|
|
【媒体出处】http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/24/sports/olympics/24longman.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
【中文翻译】elpeggy原创翻译
【本文标题】Friendly and Efficient? Oh Yeah. But Spontaneous? 友好高效？哦是的。但天性呢？
【声 明】本文翻译仅限Anti-CNN使用，谢绝转载。
【原文内容】
Friendly and Efficient? Oh Yeah. But Spontaneous?
By JERÉ LONGMAN
Published: August 23, 2008
BEIJING — The Beijing Games end Sunday with the greatest fears avoided and the greatest hopes unrealized. These Olympics will be remembered for the friendly embrace of the people and the stunning efficiency of the organizers, but also for strict control that left the Games feeling devoid of playfulness, passion and festive spirit.
The luminous Bird’s Nest track stadium and Water Cube pool lent an air of ethereal isolation. Even in summer, it felt as if the Games were held in an Olympic snow globe, as Tim Layden of Sports Illustrated so aptly put it.
Michael Phelps made for the perfect symbol — ruthlessly proficient in winning eight gold medals, unerringly prepared, perfectly ordered, but somewhat rehearsed and dull. Phelps was so tunnel-visioned, he did not notice the arterial pulse of lights on the Water Cube’s outer skin until his competition had ended.
It was left to Usain Bolt, the Jamaican sprinter, to bring a sense of fun and spontaneity. He danced and shimmied his way to three gold medals, drawing warm and sustained applause at the Bird’s Nest, relieving the funereal disappointment that accompanied the limping exit of China’s most popular star, the hurdler Liu Xiang.
Of course, the buzzkill president of the International Olympic Committee, Jacques Rogge, had to stamp out any sense of impromptu exuberance.
“He still has to mature,” Rogge said of Bolt, showing again that despite so-called reforms, the I.O.C. remains doddering in European paternalism.
What needless admonishment from a man whose smile is nearly as extinct as the ivory-billed woodpecker.
Apparently, Rogge preferred the artificial celebration of the opening ceremony, when Chinese authorities faked a song, putting one young girl on stage and piping another young girl’s voice through the public address system. When the Chinese flag was raised in the Bird’s Nest, suffocatingly devoid of moving air that night, the flag suddenly snapped to attention, fluttering in a synthetic breeze created by air jets in the flag pole.
Organizers were firmly determined to avoid imperfection and careless oversight. Even the brand name of the toilets in the main press center was covered in tape, lest anyone think American Standard had paid to be the official urinal of the Beijing Games.
When Liu could not continue in the first round of the hurdles, his Achilles’ heel literally being his Achilles’ heel, propaganda officials issued an edict, forbidding criticism of the fallen star. Apparently, China is not yet ready for sports-talk radio. We will have to wait a few years to hear Jing and the Mad Dog.
One thing did transcend the studied nature of these Games — the openness and affability and kindliness of the Chinese people. Sure, some of it was instructed. Greeters at the Green Homeland Media Village wore sashes that said “Welcome,” as if they were beauty contestants.
But there seemed nothing insincere about their welcoming and gracious behavior. Thousands of young volunteers were eagerly helpful, always smiling. Inside the Bird’s Nest and the Water Cube, fans roared and cheered for everyone. Once, a taxi driver dropped me at the wrong location, realized his mistake, doubled back and wouldn’t take a cent to drive me to the correct address.
It was impossible to enter the restrooms at the main press center without a volunteer waving you inside, then breaking out the official Olympic squeegee to dry the sink when you left.
“How do they prepare?” said an awed Bob Condron, a spokesman for the United States Olympic Committee. “Do they have annual conventions? Do they elect officers?”
The buses ran on time. And there were no long lines at the stadiums. Who would have thought an authoritarian country would devise the least intrusive security system at any Olympics in recent memory?
Fears that Beijing’s air would smoke more than its residents proved mercifully overwrought. The skies cleared, and no one had to go all Andromeda Strain in the marathon, running in a biohazard suit instead of a track suit.
At times, though, it was difficult to tell that the Summer Games were actually taking place.
There was no Ramblas here, as in Barcelona in 1992, a place of throbbing Olympic nightlife. Spectators came and went orderly, stopping to take pictures in the concrete commons between the Bird’s Nest and the Water Cube, but the stadiums felt remote from the rest of Beijing. Any celebrative atmosphere seemed as fenced off and secluded as the arenas.
No one wanted the tacky commercialism of the Atlanta Games, but it would have been nice to see the occasional Chairman Mao soap-on-a-rope, or Deng Xiaoping badminton set, just to remind us that the Olympics still hold a small place for good-humored cheesiness and mischief.
The Chinese, though, do not do Olympic wackiness.
Any chance that order would be disturbed brought a stern response. Two Chinese women, in their late 70s, were sentenced to “re-education through labor” for applying for to hold a legal protest during the Games.
A chaotic scene at the Brazil-Argentina soccer match resulted in a news media entrance being padlocked and reporters being threatened with arrest for trying to get to their seats in an overcrowded press box.
Organizers grew alarmed, believing that the five rings depicted on The New York Times’ Olympic pins were handcuffs. In truth, they were miniature Great Walls.
In the end, the friendliness of the people won the most important gold medal here. But work needs to be done to restore the fun of the Olympics at the 2012 London Games. A note to British organizers: lose the stiff upper lip.
