本帖最后由 j小蜜蜂 于 2009-11-25 21:44 编辑
【中文标题】美国应当向中国学习的五件事
【原文标题】Five Things the U.S. Can Learn from China
【来源地址】http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1938671,00.html
【译者】满仓
【翻译方式】人工
【声明】本翻译供Anti-CNN使用，未经AC或译者许可，不得转载。
【原文库链接】http://bbs.m4.cn/thread-206715-1-1.html
【译文】
On the evening of Nov. 15, President Barack Obama, the youthful leader of one of the world's youngest countries, begins his first visit to China, among the world's most ancient societies. Obama and his Chinese counterpart, Hu Jintao, have much to discuss. Nukes in Iran and North Korea. China's surging military spending. Trade imbalances. Climate change.
11月15日晚上，世界上最年轻的国家的年轻领袖，巴拉克奥巴马总统开始了他对中国，这个世界上最古老的国家的第一次访问。奥巴马和他的访问对象胡锦涛有太多的话题要讨论——伊朗和朝鲜的核问题、中国不断升高的军费支出、贸易不平衡、环境变化……
But the visit comes at an awkward moment for the U.S. China, despite its 5,000-year burden of history, has emerged as a dynamo of optimism, experimentation and growth. It has defied the global economic slump, and the sense that it's the world's ascendant power has never been stronger. The U.S., by contrast, seems suddenly older and frailer. America's national mood is still in a funk, its economy foundering, its red-vs.-blue politics as rancorous as ever. The U.S. may be one of the world's oldest capitalist countries and China one of the youngest, but you couldn't blame Obama if he leaned over to Hu at some point and asked, "What are you guys doing right?"
(See pictures of people around the world watching Obama's Inauguration.)
但是这次访问似乎对美国来说时机有些尴尬。尽管中国背负着5000年沉重的历史积淀，但是它就像一个乐观、探索和增长的“发电机”。它把全球经济衰退拒之门外，它即将成为全球重要力量的迹象从未像现在这样强烈。而美国则正好相反，它似乎变得衰老、脆弱了。美国民众依然心怀恐慌，经济持续衰退，红蓝两党一如既往地交恶。美国本来是世界上最老牌的资本主义国家，而中国应该是最年轻的一个。但是，如果奥巴马凑近胡的耳朵问“你们到底做对了什么？”，你其实不必责怪他。
Could the world's lone but weary superpower actually learn something from China? It's a politically incorrect question, of course. China is an authoritarian nation; its ruling Communist Party deals ruthlessly with any challenge to its hegemony. It remains, relatively speaking, a poor, developing country with huge problems to confront, massive corruption and environmental degradation being Nos. 1 and 1a. Still, this is a moment of humility for the U.S., and China is doing some important things right. If the U.S. were to ask the Chinese what it could learn from their example, it might gain some insight into what it's doing right and wrong. Here are five lessons from China's success story:
孤独且疲惫的世界超级力量真的可以从中国身上学到一些东西吗？从政治上讲，这当然是一个不合逻辑的问题。中国是一个独裁国家，统治者共产党无情地对待任何敢挑战其和谐目标的因素。相对来讲，中国还是一个贫穷、发展中的国家，同时要面对巨大的内部问题，大规模的腐败、环境恶化都是首要问题。即使如此，美国在此时也应表现出谦恭的态度，因为中国在一些重要的方面的确做得很好。如果美国问问中国可以从榜样中学到点什么，这或许可以帮助自己了解应该做什么和不应该做什么。这里有5个中国的成功故事：
1. Be Ambitious
1.有进取心
China is experimenting with eco-friendly technologies, from electric cars to urban wind turbines like this one in southeastern Shanghai. 中国正在试验一些环保科技，从电动汽车到类似照片中上海东南部乡下的风力涡轮机。
One day this summer, Sean Maloney, an executive vice president at Intel, was bouncing from one appointment to another in northeastern China, speeding along in a van traversing newly built highways. He gazed out at one of the world's biggest construction projects: a network of high-speed train lines — covering 10,000 miles (16,000 km) nationwide — that China is building. As far as the eye could see, there sat vast concrete support struts, one after another, exactly 246 ft. (75 m) apart. Each was full of steel cables and weighed about 800 tons. "We used to build stuff too," Maloney mused, unprompted. "But now it's NIMBY [not in my backyard] every time you try to do something. Here,'' he joked, "it's more like IMBY. There's stuff happening here, everywhere and always."
