13 "Thousand-Gold Little Precious"
十三 “千金小姐”
——In a Privilaged Cocoon (1958-1965)
——我的世界(1958—1965年)
When my mother took me to register at primary school in 1958, I was wearing a new pink cord jacket and green flannel trousers with a huge pink ribbon in my hair. We went straight into the office of the headmistress, who was waiting for us with the academic supervisor and one of the teachers. They were all smiling, and they addressed my mother respectfully as "Director Xia' and treated her like a V.I.P. Later I learned that the school came under my mother's department.
1958年，我母亲带我去“实验小学”报名。我身穿一件粉红色灯芯绒外套和绿色法兰绒裤子，头发上扎个粉红色大蝴蝶结。我们直接走进校长办公室，校长、教导主任及一位教师正在等我们。她们笑着迎上来，敬称我母亲为“夏部长”，把她当大人物看待。后来我才知道这所学校隶属我母亲管辖。
I had this special interview because I was six, and nor really they only took children from the age of seven, as there was a shortage of schools. But even my father did not mind the rules being bent this time, as he and my mother both wanted me to start school early. My fluent recitation of classical poems and my handsome calligraphy convinced the school I was advanced enough. After I had satisfied the headmistress and her colleagues in the standard entrance test, I was accepted as a special case. My parents were tremendously proud of me. Many of their children had been turned down by this school.
她们之所以安排这次特殊的面试，是因为我只有六岁。按规定，小学只收七岁以上的孩子。而这次甚至连我父亲也不在乎打破规定，他和我母亲想让我早点上学。面试时，我流利地背诵了古诗，写了一手漂亮的汉字。使学校确信我的能力已超过了学龄。后为校长和她的同事们又让我做标准入学考试，结果也令她们十分满意，就这样我破例入了学。我父母为我感到自豪，因为好些他们同事的小孩都被这所学校拒收。
Everyone wanted to get their children into this school because it was the best in Chengdu, and the top 'key' school for the whole province. It was very difficult to get into the key schools and universities. Entrance was strictly on merit, and children from officials' families were not given priority.
每个父母都想把自己的孩子送进实验小学，因为它是成都市及全省最好的“重点”学校。当时进重点学校非常困难，入学严格按考试成绩，即使是高干子弟也没有优先权。
Whenever I was introduced to a new teacher, it was always as 'the daughter of Director Chang and Director Xia." My mother often came to the school on her bicycle as part of her job, to check on how it was being run. One day the weather suddenly turned cold, and she brought a warm green cord jacket with flowers embroidered on the front for me. The headmistress herself came to my classroom to give it to me. I was terribly embarrassed with all my classmates staring at me. Like most children, I just wanted to belong and to be accepted as part of my peer group.
每次我被介绍给一位新教师时，人们总是说：“这是张部长和夏部长的女儿。”我母亲常骑自行车到学校来检查工作。一天，天气突然变冷，她给我送来一件绣花绿灯芯绒外套。校长亲自到我班上把衣服交给我，全班同学都盯着我看，令我感到非常难堪。我像其他小孩子一样，总是不想在团体中显得太突出，希望能被同龄的人接受。
We had exams every week and the results were put up on the notice board. I was always at the top of the class, which was rather resented by those behind me. They sometimes took their bitterness out on me by calling me 'thousand-gold little precious' (qian-jin xiao-jie), doing things like putting a frog in my desk drawer, and tying the ends of my plaits to the back of my seat. They said I had no 'collective spirit' and looked down on others. But I knew I simply liked being on my own.
每个星期我们都有考试，成绩贴在布告栏上，我总是名列前茅，使落在后面的同学不大舒服，他们在背后叫我“千金小姐”，有时还恶作剧，把青蛙放到我书桌的抽屉里，或把我的辫梢系在座位靠背上面。他们还说我缺乏“集体主义精神”，瞧不起人，我知道我只是喜欢独自行事。
The curriculum was like that in a Western school, except during the period when we had to produce steel. There was no political education, but we did have to do a lot of sports: running, high jump and long jump, as well as compulsory, gym and swimming. We each had one after school sport: I was selected for tennis. At first my father was against the prospect of my becoming a sportswoman, which was the purpose of the training, but the tennis coach, a very pretty young woman, came to see him, dressed in her fetching shorts. Among his other jobs, my father was in charge of sports for the province. The coach gave him her most charming smile and told him that since tennis, the most elegant of sports, was not played much in China at the time, it would be good if his daughter set an example - 'for the nation," as she put it. My father had to give in.
