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本帖最后由 花落无声 于 2012-1-19 12:48 编辑
【中文标题】中国独身子女的困境——去哪里过年
【原文标题】Dilemma for China’s one-child generation: Where to spend New Year
【登载媒体】华盛顿邮报
【来源地址】 http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/new-years-dilemma-for-chinas-one-child-generation/2012/01/14/gIQAIK8e7P_story.html
【译者】花落无声
【翻译方式】人工
【声明】欢迎转载，请务必注明译者和出处 bbs.m4.cn。
【原文库链接】http://bbs.m4.cn/forum.php?mod=v ... 7&page=1#pid5504484
【译文】
(Frederic J. Brown/ AFP/Getty Images ) - Women push babies in prams through a Beijing park. China's ruling Communists implemented the controversial one-child policy over 30 yeas ago to control population.
图片：(Frederic J. Brown/ AFP/Getty Images ) - 几名妇女推着婴儿车里的孩子走过北京的一个公园。中国执政的共产党实行了富有争议的计划生育政策30多年来控制人口。
This week begins China’s annual mass pilgrimage, as hundreds of millions of people pack the trains and highways to return to their hometowns for the Chinese New Year holiday known as the Spring Festival.
本周中国每年的大迁徙开始了，上亿人会挤在火车里或公路上去往故乡，庆祝也被叫做春节的中国新年假期。
But for one particular group — young urban married couples who grew up as only children — the yearly ritual can also mean tough decisions, sometimes-painful arguments, and a modern-day test of one of China’s centuries-old family traditions.
但对于一个特别的群体——曾经是独生子女的年轻城市夫妇——来说，这个每年的惯例也意味着艰难的决定、痛苦的争吵（有的时候）、对中国数百年的家庭传统之一的现代考验。
These young couples are part of the generation of only children born during the 34 years of China’s “one child policy.” Following the typical pattern, they migrated to the larger cities from the outlying provinces to go to university. They stayed for work and then got married.
这些年轻夫妇都属于出生在中国“计划生育政策”实行的34年中的独生子女一代。就像典型的模式，他们从边远省市迁移到了大一些的城市去上大学。他们留下来工作并结婚。
And now they must decide which set of parents to visit. It’s a decision fraught with emotion, especially for China’s growing elderly population, often living alone and far from their children, who historically have been caregivers in a country with little social safety net.
而现在他们必须决定拜访哪一方的父母。这是一个充满情绪的决定，尤其是对于中国日益增多的老龄人口而言——他们经常独居、远离子女，他们在这个很少有社会安全网的国家里一直是照顾别人的人。
“Both of us want to go back to our home to celebrate Chinese New Year,” said Lin Youlan, 30, a government worker who married her husband, Li Haibin, 33, four years ago. “We always fight about this problem.”
“我们都想回自己家庆祝春节。”30岁的Lin Youlan说，她是一名公务员，她的丈夫Li Haibin33岁，他们四年前结婚。“我们常为这个问题吵架。”
She is from Chongqing in southwest China, and he is from Shangdong, on China’s east coast. They live in Beijing, and they are only children.
她来自中国西南部的重庆，而他来自中国东海岸的山东。他们住在北京，都是独生子女。
Li said as the only son, he is under intense pressure to visit his parents, who are not in good health. “In Shandong province, men must celebrate the Spring Festival with their own families. And the wives should spend the Lunar New Year at their husbands’ homes,” he said. “I worry how others will look at my parents if I don’t go back home every year.”
Li说，作为独生子，他承受着很大的压力要去拜访自己的父母——他们的身体不好。“在山东，男人必须和自己的家庭庆祝春节。妻子应该在丈夫家中度过农历新年。”他说，“如果我不每年回家，我很担心别人会怎么看我父母。”
Rapid urbanization
快速的城市化
Traditionally, the Lunar New Year’s Eve and the first day of the new year — which are Jan. 22 and 23 this year — were spent at the home of the husband’s parents, and the second day was spent with the wife’s. But in those days, married couples largely came from the same village or town or a relatively short distance apart.
传统上说，除夕和大年初一——今年是1月22日和23日——应该在丈夫的父母家中度过，而初二在妻子的父母家中过。但那个时候，夫妇一般都来自同一个村庄或小镇，或者距离比较近。
Now China’s 1.3 billion people are mobile and rapidly urbanizing. The government announced Tuesday that the country’s urban population had surpassed those living in rural areas, although just a quarter of the population lived in cities in 1990.
现在中国的13亿人流动性都很大而且迅速向城市发展。政府于周二宣告这个国家的城市人口已经超过了农村人口，而在1990年住在城市的人只占总人口的四分之一。
That shift, coupled with the one-child policy and other societal changes, has left tens of millions of elderly people living alone, often with little in the way of government aid. China also has few nursing homes and no tradition of professional caretakers to look after the elderly when they become infirm.
这种转换，加上计划生育政策和其他社会变化，使得数千万老人独居，并且政府很少给予津贴。中国的疗养院也很少，而且没有照看虚弱老人的职业看护者的传统。
China has 178 million people who are 60 or older, according to government census figures. Li Liguo, the minister of social affairs, said that number will jump to 216 million, or 16.7 percent of the population, by 2015. At that time, Li said, there will be 51 million “empty nesters” 65 or older and living alone.
根据政府人口普查数据，中国有1.78亿人时年60岁及以上。社会事务部部长 Li Liguo说在2015年之前，这个数字将增加到2.16亿，或说人口的16.7%。Li说在那时会有5100万名65岁及以上的独居“空巢者”。
And as the older population is growing, China’s current birthrate — 1.54 children per woman — is considered far below the normal replacement rate, which is 2 children per woman. (The rate in the United States is 2.06).