今年夏季的一天，一位英特尔公司的执行副总裁Sean Maloney在中国西北地区被轮换岗位，他当时正在一条新修建的高速公路上疾驰。窗外是中国正在修建的世界上最大的建设项目之一：一条横跨10000英里（16000公里）的高速铁路。在目光所及之处，矗立着巨大的混凝土支架，一根接着一根，相互间距正好246英尺（75米）。每个里面都充满钢筋，重达800吨。Maloney不由自主地想到：“我们也曾经大兴土木，但是现在，只要你想做点什么，就会有一群人站出来反对（当然不包括我自己）。”他自嘲道：“但是在这里，人们似乎极为欢迎这样的事情。这里随时随地都在发生着变化。”
It's not just NIMBYism that constrains the U.S. these days, of course. America is close to tapped out financially, with budget deficits this year and next exceeding $1 trillion and forecast to remain above $500 billion through 2019. But sometimes the country seems tapped out in terms of vision and investment for the future.
当然，制约美国发展的因素绝不仅仅是自我保护主义。美国已经濒临金融破产的边缘，今年和明年的预算赤字已经高达1万亿美元，直到2019年，该数字都会维持在5千亿美元以上。而且这个国家似乎在远见和对未来的投资方面也已经到达了匮乏的边缘。
Some economists believe that given its stage of development, China spends too much on expensive items like high-speed rail lines. But step back from the individual infrastructure projects and the debates about whether a given investment is necessary, and what's palpable in China is the sense of forward motion, of energy. No foreigner — at least not one I've met in five years of living here — even bothers denying it. And the Chinese take it for granted. When a brand-new six-lane highway opened in suburban Shanghai in October, Zhong Li Ping, who shuttles migrant workers to the city and back to their hometowns, said, "I don't know what took them so long." In truth, it took about two years — roughly the time it would take to get the environmental and other regulatory permits for a new highway in the U.S. If, that is, you could get them at all.
一些经济学家认为，就中国目前的发展阶段而言，它在昂贵的项目方面投入得太多了，比如高速铁路。但是，如果我们暂时不去理会具体的基础建设项目，也不考虑围绕其投资是否真的有必要的争论，我们可以切身体会到中国前进的动力和能量。没有一个外国人——至少我在这里生活的5年里没有遇到过——会否认这一点。中国人认为这是理所应当的。10月份在上海的郊区，一条6车道的高速公路开通之后，专门搭载农民工进城和返乡的汽车司机钟立平（音译）说：“我不知道他们为什么花这么久的时间修这条路。”实际上，这只花费了两年的时间，这点时间在美国只够履行修建高速公路的环境和立法审批程序。当然，还是在你可以顺利得到批准的情况下。
There's no direct translation into Chinese of the phrase can-do spirit. But yong wang zhi qian probably suffices. Literally, it means "march forward courageously." China has — and has had for years now — a can-do spirit that's unmistakable. Americans know the phrase well. They invented it. It used to define them.
“Can-do spirit”这个词在中文里没有一个直接对应的翻译，“勇往直前”或许比较贴切一点。从字面上讲，这个词的意思是“勇敢地前进”。中国有“Can-do spirit”，而且多年以来一直都有，这是毫无疑问的。美国人深刻理解这个词的意思，因为这是他们发明的，但是这个词现在被用来否定美国人。
Critics of the authoritarian Chinese government would say it's a system more accurately called "can do — or else." And they have a point. No one in the U.S. would argue that it should adopt China's dictatorial style of government. America doesn't need to displace tens of thousands of people in order to build a massive dam, as China did in Hubei province from 1994 to 2006. (The value of checks and balances is, in fact, among the many things China could learn from the U.S.) But you don't have to be a card-carrying communist to wonder how effectively the U.S. develops and executes ambitious projects. Ask James McGregor. He's a former chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in China and now a business consultant who divides his time between the two countries. "One key thing we can learn from China is setting goals, making plans and focusing on moving the country ahead as a nation," he says. "These guys have taken the old five-year plans and stood them on their head. Instead of deciding which factory gets which raw materials, which products are made, how they are priced and where they are sold, their planning now consists of 'How do we build a world-class silicon-chip industry in five years? How do we become a global player in car-manufacturing?'"