除了大跃进时我们停课炼钢外，学校的课程和西方学校差不多。没有政治课，但有必修的体育课：跑步、跳高、跳远，还做体操、游泳。我们每人都得参加一项校外体育运动，我选了网球。训练的目的是培养、选择职业运动员。起初我父亲反对我参加，但我的网球教练——位漂亮的年轻姑娘，穿着短短的运动裤去找我父亲谈。她冲着他迷人地笑着，告诉他网球这项最雅致的运动在中国尚未广泛推展，他的女儿应该“树立榜样”。我父亲管四川省的体育，不得不同意。
I loved my teachers, who were excellent and had the girl of making their subjects fascinating and exciting. I remember the science teacher, a Mr. Dali who taught us the theory behind putting a satellite into orbit (the Russians had just launched the first Sputnik) and the possibility of visiting other planets. Even the most unruly boys were glued to their seats during his lessons. I overheard some pupils saying that he had been a rightist, but none of us knew what this meant, and it did not make any difference to us.
我很喜欢我的教师，他们都很优秀，上起课来我都听得津津有味。我印象最深的是一位名叫达力的自然科学课教师。他为我们讲解把卫星送入轨道的理论(苏联人刚刚发射了第一颗人造卫星)、登访其他星球的可能性。在他的课堂上，就连最不守规矩的男孩子也会入迷地粘在座位上。我偶然听到有同学在背后说他是“右派”，但谁也搞不清楚这是什么意思，也没有影响我们打心眼里对他的尊敬。
My mother told me years later that Mr. Dali had been a writer of children's science fiction. He was named a rightist in 1957 because he had written an article about mice stealing food and fattening themselves up, which was alleged to be a covert attack on Party officials. He was banned from writing, and was about to be sent to the countryside when my mother managed to get him relocated to my school. Few officials were brave enough to reemploy a rightist.
我母亲在若干年后告诉我达力先生曾是位儿童科幻作家，他在1957年被划成右派，因为他写了一篇有关耗子偷食养肥自己的文章，被指控为含沙射影，攻击共产党干部。他不能写书了，要下放去农村。我母亲全力运用关系把他调来实验小学，当时很少有干部敢用右派。
My mother was, and this was the very reason she was in charge of my school. According to its location, it should have come under the Western District of Chengdu. But the city authorities assigned it to my mother's district in the east because they wanted it to have the best teachers, even if they came from 'undesirable' backgrounds, and the head of the Public Affairs Department of the Western District would not dare to give such people jobs. The academic supervisor in my school was the wife of a former Kuomintang officer who was in a labor camp. Usually people with a background like hers would not have been able to occupy a job like this, but my mother refused to transfer them, and even gave them honorary grades. Her superiors approved, but they wanted her to take the responsibility for this unorthodox behavior. She did not mind.
也就是因为这分勇气，她被派来主管我们掌校。按地理位置，这所学校应属成都市西城区，但市政府想让学校拥有最好的师资，而好教师往往来自“成份不好”的家庭，我们的教导主任的丈夫就是前国民党军官，当时还在劳改。通常这类背景的人不可能有好工作，但市政府知道我母亲敢对他们委以重任。
With the implicit additional protection which my father's position brought her, she felt more secure than her colleagues.
我父亲多多少少是她的靠山，她比西城区的同事更安全。
In 1962 my father was invited to send his children to a new school that had just been set up next to the compound where we lived. It was called "Plane Tree' after the trees which formed an avenue on the grounds. The school was set up by the Western District with the express purpose of making it into a key school, since there was no key school under the jurisdiction of this district. Good teachers were transferred to Plane Tree from other schools in the district.
