本帖最后由 小资 于 2009-10-2 15:08 编辑
David Pilling 09年9月30日
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/1054574c-ae0a-11de-87e7-00144feabdc0.html?nclick_check=1
译者我推荐认看点：这是一篇很有意思的西人以张艺谋电影《活着》角度切入看国庆的文章，大家初看可能仍会冒火，因作者看国庆、看中国、看张艺谋难免西方立场，总忍不住对中国的“血腥历史”、“专制体制” 和“无言论自由”夹枪带棒，还时时泄露一些滑稽的误解。不过对这一点，我们全了。有意思的是，他也许有不解，但还是如实地描述了遍布全中国上下的欣悦之情，对中国人的心态和中国的发展也有以实求实的描述。
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“我的家象只小鸡，有一天，它会长成一只鹅、一支羊，羊会变成一头牛，到那时共产主义就实现了，我们每天就都能吃到饺子和肉了。”
共产主义（至少中国的仿品）适时地创造了奇迹（当然一个火车分四等车厢的社会算不上无阶级的共产主义）。过程远称不上平顺，也不无痛苦和血腥。但终究达到了中国共产党自己设定的目标。正如张艺谋电影《活着》的主人公向他的儿子及孙子许诺的，大多数中国人的生活越来越好了。
电影《活着》，确如张本人的生活，曾经的禁片导演如今蜕变为一名共产党的代言人。故事史诗般描述了中华人民共和国建国及邓小平经济改革的60年，故事描述了集体主义和教条主义带给人们的悲惨生活，当时中国社会的疯狂。影片因对共产党体制的描述遭禁，虽然缀有光明的结尾：一个庆祝中国摆脱150年的殖民屈辱和内战、走向民族团结和进步的大典。
乐观情绪燃烧中国各个城市，如今，一个人的生活比1949年10个人相加的生活还要好。相信今天享有更好的生活，并且相信明天会更好，乐观主义成功地消解了对专制体制的不满。这一点，出乎很多西方人的固见。
饺子和肉买不了所有人，但不无助力。30年飞速发展之后，以每年平均10个百分点的增长，人均个人年收入已达$6,000 (€4,100, £3,750)。当然这个数字仍处在中低等收入，更接近安哥拉而不是亚美利加。统计数据仍隐藏了一个巨大的、让共产党首脑夜半惊醒的收入鸿沟。但总的来说，它已经让几亿人摆脱了贫困，重要的是，预期更会让另几亿人也摆脱贫困。
到处雄心勃勃。据AXIS咨询公司数据，中国每年有700,000理工科毕业生， 30，000 MBA。有6.5亿在流通手机，相当于每年屠宰猪只量。咨询公司估计，1990年大概只有500个中国人会滑雪，而去年，大概有五百万人访问了滑雪胜地。
现在中国赶超日本成为世界第二大经济体只是时机问题了。今年，中国人比美国人买的汽车和卡车还要多，已有中国人上了太空。对这个曾经自认是文明中心的民族来说，中国是时候洗刷多年盘旋的殖民耻辱了。
这并不等于中国人并没有意识到他们国家的矛盾和缺陷，很多人为官员贪污和不正当竞争而愤怒，虽然腐败多发生在地方、并不殃及共产党主体。中国人不愿意被迫离开本土，孩子被毒牛奶和无良企业主毒害。激烈的抗议普遍存在。很多人、包括国家总理温家宝都感到，中国经济增长是一个并不稳定的增长模式，能源缺乏、产业结构倾斜、过于依赖政府支出都是潜在问题。但是，普遍的共识——虽然在一个缺乏言论和选举自由的国家难于验证这点——认为现存问题是发展过程中不可避免的，可以接受的。中国人相信明天会更好。
张艺谋先生自己从反叛者到国家宠儿的经历也许包含了此类微妙的盘算。1991年，他导演了电影《大红灯笼高高挂》，一个反专制的寓言。电影里，一个影子主人控制着他四个妻子的不幸人生。电影被禁，十年之后，同一个导演制作了《英雄》，一部对中国第一王朝的极权赞歌。北京迅速将之送去竞争奥斯卡，张还执导了去年的奥运开幕式。本星期四，张先生会执导阅兵后国庆联欢晚会，虽然在这个国家安保声称为“人民的庆典”中人民无迹无声。
象《活着》的主人公福贵一样，张也许发现最好“与时俱进”，而不是反抗它。福贵在大跃进中失去了他的儿子，他的女儿也死于文革。在最后一幕，随着邓小平经济改革的开始，他为自己孙子的未来感到安慰。与福贵的儿子不同，他的孙子可以梦想一些比“牛”更大的东西了，“他可以坐火车、坐飞机”，祖父梦想，他当然不可能想到去滑雪胜地，“生活一定会越来越好的”。
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原文：
Optimism enduresChina’s upheavals
By David Pilling
Published: September 30 2009 22:44 | Last updated: September 30 2009 22:44
Our family is like a little chicken.