友好高效？哦是的。但是天性呢？
JERE LONGMAN，2008年8月23日
（北京消息）北京奥运会将于周日结束；最大的忧虑已被避免，但最好的期望也没有实现。这届奥运会将被铭记，铭记于人民的热情拥抱和组织者的惊人效能，但也将铭记于因严格控制而缺乏的趣味、激情和喜庆情绪。
发光的鸟巢体育场和水立方给人一种无形的隔绝感。体育画报（Sports Illustrated）记者Tim Layden恰当地比喻道：“虽然是夏天，这里却让人觉得像是在举办冬奥会。”（此段的确切涵义不甚确定，可能是因为鸟巢和水立方都是封闭半封闭的体育场馆，冷气又开得很大——开幕式时看台有外国人穿上夹克的镜头，但远离空调的场中央人们汗流浃背——这种情形有一种不够自然的感觉，而作者的愿望是那种美国式的橄榄球赛风格：露天场地、汗流浃背、啤酒和汉堡、笑骂和狂欢……我想作者可能是这个意思——译者注。）
迈克尔·菲尔普斯就是最好的例子。绝杀八金，精心准备，完美表现，但是总有点刻板枯燥。菲尔普斯目无旁物，直到他比完，他才发现水立方外墙上有变幻的灯光。
而牙买加跨栏选手博尔特却带来了欢乐和自发的情感。他在三金之路上又舞又跳，赢得了鸟巢里热烈不息的掌声，减轻了因中国巨星刘翔一瘸一拐离场而带来的沉郁失落。
当然，“灭火员”罗格主席不得不扑灭任何一点即兴表演的火星。
“他还是得成熟起来。”罗格对博尔特的这番话再次表明，不管怎么改革，国际奥委会都还是那副老糊涂了的欧洲式家长作风。
这就是来自一个笑容像华南虎一样稀少的人的无谓警告。（原文不是华南虎，是一种什么啄木鸟。为了文意顺畅有所变通——译者注）
显然，罗格更喜欢开幕式上那种人造欢庆，像是中国当局让舞台上的小女孩假唱而广播里却是另一个小女孩的声音，就像在那个寂然无风的晚上中国国旗在鸟巢里升起，在旗杆顶端风口吹出的人造风吹拂下拂动，骤然发出猎猎之声。
组织者决意避免任何瑕疵和疏忽。甚至连新闻中心的洗手间洁具商标都被胶带盖住，以免有人认为美标已经出资成为北京奥运的专用便池。
当刘翔不能继续参加跨栏第一轮比赛时，他的阿喀琉斯之踵不折不扣地就是“阿喀琉斯之踵”。宣传部门发布命令，禁止批判这位失落之星。显然，中国还没准备好接受体育脱口秀，我们得等几年才能听到Jing和Mad Dog（Mad Dog为美国著名体育主持人，Jing查询未果。顺便说一句，如果那种美国式的口风恶毒不负责任的节目出现在中国，我坚决坚定坚持反对——译者注）
但有一件事的的确确超越了这些精心设计的比赛——那就是中国人民的坦诚、亲切和友善。是的，有些人是奉命如此，绿色家园媒体村的迎宾员们，戴着写有“Welcome”的绶带，就好像她们是选美小姐似的。
但是，她们的欢迎和优雅举止似乎并不掺假。数千名年轻志愿者热心提供帮助，始终保持微笑。在鸟巢和水立方里，观众们给每个人呐喊助威。有一次，一个出租司机把我送错了地方，知道弄错了之后，又折回来把我送到正确地点，没收一分钱。
进入媒体中心的洗手间时，绝对会有志愿者挥手指引，等你离开时，他们会取出奥运专用橡胶滚筒擦干洗手池。
“他们怎么做准备？”一位美国奥委会发言人Bob Condron肃然起敬，“他们有年度大会吗？他们选举干事吗？”
公共汽车准时运营，体育馆外没有大排长队。谁能想到现代奥林匹克历史上有哪个独裁国家能发明出一种无扰安保系统的？
担心北京的空气比当地居民态度宽厚地证明的程度更糟，这是过度紧张了。天空洁净，没人非得穿着生化服在马拉松比赛里上演《天外来菌》。
不过有时候，很难让人觉得奥运会真的在这里举行。
这里不像1992年巴塞罗那奥运会那样，有个Ramblas（当地鱼龙混杂的繁华区——译者注）那样的狂欢地。观众有秩序地进场退场，在鸟巢和水立方之间的水泥地面公共区拍照留念，但这些体育馆感觉上和北京其他部分太疏远了，所有的欢庆气氛都像竞技场一样被围起来了似的。
没人想要亚特兰大奥运会那么庸俗拜金，但偶尔看到用毛泽东和邓小平来开荤笑话也不错，这提醒我们奥运会还是保留着一点有趣的低级趣味和恶搞精神的。
不管怎样，中国人可不是什么奥林匹克怪人。
任何可能打乱秩序的事都会带来招致严厉的反应。两位近八十岁的中国妇女，因申请在奥运期间合法抗议而被判处“劳动再教育”。
巴西对阿根廷足球比赛中的混乱场面导致新闻中心入口被关闭，记者们在拥挤的记者席里想要找个座都被威胁会遭到逮捕。
组织者越来越草木皆兵，相信纽约时报上描绘的五环是手铐。实际上，那是长城的缩略图。
最终，人民的友善赢得了最重要的金牌。2012年伦敦奥运会要做好准备迎接奥运的欢欣了。给英国组织者一个建议——别那么一本正经的了。
－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－
感谢ltbriar在本文翻译过程中提供的帮助——译者 |
评分
-
1
查看全部评分
-
|
狗仔卡
发表于 2008-8-25 21:14
提升卡
变色卡
抢沙发
千斤顶
显身卡
发表于 2008-8-25 22:06