针对中国专制政府的批评人士会说，中国的社会体系准确来讲应该是“can do，否则就让你好看”。他们的确也有自己的道理。美国人不会真的认为自己应该采纳中国的独裁政府体制，也不会为修建一个巨型大坝而重新安置数千居民，就像中国在1994年到2006年在湖北省所做的那样。（政府机关间相互制衡的价值，是中国应当向美国学习的很多事情之一。）但是，即使你不是一个持有共产党员证的人，也可以质问美国开展一些雄心勃勃的项目的效率有多高。我们可以问问James McGregor，这位中国美国商会的主席，他现在是一个商业顾问，经常往返于中美之间。他说：“我们可以向中国学到的一件事是，设定目标、制定计划，关注于把国家整体向前推进。这些人把传统的五年计划深植于脑海。他们不再关注哪个工厂要准备哪些原材料、生产哪些产品、如何定价、在哪里销售等问题，他的计划是‘我们如何在5年里建立一个世界级的芯片产业？我们如何加入全球的汽车生产大军中？’”
Some of this is the natural arc of a huge, fast-growing country in the process of modernization. The U.S. in the late 19th century was nothing if not what Intel's Maloney would call an IMBY country. America was ambitious. There's no secret formula to help the nation get back its zeal for what it used to enthusiastically and sincerely call progress. But even though the U.S. is a mature, developed country, many economists believe it has shortchanged infrastructure investment for decades. It possibly did so again in this year's stimulus package. Just $144 billion of the $787 billion stimulus bill Congress passed earlier this year went to direct infrastructure spending. According to IHS Global Insight, an economic-consulting firm, U.S. spending on transportation infrastructure will actually decline overall in 2009 when state budgets are factored in — this at a time when the American Society of Civil Engineers contends that the U.S. should invest $1.6 trillion to upgrade its aging infrastructure over the next five years.
这就是一个飞速发展的巨大国家在现代化的进程中所形成的一条自然曲线。如果没有英特尔的Maloney所谓的“欢迎改变”的态度，美国在19世纪末期什么都不是。没有什么秘方能让这个国家回到他们曾经热切、真心追求进步的狂热中。但是，尽管美国是一个成熟的发达国家，很多经济学家依然认为几十年以来，美国在基础设施的投资方面总是缩手缩脚。而且在今年的经济刺激方案中，似乎又犯了同样的错误。年初议会批准的总金额为7870亿美元的经济刺激方案中，只有1440亿美元直接用于基础设施建设。根据一家经济咨询公司HIS全球视野的报告，政府预算报告出台后，用于交通基础设施建设的资金在2009年会整体下落。恰在此时，美国土木工程师协会坚持认为美国应当投资1.6万亿美元，用于在未来五年改善老旧的基础设施。
When the economic crisis hit China late last year, by contrast, almost half of the emergency spending Beijing approved — $585 billion spread over two years — was directed at projects that accelerated China's massive infrastructure build-out. "That money went into the real economy very quickly," says economist Albert Keidel of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
去年中国遭遇经济危机时的做法与此相反。北京批准了5850亿美元作为未来两年内的紧急资金，其中几乎一半都被投入到加速中国发展的大规模基础设施建设中去。国际和平组织卡耐基基金会的经济学家Albert Keidel说：“这些钱很快就转化成真正的经济效益。”
But it's not just emergency spending on bridges, roads and high-speed rail networks that's helping growth in China. Patrick Tam, general partner at Tsing Capital, a venture-capital firm in Beijing, says the government is aggressively helping seed the development of new green-tech industries. An example: 13 of China's biggest cities will have all-electric bus fleets within five years. "China is eventually going to dominate the industry for electric vehicles," Tam says, "in part because the central government has both the vision and the financial wherewithal to make that happen." Tam, a graduate of MIT and the University of California, Berkeley, says he does deals in Beijing rather than Silicon Valley these days "because I believe this is where these new industries will really take shape. China's got the energy, the drive and the market to do it." Isn't that the sort of thing venture capitalists used to say about the U.S.?
当然，推动中国经济增长的不仅仅是在修建桥梁和高速铁路网络方面的紧急投资。北京的一家风险投资公司青云创投的合作人Patrick Tam说，政府在积极地扶持新型绿色科技产业。例如，中国最大的13个城市在未来五年中将全部使用电动公共汽车。Tam说：“中国最终必将主导电动汽车产业，因为中央政府不但有远见，而且有资金来做这件事。” 毕业于麻省理工学院和加利福尼亚大学博克立分校Tam说他最近在北京完成了几笔交易，而不是在矽谷。“因为我相信新兴产业最终会在这里成型，中国有能力、有积极性，也有市场。”这难道不是风险投资家曾经用来描述美国的语言吗？
2. Education Matters
2.教育问题
China's schools are adding more creative and practical topics to their notoriously rigid curriculum.