When it grows up it becomes a goose.
And it’ll turn into a sheep.
The sheep will turn into an ox.
And after the ox is Communism.
And there’ll be dumplings and meat every day.
Communism, or at least China’s bastardised version of it – what would Marx have made of fourth-class railway compartments in a supposedly classless society? – has duly performed its miracle. The path has been far from straight, the journey anything but painless, certainly not bloodless. But the Communist party, by its own criteria at least, has delivered. As the hero of To Live, a 1994 film by the director Zhang Yimou, promises his son and later his grandson, life has indeed got better for most Chinese.
The story of To Live, and indeed the life of Mr Zhang, a once-banned film director recast
as the Communist party’s propagandist-in-chief, tells us a lot about China 60 years after the founding of the People’s Republic and 30 years since Deng Xiaoping’s economic reforms. An epic drama, soaked in the misery of collectivism and the madness of Maoist dogma, its portrayal of Communist rule was enough to get it struck down by censors.Yet, in the end, the film somehow manages to be optimistic, a celebration of the nation’s unity and capacity for progress after 150 years of colonial humiliation and internal strife.
That optimism is almost palpable in China’s frenetic cities, where nearly one in two people now live compared with one in 10 in 1949. Born of the belief that today is better than yesterday and tomorrow will be an improvement on today, optimism is a powerful antidote to the resentment of autocracythat many westerners too readily assume to be the norm.
Meat and dumplings are not enough to buy off everybody. But they help. After 30 years of breakneck growth averaging 10 per cent a year, per capita
income on a purchasing power parity平价basis has hit $6,000 (€4,100, £3,750). That still makes China a lower-middle-income country, more Angola than America. The average also hides a yawning income gap that keeps the party leadership awake at night. Yet it has been enough to release hundreds of millions of people from poverty. More importantly, it promises to release hundreds of millions more.
Aspiration is everywhere. Each year, China produces 700,000 engineering graduates and 30,000 MBAs, says Beijing Axis, a consultancy. There are 650m mobile phones in circulation, roughly the number of pigs slaughtered every year. In the late 1990s, the consultancy reckons, only 500 Chinese residents knew how to ski. Last year, 5m visited ski resorts.
Nor is it merely a question of personal opportunities. China will shortly overtake Japan as the world’s second-biggest economy. This year, its people will buy more cars and trucks than Americans. Beijing has sent a man into space. China, in short, is well on the way to erasing the memories of colonial subjugation
that have haunted a nation once accustomed to thinking of itself as the centre of civilisation
None of this is to say that China’s citizens are unaware of their country’s failings
and contradictions. Many seethe at the corruption and incompetence of their leaders, though much venomis directed locally, not at the Communist party per se. Chinese do not like being evicted from their land, or having their children poisoned by adulterated milk or unscrupulous.state-owned factories. Violent protests are common. Many sense, too, what Wen Jiabao, the premier, frequently admits is an unstable growth model – too energy-hungry, too skewed and too dependent on massive state spending. Yet a common view – admittedly hard to verify in a country without free press or elections – is that these are inevitable
side-effects of development. They are tolerable so long as tomorrow is better.
Mr Zhang’s own path from renegade to state darling may contain such unspoken calculations. In 1991, he made Raise the Red Lantern, an anti-autocratic allegory in which an (unseen) master controls the lives of his four unfortunate wives. That film was banned. Yet, a decade later, the same director made Hero, a paean to the autocratic rule of China’s first emperor. Beijing promptly lobbied for it to win an Oscar. Mr Zhang went on to direct last year’s Olympic ceremony. On Thursday, he will produce a post-military parade extravaganza, though security concerns mean it will be a people’s celebration largely sans people.
Like Fugui, the hero of To Live, Mr Zhang may have concluded that it is better to march with history than against it. Fugui loses his son to the Great Leap Forward and his daughter to the Cultural Revolution. Yet, in the final scene, with Deng’s reforms under way, he takes solace in his grandson’s future. Unlike his son, his grandson can dream bigger than one day riding an ox. “He’ll ride trains and planes,” proclaims the grandfather, clearly unable to imagine ski resorts. “And life will get better and better.”
david.pilling@ft.com
More columns at
www.ft.com/davidpilling
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