1962年，我父亲应邀把他的孩子送进一所紧靠省委大院的新学校“泡桐树小学”，得名于校园里成荫的泡桐树。学校是西城区办的，这个区一所重点学校也没有，现在想办一所。他们从别的学校调来优秀的教师，因为省上大人物的孩子们都送来这里，所以这所学校马上以“贵族学校”闻名。
The school soon acquired a reputation as the 'aristocratic school' for the children of VIPs in the provincial government.
Before Plane Tree was set up there had been one boarding school in Chengdu, for the children of top army officers. A few senior ci 'vdian officials also sent their children there. Its academic level was poor, and it earned a reputation for snobbery, as the children were highly competitive about their parents. They could often be heard saying things like: "My father is a division commander. Yours is only a brigadier!" At weekends there were long lines of cars outside, with nannies, bodyguards, and chauffeurs waiting to take the children home. Many people thought the atmosphere was poisoning the children, and my parents had always been totally averse to this school.
在泡桐树小学建立之前，成都有一所为高级军官子女开办的寄宿小学。一些政府高官也把孩子送进去。这所学校有个“比吃比穿比爸爸”的声名，在这里常常可以听到：“我爸爸是师长，你爸爸才是个团长！”一到周末，学校门外小汽车排长龙。保姆、警卫、司机等着接孩子回家。许多人认为这种风气对孩子有害，我父母对这所学校更是反感。
Plane Tree was not set up as an exclusive school, and after meeting the headmaster and some of the teachers, my parents felt that it was committed to high ethical standards and discipline. There were only about twenty-five pupils in each year. Even in my previous school there had been fifty pupils in my class. The advantages of Plane Tree were, of course, partly intended for the benefit of the top officials who lived next door, but my newly mellowed father overlooked this fact.
泡桐树小学并不是特权学校。在和校长及一些教师见了面后，我父母很满意，觉得他们有信心要树立良好的德育典范和纪律。更难得的是，每年级只有二十多名学生。而实验小学仅我的班上就有五十名学生。当然，泡桐树小学的这种师生比例是方便照顾住在附近的高级官员，我那位不再那么认真执着的父亲为了我的教育也只好睁一只眼闭一只眼了。
Most of my new classmates were children of officials in the provincial government. Some lived in the compound with me. Apart from school, the compound was my entire world. The gardens were filled with flowers and luxuriant plants. There were palm trees, sisal hemps, oleanders, magnolias, camellias, roses, hibiscus, and even a pair of rare Chinese aspens which had grown toward each other and intertwined their arms, like lovers. They were very sensitive, too. If we scratched one of the trunks even ever so gently the two trees would tremble and their leaves would start to flutter. During the summer lunch breaks I would sit on a drum-shaped stone stool under a trellis of wisteria, my elbows resting on a stone table reading a book or playing chess. Around me were the blazing colors of the grounds and not far away a rare coconut tree thrust arrogantly into the sky. My favorite, though, was a heavily scented jasmine, also climbing on a big trellis. When it was in blossom, my room was filled with its fragrance. I loved to sit by the window gazing at it and soaking up the delicious smell.
我的新同学大多数是省级机关干部的孩子，有些和我住在同一个大院里。除了学校，省委大院就是我的全部世界。花园里到处是精心培育、修剪的花草树木，白果树、棕榈树、剑麻、夹竹桃、木兰花、山茶、玫瑰、木槿，还有两棵稀有的紫荆树，奇异地依偎在一起生长，互相连接的树枝像两支紧挽的胳膊，俨然是一对难舍难分的情侣。它们还很敏感，如果在其中一棵的树干上搔搔，哪怕很轻，两棵树就都会一块抖动起来，树叶不停地摇晃，我们叫它们“痒痒树”。午饭后，我常坐在紫藤萝架下的鼓形石凳上，手肘支在石桌上读书、下棋。周围是五彩缤纷的花叶，不远处一棵棕榈树兀立着，高傲地直插天空。我最喜爱的是爬满棚架的七里香花。开花时节，满屋生香。我喜欢坐窗前，凝视着它，拼命吸那浓郁的芳香。
When we first moved into the compound we lived in a lovely detached one-story house set in its own courtyard.
