on the track or at the UN Security Council, and it can begin with an Olympic Games that have always been — and should forever remain — the whole world's to enjoy. And we, the young people for whom borders are no longer boundaries, should be leading the way. Chinese or otherwise, we should all be enriched, not burdened, by our new ability to transcend the traditional categories of a bygone era. Is that not the one world and one dream we're searching for?
在北京也如此,中国值得炫耀它已经攀登得多么远了,但是现在它必须邀请别人参与期间,共同迈步向前。它能步入正规或者说能身处联合国安理会,它要以奥运会为契机,就像奥运会一直保持的那样——也应该永远保持下去——让全世界都享受其乐。那么对我们这些国界不再是分隔线的年轻人来说,应该带头做起来。中国人或是其他国家的人,我们都应该利用我们新的才能去超越一个过去时代的传统框架丰富起来,而不是背负负担。难道这不是我们追求的同一个世界同一个梦想吗?
Keane Shum is an Australian studying law at Georgetown University in Washington.
凯恩·夏姆是一名澳大利亚人在华盛顿的乔治城大学学习法律专业。
【译者注】该文发表在该报的“评论与讨论”版,文章写得绕,中英文语言不同翻译起来也颇为吃力,不知道能否读通顺,能否理解到作者害怕的理由。 |
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