中国的学校在其臭名昭著的僵化课程中添加了越来越多的创造性和实践性的内容。
On a recent Saturday afternoon, at a nice restaurant in central Shanghai, Liu Zhi-he sat fidgeting at the table, knowing that it was about time for him to leave. All around him sat relatives from an extended family that had gathered for a momentous occasion: the 90th birthday of Liu's great-grandmother Ling Shu Zhen, the still spry and elegant matriarch of a sprawling clan. But Liu had to leave because it was time for him to go to school. This Saturday, as he does every Saturday, Liu was attending two special classes. He takes a math tutorial, and he studies English.
一个星期天的下午，在上海市中心一家讲究的餐厅，刘智（音译）在餐桌旁坐立不安，因为他知道自己该走了。坐在他周围的是一大家子的亲戚，他们是在庆祝一个重要的时刻：刘的曾祖母的90大寿。寿星名叫凌淑珍（音译。译者注：虽是音译，但估计八九不离十。），是一位依然矍铄、举止优雅的老妇人，也是这个大家庭的家长。但是刘必须要走了，因为快到上课时间了。和每个星期天一样，他要去上两堂课：数学辅导和英文。
Liu is 7 years old.
刘今年7岁。
A lot of foreigners — and, indeed, a fair number of Chinese — believe that the obsession (and that's the right word) with education in China is overdone. The system stresses rote memorization. It drives kids crazy — aren't 7-year-olds supposed to have fun on Saturday afternoons? — and doesn't necessarily prepare them, economically speaking, for the job market or, emotionally speaking, for adulthood. Add to that the fact that the system, while incredibly competitive, has become corrupt.
很多外国人，也有相当数量的中国人都认为中国人对教育的痴迷（这其实是一个恰当的词）有些过分了。中国的教育体系强调死记硬背，这会把孩子们逼疯，7岁左右的孩子们难道不应该在星期天的下午高兴地去玩吗？从经济上讲，这种体系让他们无法面对将来的就业市场做好准备；从情感上讲，也无法做好长大成人的准备。尽管这种体系具有极大的竞争优势，但事实是它已经从根本上开始发生改变。
All true — and all, for the most part, beside the point. After decades of investment in an educational system that reaches the remotest peasant villages, the literacy rate in China is now over 90%. (The U.S.'s is 86%.) And in urban China, in particular, students don't just learn to read. They learn math. They learn science. As William McCahill, a former deputy chief of mission in the U.S. embassy in Beijing, says, "Fundamentally, they are getting the basics right, particularly in math and science. We need to do the same. Their kids are often ahead of ours."
中国几十年来的投入已经使教育渗透到了偏远的农村地区，目前中国的文化普及率是90%（美国是86%）。特别是在城市地区，学生们不仅仅学习语言，还学习数学和自然科学。就像美国驻北京大使馆前副公使William McCahill所说：“从根本上讲，他们教育基础的方向是正确的，特别是在数学和自然科学方面。我们也应当照此行事，他们的孩子常常会超过我们。”
What the Chinese can teach are verities, home truths that have started to make a comeback in the U.S. but that could still use a push. The Chinese understand that there is no substitute for putting in the hours and doing the work. And more than anything else, the kids in China do lots of work. In the U.S., according to a 2007 survey by the Department of Education, 37% of 10th-graders in 2002 spent more than 10 hours on homework each week. That's not bad; in fact, it's much better than it used to be (in 1980 a mere 7% of kids did that much work at home each week). But Chinese students, according to a 2006 report by the Asia Society, spend twice as many hours doing homework as do their U.S. peers.
中国可以教给我们太多的东西，这些逆耳的忠言已经让美国开始发生了转变，但还是欠缺一些推动因素。中国人明白，除了多花时间、多做功课之外，没有其它替代方法。中国的孩子们在作业上花费的时间比其它任何事情上花费的时间都要多。美国教育部2007年调查数据显示，2002年，有37％的10年级学生每周花费在家庭作业上的时间超过10个小时。这个数据和以前相比已经算是不错的了（1998年只有7％的学生会在作业上花费这么多时间）。但是根据亚洲社会的调查数据，中国学生的作业时间是美国学生的一倍。
Part of the reason is family involvement. Consider Liu, the 7-year-old who had to leave the birthday party to go to Saturday school. Both his parents work, so when he goes home each day, his grandparents are there to greet him and put him through his after-school paces. His mother says simply, "This is normal. All his classmates work like this after school.''
这其中也有家庭因素在起作用，比如不得不在星期天离开生日聚会去上学的7岁的刘。他的父母都有工作，所以每天回家都是祖父母在等着他，陪他度过课余的时间。她的母亲轻描淡写地说：“这很正常，他的同学们放学后几乎都是如此。”
Yes, big corporate employers in China will tell you the best students coming out of U.S. universities are just as bright as and, generally speaking, far more creative than their counterparts from China's élite universities. But the big hump in the bell curve — the majority of the school-age population — matters a lot for the economic health of countries. Simply put, the more smart, well-educated people there are — of the sort that hard work creates — the more economies (and companies) benefit. Remember what venture capitalist Tam said about China and the electric-vehicle industry. A single, relatively new company working on developing an electric-car battery — BYD Co. — employs an astounding 10,000 engineers.