我们刚搬入省委大院时，住在一幢带有庭院的楼房内。
It was built in traditional Chinese style, with no modern facilities: no running water indoors, no flush toilet, no ceramic bath. In 1961, some modern Western-type apartments with all these amenities were built in one corner of the compound, and my family was assigned one of them.
它是中国传统式的建筑，没有现代化设备，室内没有自来水、抽水马桶及瓷浴缸。1962年，若干幢拥有这些设施的西式公寓在大院的一个角落建成，我家分到一层。
Before we moved in, I visited this wonderland and examined all the novel and magical taps and flush toilets and mirrored cupboards on the walls. I ran my hand along the shiny white files on the walls of the bathrooms. They felt cool and pleasant to the touch.
搬入之前，我参观了这个新奇的世界，冷热水开关啦，抽水马桶的水缸啦，装在墙上嵌了镜子的壁柜啦！我都觉得妙不可言。我用手抚摸着浴室墙壁上光亮的白瓷砖，觉得它们是那样的凉爽宜人。
There were thirteen apartment blocks in the compound. Four were for the directors of departments, the rest for bureau chiefs. Our apartment occupied a whole floor, whereas the bureau chiefs had to share a floor between two families. Our rooms were more spacious. We had anti mosquito screens on our inner windows, which they did not, and two bathrooms, while they had only one. We had hot water three days a week, whereas they had none. We had a telephone, which was extremely rare in China, and they did not. Lesser officials occupied blocks in a smaller compound on the other side of the street, and their amenities were one grade lower still. The half-dozen Party secretaries who formed the core of the provincial leadership had their own inner compound within our compound. This inner sanctum lay behind two gates, which were guarded around-the-clock by army guards with guns, and only specially authorized personnel were allowed through.
大院内有十三幢公寓四幢分给各部部长，其他分给处长。我们的公寓占了整整一层，而处长们是两家分享一层。我们的房间比他们宽敞，我们有防蚊纱窗，他们投有。我们有两间浴室，他们只有一间。我们一星期有三天热水供应，他们没有。我们有电话。这在当时极少，他们没有。下层干部住在街对面一个小点儿的院子里房间设施又差一截。几位省委书记在省委大院里拥有独立的院落，两道院门昼夜有持枪卫兵守卫。只有特别授权的人才允许进出。
Inside these gates were detached two-story houses, one for each Party secretary. On the doorstep of the first secretary, Li Jing-quan, stood yet another armed guard. I grew up taking hierarchy and privilege for granted.
“书记院”里每位书记占一幢两层小洋楼。第一书记的住宅门前台阶上，还有卫兵把守。我就是在这种对等级和特权都习以为常的环境中长大的。
All adults working in the main compound had to show their passes when they came through the main gate. We children had no passes, but the guards recognized us.
所有在大院内工作的成年人进出大门时都需出示证件。我们小孩子没有证件，但警卫认识我们。如
Things became complicated if we had visitors. They had to fill out forms, then the porter's lodge would ring our apartment and someone had to go all the way down to the front gate to collect them. The staff did not welcome other children. They said they did not want the grounds messed up. This discouraged us from bringing friends home, and during the whole of my four years in the top key school I invited girlfriends home only a very few times.
果我们有朋友来玩，就复杂了。他们得填表，然后警卫再打电话到我们家，家里人得走到前门把人领进去。工作人员不欢迎别的孩子进入省委大院，因为怕吵闹。这使我们不便带朋友到家里来玩。我在实验小学的四年内，只请过几次女同学来家玩。
I hardly ever went outside the compound except to go to school. A few times I went to a department store with my grandmother, but I never felt the need to buy anything.