在老龄人口正在增长的同时，中国现在的出生率——每个女性1.54个孩子——被认为远远低于正常的每个女性2个孩子的人口置换率。（美国的这一比率是2.06）
“The elderly in the countryside is really worrying,” said Therese Hesketh, a professor of global health at the University College London who has studied the impact of China’s population policies.
“农村的老人真的很担心。” Therese Hesketh说，她是英国伦敦大学学院的一名全球卫生教授，曾研究过中国人口政策的影响。
“Even in the U.K. at Christmastime, this is an issue that comes up,” with smaller families and couples deciding whose parents to visit, Hesketh said. “This is a universal issue magnified in China by the one-child policy.”
在较小的家庭或夫妇决定去拜访谁的父母的时候，“即使在英国，圣诞节期间，这也是会出现的问题。” Hesketh说。“这是一个共同的问题，在中国被计划生育政策放大了。”
Some Chinese couples try to resolve the annual conflict by visiting both sets of parents.
一些中国夫妇试图通过拜访双方父母来解决这个年度冲突。
Chen Juan, 29, and her husband, Huang Feilong, 31, met in Beijing through an online dating site. They were both from Hunan province, from cities about three hours’ drive apart. They got married in 2008 and have spent four Chinese New Years together — three at his parents’ home and one with her family. “We fight about this almost every year,” Chen said.
29岁的Chen Juan和她31岁的丈夫Huang Feilong是在北京通过在线约会网站见面的。他们都来自湖南，各自的城市相距三小时车程。他们在2008年结婚，一起度过了四个春节——三个在他父母家，一个在她父母家。“我们几乎每年都会为这事打架。”Chen说。
This year, for the first time, they are dividing the weeklong holiday in half, the first and most important days with his family, then the remainder with hers. But China’s size — as well as the difficulty of finding bus and train tickets over the holiday period — makes traveling to two sets of parents impractical for many.
今年，他们第一次将这个为时一周的假期对半分开——第一天和最重要的几天在他家，剩下的时间在她家。但中国的疆域之大——还有在节日期间找公交和火车票的困难——使拜访双方父母对很多家庭来说都不切实际。
One-child policy questioned
计划生育政策被质疑
Chinese economists and academics have recently been engaged in a vigorous and surprisingly public debate over whether it is time to scrap the one-child policy and allow couples to decide themselves, with some pointing to the empty nester problem as a reason to make a change.
中国经济学家和学者最近在进行一场热烈的、令人惊奇的公开的辩论，这场辩论有关是否到了废除计划生育政策、让夫妇自己决定的时候了，一些人指出了空巢问题作为做出改变的原因。
But so far, the central government has shown no sign of altering the policy. In a speech last year, Li Bin, head of the National Population and Family Planning Commission, said that China’s growing population remained a challenge and that the government would continue the policy to keep birthrates low.
然而到目前为止，中央政府还没有任何改变政策的迹象。在去年的一次演讲中，国家人口和家庭计划委员会领导Li Bin说，中国正在增长的人口仍然是一个挑战，政府会继续政策来保持低出生率。
The policy actually only covers about 35 percent of Chinese, mostly those living in urban areas, with exemptions granted many others. Farmers are allowed to have more children, for example, and members of ethnic minority groups are exempted.
这个政策实际上只覆盖大概35%的中国人——大多数都是住在城市范围的人——而很多其他人却得到了豁免。比如说，农民被允许有更多的孩子，而少数民族也能被豁免。
The law was implemented in 1978, as a way to control overpopulation and the strain on scarce resources. Authorities estimate that the policy has prevented 400 million births, and it is credited with helping lift the country out of poverty by reducing the number of mouths to feed.
这项法律于1978年开始执行，作为控制人口过剩和稀有资源紧张问题的方法。当局估计这项政策阻止了4亿人的出生，也通过减少需要吃饭的人口数量帮助了国家脱离贫困。
But the law also has been severely criticized. There were reports of some provinces forcing women who became pregnant in violation of the policy to undergo late-term abortions or sterilizations. There were earlier stories of female infants being killed because of a preference for boys. China now has a gender imbalance due to the policy.
然而这项法律也被剧烈批评过。有报告说一些省市强迫违反了政策的孕妇接受晚期流产或绝育手术。早期还有因为更喜欢男孩而杀掉女婴的事件。因为这项政策，现在中国性别比例失调。
The law has also been said to have a harder impact on the poor. Some wealthy families have as many children as they want because the penalty is a fine that most can easily pay.
据说这项法律还对穷人有着更深的影响。一些富有的家庭可以要他们想要的孩子，因为惩罚措施是罚款，而他们能够轻而易举地交上。
Economists now see another reason to scrap the policy: China is facing a future labor shortage.
经济学家现在发现了废除这项政策的另一原因：中国正在面临劳动力短缺的未来。
Others here have argued that an increasingly urban lifestyle makes a one-child policy obsolete. Most couples would probably choose to have just one child, the argument goes, because the expense of raising children is so high.
其他人则争论说逐渐增长的城市化生活方式使计划生育政策过时了。这种观点认为，大多数夫妇都可能会选择只要一个孩子，因为抚养孩子的开销太大了。
But some young couples who see their own struggles with such matters as visiting relatives over the holidays say they are committed to having more than one child.
但一些自己经历了假期拜访亲属这类挣扎的年轻夫妇说他们很想要多于一个孩子。
“I want two children in the future: one boy and one girl,” Chen Juan said.
“我以后想要两个孩子：一个男孩一个女孩。” Chen Juan说。
Staff researcher Zhang Jie in Beijing contributed to this report.
北京研究人员Zhang Jie帮助了这一报道。
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