是的，中国的大公司会告诉你，美国大学里的尖子学生和中国大学里的精英相比，聪明程度不相上下，但是更有创造力。但是真正对一个国家经济良性运行起到关键作用的是钟形曲线巨大的隆起部分，也就是大部分的学龄人群。简单来说，受过良好教育的人素质越高，国家的经济（或公司）就会越受益。还记得风险投资家Tam是怎么描述中够的电动汽车产业的吗？一家相对年轻的、致力于开发电动汽车电池的比亚迪公司，雇用了令人瞠目结舌的1万名工程师。
China, critics will point out, doesn't produce (at least not yet) many Nobel Prize winners. But don't think the basic educational competence of the workforce isn't a key factor in its having become the manufacturing workshop of the world. It isn't just about cheap labor; it's about smart labor. "Whether it's line workers or engineers, we're finding the candlepower of our employees here as good as or better than anywhere in the world," says Nick Reilly, a top executive at General Motors in Shanghai. "It all starts with the emphasis families put on the importance of education. That puts pressure on the government to deliver a decent system."
批评人士或许会指出，中国不出产（至少目前还没有）诺贝尔奖得主，但是不要认为劳动力的基础教育水平不是把一个国家变成世界工厂的核心因素。这不仅仅与劳动力的价格有关，还与劳动力的素质有关。上海通用汽车的一位高级主观Nick Reilly说：“不论是流水线上的工人还是工程师，我们发现这里的员工都与世界上其它地方的雇员水平相当，甚至更好。其根源在于家庭极为强调教育的重要性，这同时也给政府施加了提供更加体面的工作岗位的压力。”
And the Chinese government responds to that pressure in some intriguing ways. It insists that primary-school teachers in math and science have degrees in those subjects. (Less than half of eighth-grade math teachers in the U.S. majored in math.) There is a "master teacher" program nationwide that provides mentoring for younger teachers. Zhang Dianzhou, a professor emeritus of mathematics at East China Normal University in Shanghai who co-chaired a committee charged with redesigning high school mathematics programs across the country, says recent changes have begun to reflect more of a "real-world emphasis." Computer-science courses, for example, have been integrated into the math curriculum for high school students. And China is placing even more importance on teaching young students English and other foreign languages. If you think China's willingness to constantly fine-tune its educational system is not going to have much of an impact 20 years from now, there's a 7-year-old boy in Shanghai who'd be happy to discuss the issue with you. In English.
中国政府使用了一些巧妙的方法来化解这些压力。它坚持要求数学和自然科学课程的小学教师必须在相关专业上获得学位（美国8年级数学教师里，有数学学位的人还不到一半）。政府在全国范围内开展了一个“教师老带新”的活动，为年轻的教师提供顾问和辅导的服务。张甸洲（音译）是上海华东师范大学的退休数学教授，他目前任职的一个协会在负责重新修订全国的高校数学课程。他说近期发生的一些改变反映出对“真实世界”的重点关注。例如，高校的计算机课程已经被合并在数学课里。而且，中国非常重视年轻学生的英文和其它外语学习。如果你认为中国不断调整教育系统的努力不会对20年后的中国有任何影响，这里有一个上海的7岁男孩会很愿意与你讨论这个问题，用英语。
3. Look After the Elderly
3.照顾老年人
Most Chinese seniors live with and are cared for by their relatives.
大部分中国老年人与家人生活在一起，并且由家人照顾。
it's hard to imagine two societies that deal with their elderly as differently as the U.S. and China. And I can vouch for that firsthand. My wife Junling is a Shanghai native, and last month for the first time we visited my father at a nursing home in the U.S. She was shaken by the experience and later told me, "You know, in China, it's a great shame to put a parent into a nursing home." In China the social contract has been straightforward for centuries: parents raise children; then the children care for the parents as they reach their dotage. When, for example, real estate developer Jiang Xiao Li and his wife recently bought a new, larger apartment in Shanghai, they did so in part because they know that in a few years, his parents will move in with them. Jiang's parents will help take care of Jiang's daughter, and as they age, Jiang and his wife will help take care of them. As China slowly develops a better-funded and more reliable social-security system for retirees — which it has begun — the economic necessity of generations living together will diminish a bit. But no one believes that as China gets richer, the cultural norm will shift too significantly.