除了上学，我很少到院子外面去。有时，我和姥姥一块去百货公司，但我从来没有欲望买什么东西，“消费”对我而言，是个生疏的概念，我父母只在特别日子才给我零花钱。我们的小食堂像饭馆，饭菜很好吃。除了饥荒年间，每顿总有七八样菜可选择。厨师们是精选来的，不是特级，就是一级(和教师一样，厨师也分等级)。家里也总有糖果和水果，除了冰棒之外，我说不出还想买什么别的吃，一次“六一”儿童节，父母给了我一些零花钱，我一口气吃了二十六根冰棒。
Shopping was an alien concept to me, and my parents gave me pocket money only on special occasions. Our canteen was like a restaurant, and served excellent food. Except during the famine, there were always at least seven or eight dishes from which to choose. The chefs were Handpicked, and were all either 'grade one' or 'special grade." Top chefs were graded like teachers. At home, there were always sweets and fruit. There was nothing else I wanted to eat except ice 1ollies. Once, on Children's Day, 1 June, when I was given some pocket money, I ate twenty-six in one go.
Life in the compound was self-contained. It had its own shops, hairdressers, cinemas, and dance halls, as well as plumbers and engineers. Dancing was very popular. On weekends there were different dancing parties for the different levels of staff in the provincial government. The one in the former US servicemen's ballroom was for families at and above the level of bureau chief. It always had an orchestra, and actors and actresses from the Provincial Song and Dance Troupe to make it more colorful and elegant. Some of the actresses used to come to our apartment to chat with my parents, and then they would take me for a walk around the compound. I was terribly proud to be seen in their company, as actors and actresses were endowed with tremendous glamour in China. They enjoyed special tolerance and were allowed to dress more flamboyantly than other people, and even to have affairs.
省委大院内的生活自成一个世界，这里有电工、水管工和其他修理人员，还有商店、理发店、电影厅和舞厅。当时非常流行跳舞，每逢周末，省委机关不同层次的工作人员有不同的舞会。在从前美军俱乐部里举办的舞会是为处长以上的干部开的。它总有一个乐队，省歌舞团的男女演员们也被请来助兴。有些女演员常来我家和我父母聊天，然后带我在大院里散步。能和她们走在一起我感到很骄傲，因为演员是众所瞩目的焦点。人们对他们特别宽容，他们的穿着可以比别人更丰富多彩，甚至可以有风流韵事。
Since the troupe came under his department, my father was their boss. But they did not defer to him like other people. They used to tease him and call him 'the star dancer." My father just smiled and looked shy. The dancing was a kind of casual ballroom dancing, and the couples glided up and down rather demurely on the highly polished floor. My father was indeed a good dancer, and he obviously enjoyed himself. My mother was no good at it she could not get the rhythm right, so she did not like it.
我父亲按理说是他们的上司，但这些演员不像别人那样对他毕恭毕敬，反而常跟他开玩笑，叫他“明星舞者”。我父亲只是笑笑，看上去很不好意思。舞会跳的是简单的交际舞，舞伴们有点拘谨地在光滑的地板上转来转去。我父亲确实是舞场高手，显然玩得很开心。我母亲不会踩拍子，也就不喜欢跳舞。
During the intervals, the children were allowed onto the dance floor, and we pulled each other by the hands and did a kind of floor skiing. The atmosphere, the heat, the perfume, the glamorously dressed ladies and beaming gentlemen formed a dreamy, magical world for me.
休息时候，孩子们进入舞池，相互手拉手，在地板上做“滑雪”游戏。场内的气氛是热闹而欢快的。蒸腾的热气，扑鼻的香水，衣着鲜丽的女士和眉飞色舞的“绅士”，形成了一个我梦想的神奇世界。
There were films every Saturday evening. In 1962, with the more relaxed atmosphere, there were even some from Hong Kong, mostly love stories. They gave a glimpse of the outside world, and were very popular. There were also, of course, uplifting revolutionary films. The screenings were held in two different places, according to status. The elite one was in a spacious hall with big, comfortable seats.
每个星期六晚上都放电影。1962年，随着政治气氛的松弛，甚至有些来自香港的片子，大多数是爱情片，使人们一窥外部世界。当然也放映振奋“革命精神”的片子，根据等级，在两个不同的地点放映：上层人物在一个座位宽大舒适的大厅内，其他人则拥挤在一个大礼堂里。
The other was in a large auditorium in a separate compound and was jam-packed. I went there once because it was showing a film I wanted to see. The seats had all been taken long before the film started. Latecomers had to bring their own stools. Lots of people were standing. If you were stuck at the back, you had to stand on a chair to see anything. I had no idea it was going to be like this, and had not brought a stool. I was caught in the crush at the back, unable to see a thing. I glimpsed a chef I knew who was standing on a short bench which could seat two people.
我曾去过一次，因为大礼堂要放映一部我想看的片子。早在电影开始前座位就全部占满了，后来的人得自带板凳。许多人站着看，后面的人得站在椅子上才看得见。我以前并不知道会是这样，没带凳子，又被挤到后面，什么也看不见。这时认识的一位厨师，正站在一张能容纳两个人的长凳子上，看见我挤过来，就把我也拉了上去。凳子很窄，我站不稳，人们不断推来推去，一会儿就把我挤倒了，跌下去时，我的眉角碰到一张凳子的棱角上，伤痕至今还在。
When he saw me squeezing past, he asked me to get on it with him. It was very narrow and I felt terribly unsteady.
People kept pushing by, and soon one of them knocked me off. I fell quite hard and cut my eyebrow on the edge of a stool. The scar is still there today.
In our elite hall there were more restricted films which were not shown to anyone else, even the staff in the big auditorium. These were called 'reference films' and were made up mostly of clips of films from the West. This was the first time I ever saw a miniskirt or the Beatles. I remember one film showed a Peeping Tom at the seaside; the women he had been peeping at poured a bucket of water over him. Another extract from a documentary showed abstract painters using a chimpanzee to daub ink on a sheet of paper and a man playing the piano with his bottom.
在我们小放映厅里，有些片子是“保密”级的。外边的人，甚至连大礼堂的观众也不准看。这些叫作“参考片”，大部分是西方电影的剪辑。这是我第一次看到迷你裙和披头士合唱团。我记得有部片子演的是在一个海滨浴场，有个男人偷窥女人换衣，被那些妇女朝他头上浇了一桶水。另一部纪录片演的是抽象派画家让猩猩在一张白纸上涂墨作画，一个男人用屁股弹钢琴。
I suppose these must have been selected to show how decadent the West was. They were only for high Party officials, and even they were denied access to most information about the West. Occasionally, a film from the West was shown in a small screening room where children were not allowed. I was intensely curious and begged my parents to take me. They agreed a couple of times. By then my father had become quite soft with us. There was a guard at the door, but because I was with my parents, he did not object. The films were totally beyond me. One seemed to be about an American pilot going mad after dropping an atom bomb on Japan. The other was a black-and-white feature film. In one scene a trade union leader was punched by two thugs in a car: blood trickled out of the corner of his mouth. I was absolutely horrified. This was the first time in my life I had ever seen an act of violence with blood being shed (corporal punishment in schools had been abolished by the Communists). Chinese films in those days were gentle, sentimental, and uplifting; if there was even a hint of violence it was stylized, as in Chinese opera.
我想这些参考片一定是被选来表明西方有多颓废。虽然观众都是高级干部，可是就连他们也只能接触到一丁点西方信息。偶尔有西方电影在一个小电影放映室内放映，这里是不准孩子进去的。我很好奇，求父母带我去，他们答应了我一两次，那段时间我父亲已对孩子随和多了。门口有一名警卫，因为我是和父母一块，他也就没有阻拦。电影远超过我的理解范围，有一部片子讲的是一位美国飞行员在日本投了原子弹以后发了疯。另一部黑白片有个场面是一位工会领袖在小车内被两个恶棍毒打，鲜血从他的嘴角淌出来，我吓坏了。这是我第一次看到逼真的流血暴力行动(学校体罚已被共产党废除)。那时候，中国电影都是温和、伤感或振奋人心的，哪怕是有一点点暴力也只是做做样子，仿佛京剧里的武打。
I was baffled by the way the Western workers were dressed in neat suits that were not even patched, a far cry from my idea of what the oppressed masses in a capitalist country ought to be wearing. After the film I asked my mother about this and she said something about 'relative living standards." I did not understand what she meant, and the question remained with me.