很难想象会有两个国家像美国和中国一样对待老年人的方式有如此大的差异，我有第一手资料来证明此事。我的太太筠灵（音译）是上海人（译者注：当然了）。上个月，我们第一次去美国一家护理院看望我的父亲。这次经历对她震动很大，她后来对我说：“你知道，在中国，把父母放在护理院里是件耻辱的事。”中国简单的社会道德标准已经延续了若干个世纪：父母抚养孩子，孩子给父母养老、送终。例如，一位房地产开发商蒋晓立（音译）和他的太太最近在上海买了一所大房子，部分原因是他们知道，过不了几年父母就会搬过来和他们住在一起。蒋的父母会帮助蒋照看他的女儿，他们年老的时候，蒋和他的太太会照顾他们。随着中国退休人员的社会保障体系逐渐完善，资金逐渐充足（目前的情况已经不错了），几代人住在一起的经济方面的必要性会有所降低。但是没有人会认为中国变得更加富有，文化道德标准会发生这么大的改变。
To a degree, of course, three generations living under one roof has long happened in the U.S., but in the 20th century, America became a particularly mobile and rootless society. It is hard to care for one's parents when they live three time zones away.
在某种程度上说，美国人早先也有过三代同堂的时期。但是到了20世纪，美国变成了一个流动性很强、没有故乡概念的社会。人们很难去照顾住在与自己相差三个时区的父母。
Home care for the elderly will most likely make a comeback in the U.S. out of sheer economic necessity, however. The number of elderly Americans will soar from 38.6 million in 2007 to 71.5 million in 2030. But, says Arnold Eppel, who recently retired as head of the department of aging in Baltimore County, Maryland, "There won't be enough spots for them" in the country's overwhelmed nursing-home system. Appreciating the magnitude of the coming crisis, the U.S. government has begun to respond. Two new initiatives — Nursing Home Diversion and Money Follows the Person — expand subsidies for home elder care, and the Veterans Health Administration has just put in effect its own similar initiative. "The whole trend will be into home care, because nursing homes are too expensive," Eppel says, noting that nursing-home care in the U.S. costs about $85,000 annually per resident.
美国很可能恢复采取家庭护理老年人的方式来摆脱经济困境。从2007年到2030年，美国老年人的数量将从3860万飙升到7150万。但是，马里兰巴尔的摩人口部门的退休人士Arnold Eppel说，国家已经过分拥挤的护理院“无法容纳这么多人”。美国政府已经对即将到来的危机采取了行动。两项新的动议——家庭护理分流和资金落实到人将为家庭护理提供更多的津贴。退休人员健康委员会也已经采取了类似的行动。Eppel说：“趋势肯定是家庭护理，因为护理院实在是太昂贵了。”美国护理院的年费用是一个人85000美元。
In China, senior-care costs are, for the most part, borne by families. For millions of poor Chinese, that's a burden as well as a responsibility, and it unquestionably skews both spending and saving patterns in ways that China needs to change (see Save More, below). For middle-class and rich Chinese, those costs are a more manageable responsibility but one that nonetheless ripples through their economic decision-making. Still, there are benefits that balance the financial hardship: grandparents tutor young children while Mom and Dad work; they acculturate the youngest generation to the values of family and nation; they provide a sense of cultural continuity that helps bind a society. China needs to make obvious changes to its elder-care system as it becomes a wealthier society, but as millions of U.S. families make the brutal decision about whether to send aging parents into nursing homes, a bigger dose of the Chinese ethos may well be returning to America.
在中国，护理老年人的费用大部分是由家庭来承担的。对数百万贫困的中国人来说，这既是一个负担，也是一项责任，它毫无疑问地扭曲了中国人的消费和储蓄方式，而这恰恰是中国要改变的地方（见以下“更多储蓄”）。对于中产阶级和富余阶层来说，这还算是项可承担义务，但多少还是会间接影响家庭的经济决策。尽管如此，这其中还是有一些好处来平衡经济困境的：爸爸妈妈上班的时候，老人会教育孩子。他们会向孩子们灌输家庭和国家的价值观，会提供社会紧密团结的文化延续观念。随着国家更加富裕，中国需要对其老年看护社会系统做出一些改变。但是当数百万美国人在冷酷地决定是否要把老人送到护理院去的时候，中国精神或许是唤回美国良知的一剂良药。
4. Save More
4.更多储蓄
You've now heard it so many times, you can probably repeat it in your sleep. President Obama will no doubt make the point publicly when he gets to Beijing: the Chinese need to spend more; they need to consume more; they need — believe it or not — to become more like Americans, for the sake of the global economy.
你现在已经听到太多这样的话了，或许睡觉时也能说出这样的梦话。奥巴马总统来到北京之后，毫无疑问地会公开提到这一点：中国人要多花钱、他们需要更多的消费、他们需要——信不信由你——变得更像美国人一些，这样可以拯救全球的经济。
And it's all true. But the other side of that equation is that the U.S. needs to save more. For the moment, American households actually are doing so. After the personal-savings rate dipped to zero in 2005, the shock of the economic crisis last year prompted people to snap shut their wallets. Now that it's pouring, in other words, American households have decided to save for a rainy day. The savings rate is currently about 4% and has gone as high as 6% this year.
这是没错，但是等号的另一边则是美国人要更多地储蓄。目前来看，美国家庭的确是开始这样做了。自从2005年个人存款利率下降到0以来，去年的经济危机让人们紧紧捂住了钱包，而现在又开始任其敞开了。换句话说，美国人存钱是为了不时之需。目前的储蓄率是4％，今年上升到了6％。
In China, the household-savings rate exceeds 20%. It is partly for straightforward policy reasons. As we've seen, wage earners are expected to care for not only their children but also their aging parents. And there is, to date, only the flimsiest of publicly funded health care and pension systems, which increases incentives for individuals to save while they are working. But China, like many other East Asian countries, is a society that has esteemed personal financial prudence for centuries. There is no chance that will change anytime soon, even if the government creates a better social safety net and successfully encourages greater consumer spending.
在中国，家庭储蓄率超过了20％。部分原因是政策的导向，就像我们看到的，工资收入人群要养活一家老小。此外，到目前为止脆弱的公共医疗基金和养老金制度也增加了人们在工作时更多储蓄的动力。但是，就像其它很多东亚国家一样，中国几个世纪以来都是一个崇尚稳健的个人理财策略的社会。短时期之内没有改变的机会，即使政府建立了更好的社会保障体系，成功地鼓励更多的消费，也不会有太大的变化。
Why does the U.S. need to learn a little frugality? Because healthy savings rates, including government and business savings, are one of the surest indicators of a country's long-term financial health. High savings lead, over time, to increased investment, which in turn generates productivity gains, innovation and job growth. In short, savings are the seed corn of a good economic harvest.
为什么美国人要学习过简朴的生活？因为健康的储蓄率，包括政府和企业的储蓄，是一个国家长经济状况最稳妥的指标。高储蓄如果假以时日，将会增加投资，回过头来将产生高的生产力、技术革新和就业市场的繁荣。总之，储蓄可以为良好的经济收成埋下种子。
The U.S. government thus needs to get in on the act as well. By running perennial deficits, it is dis-saving, even as households save more. Peter Orszag, Obama's Budget Director, recently called the U.S. budget deficits unsustainable — this year's is $1.4 trillion — and he's right. To date, the U.S. has seemed unable to have what Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels has called an "adult conversation" about the consequences of spending so much more than is taken in. That needs to change. And though Hu Jintao and the rest of the Chinese leadership aren't inclined to lecture visiting Presidents, he might gently hint that Beijing is getting a little nervous about the value of the dollar — which has fallen 15% since March, in large part because of increasing fears that America's debt load is becoming unmanageable.
(See TIME's special report "Obama After a Year: What's Changed, and What Hasn't.")
美国政府必须也要采取行动了，长久以来的赤字经济造成的后果是负储蓄，尽管美国家庭已经开始更多地存钱。奥巴马的预算执行长Peter Orszag近期宣称美国的预算赤字已经无法继续支撑下去了——今年的赤字预算是1.4万亿美元——他说的没错。到今天为止，美国都似乎无法针对支出大大高于收入的后果，开展一个印第安纳州长Mitch Daniels所谓的“成人间的对话”。这必须要改变。尽管胡锦涛和其它中国领导人并不愿意对远道而来的总统说教，但是他或许会友善地暗示，北京有些担心美元的价值。自从3月份以来，美元已经贬值了15％，大部分原因是公众对美国政府债务问题的恐惧心理。
That's what happens when you're the world's biggest creditor: you get to drop hints like that, which would be enough by themselves to create international economic havoc if they were ever leaked. (Every time any official in Beijing muses publicly about seeking an alternative to the U.S. dollar for the $2.1 trillion China holds in reserve, currency traders have a heart attack.) If Americans became a bit more like the Chinese — if they saved more and spent less, consistently over time — they wouldn't have to worry about all that.
如果你是世界上最大的债权人，你也会做同样的事情：给对方一个类似的暗示。如果他们自己泄露出这个消息，足够引发一场全球经济大地震了（每次北京的官员在公共场合沉思，寻找合适的措辞来提及中国持有的2.1万亿美元外汇储备，外汇交易商们都会紧张得心脏病发作）。如果美国人变得像中国人一点——如果他们多储蓄、少消费，而且长期持续——他们就根本不需要再担心了。
5. Look over the Horizon
5.目光长远
Masons at work in front of the China Pavilion at the future site of Expo 2010 in Shanghai.
2010年上海世博会中国展馆前的一座大厦正在施工。
The energy that so many outsiders feel when they are in China and that President Obama may see when he is there comes not just from the frenetic activity that is visible everywhere. It comes also from a sense that it's harnessed to something bigger. The government isn't frantically building all this infrastructure just to create make-work jobs. And kids aren't studying themselves sleepless because it's a lot of fun. A few years ago, I interviewed Zhang Xin, a young man from a deeply poor agricultural province in central China. His parents were wheat farmers and lived in a tiny one-room house next to the fields. He had graduated from Tsinghua University — China's MIT — and gotten a job as a software engineer at Huawei, the Cisco of China. His success, Zhang told me one day, had changed his family forever. None of his descendants would "ever work in the wheat fields again. Not my children. Not their children. That life is over." (And neither would his parents. They moved to prosperous Shenzhen, just north of Hong Kong, soon after he started his new job.)
外国人在中国感受到的，以及奥巴马来到这里也会看到到的那种能量，不仅仅是来自各处都可以看到的疯狂施工行为，而是更多地来自一种控制和利用的感觉。政府狂热地进行基础设施建设不仅仅是为了创造低端的就业机会；孩子们不休不眠地学习也不是因为他们觉得这是乐趣。几年前，我采访过一个来自中国内地极端贫困的农业省份的年轻人，他叫张欣（音译）。他的父母都是农民，住在田地旁一个很小的房子里。他毕业于清华大学（中国的麻省理工学院），在华为（中国的思科）找到了一份软件工程师的工作。张告诉我，他的成功永远地改变了他的家庭。他的后代“再也不会在麦子地劳作。我的孩子不会，我的孙子也不会。那种生活永远地结束了。”（其实他的父母也不会了。张在深圳开始工作之后，他们都搬到了这个香港北部繁华的大城市中。）
Multiply that young man's story by millions, and you get a sense of what a forward-looking country this once very backward society has become. A smart American who lived in China for years and who wants to avoid being identified publicly (perhaps because he'd be labeled a "panda hugger," the timeworn epithet tossed at anyone who has anything good to say about China) puts it this way: "China is striving to become what it has not yet become. It is upwardly mobile, consciously, avowedly and — as its track record continues to strengthen — proudly so."
把这个年轻人的故事乘以几百万，你就会体会到，这个曾经落后的国家已经变成了一个多么有远见卓识的社会。一个在中国生活过多年的聪明的美国人，如果不想在公共场合被认出来（不想被认出来的原因或许是他不愿意被贴上“拥抱熊猫的家伙”的标签，如果有人说中国的好话，这个陈腔滥调的词就会被戴在头上。），他会这么说：“中国在努力尝试一条没有走过的路，它充满信心、脚步坚定、不畏围观、自豪骄傲地走着。”
Proudly so, because as Zhang understood, hard work today means a much better life decades from now for those who will inherit what he helped create. And if that sounds familiar to Americans — marooned, for the moment, in the deepest recession in 26 years — it should.
之所以骄傲、自豪，是因为张明白，今天的努力意味着几十年之后，会有很多人继承他建立的更加美好的生活。如果美国人听到这句话感觉似曾相识，觉得自己在26年来最严重的经济危机中孤独无助，那么本该如此。
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翻译交流
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#11
tens of thousands of people
这里不该翻译为“数以千计”，而是“数以万计”。
鬼雄 发表于 2009-11-21 12:34 
#27
[quote]“But no one believes that as China gets richer, the cultural norm will shift too significantly.
但是没有人会认为中国变得更加富有，文化道德标准会发生这么大的改变。”
有点拗口，关联词as ...
船人 发表于 2009-11-21 18:54
我没有看上下文，不过仅仅就这句话而言，正确的翻译应该是这样：
但是没有人认为随着中国变得更加富有，文化标准会有很大改变。
按照汉语习惯，意思是这样：
但是人们认为中国变富后，文化标准不会有很大改变。
as: 随着
flasher 发表于 2009-11-25 20:43 |
狗仔卡
发表于 2009-11-20 21:58
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变色卡
抢沙发
千斤顶
显身卡
发表于 2009-11-20 22:17
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