我对西方工人的穿着——没有补丁的整洁西服感到迷惑不解，这与我脑中所想的资本主义国家“被压迫人民”的衣不蔽体大不相同。电影结束后我问母亲这个问题，她说了一些“相对生活标准”之类的话，我仍不懂，这个问题后来一直留在我脑海里。
As a child, my idea of the West was that it was a miasma of poverty and misery, like that of the homeless "Little Match Girl' in the Hans Christian Andersen story. When I was in the boarding nursery and did not want to finish my food, the teacher would say: "Think of all the starving children in the capitalist world!" In school, when they were trying to make us work harder, the teachers often said:
年幼的我以为西方是个充满贫困和悲惨生活的世界，就像《安徒生童话》里无家可归的“卖火柴的小女孩”。当我还在幼稚园里，不想把饭吃完时，老师会教训我，“想想资本主义世界那些饥饿的孩子们！”上了小学后，老师们想要我们勤奋学习就说：
"You are lucky to have a school to go to and books to read. In the capitalist countries children have to work to support their hungry families." Often when adults wanted us to accept something they would say that people in the West wanted it, but could not get it, and therefore we should appreciate our good fortune. I came to think this way automatically. When I saw a girl in my class wearing a new kind of pink translucent raincoat I had never seen, I thought how nice it would be to swap my commonplace old wax-paper umbrella for one. But I immediately castigated myself for this 'bourgeois' tendency, and wrote in my diary: "Think of all the children in the capitalist world they can't even think of owning an umbrella!"
“你们能上学，有书读，是多么幸福啊！在资本主义国家，孩子们得出去干活养家。”只要大人们想要我们接受什么事，便说西方人想要却得不到，我们该珍惜我们的好运气。我不知不觉也就这样思考问题了。一次，我看见班上有位女孩穿了一件我从未见过的新式粉红色透明雨衣，就想要是能把我那把陈旧的蜡纸伞换成这种雨衣该有多好！但是转念一想，又立刻责备自己有“资产阶级倾向”。我在日记中写道，“想想资本主义世界的孩子们吧！他们甚至连伞都没有一把！”
In my mind foreigners were terrifying. All Chinese have black hair and brown eyes, so they regard differently colored hair and eyes as strange. My image of a foreigner was more or less the official stereotype: a man with red, unkempt hair, strange-colored eyes, very, very long nose, stumbling around drunk, pouring Coca-Cola into his mouth from a bottle, with his legs splayed out in a most inelegant position. Foreigners said 'hello' all the time, with an odd intonation. I did not know what 'hello' meant; I thought it was a swear word. When boys played 'guerrilla warfare," which was their version of cowboys and Indians, the enemy side would have thorns glued onto their noses and say 'hello' all the time.
我心目中的外国人形象也很可怕。所有中国人都是黑头发黑眼珠，西方人有不同颜色的头发、眼珠，看上去很奇怪。我脑子里的西方人形象或多或少是官方宣传的写照：乱蓬蓬的红头发、颜色怪异的眼珠，又高又长的鼻子，走起路来跌跌撞撞像喝醉了酒，不停地往嘴里倒可口可乐，大腿以一种极不雅观的姿态扭曲着，还老是怪腔怪调地说：“哈罗！哈罗！”我不知道“哈罗”是什么意思，以为是句骂人的话，当男孩子们玩“打游击”游戏(类似“牛仔打印第安人”)时，敌方一定在鼻子上粘上玫瑰花刺，代表西方人的高鼻子，嘴里还要不停地说：“哈罗！哈罗！”
During my third year in primary school, when I was nine, my classmates and I decided to decorate our classroom with plants. One of the girls suggested she could get some unusual ones from a garden which her father looked after at a Catholic church on Safe Bridge Street. There had once been an orphanage attached to the church, but it had been closed down. The church was still functioning, under the control of the government, which had forced Catholics to break with the Vatican and join a 'patriotic' organization. The idea of a church was both mysterious and frightening, because of the propaganda about religion.
小学三年级时，我们班想用花草装饰教室。有个同学提议她可以从平安桥街的天主教堂花园里拿来一些稀奇的花卉，她的父亲在那里做花匠。这个教堂从前曾有个孤儿院，后来关闭了。教堂仍开放着，但在政府控制下。共产党要天主教徒与梵蒂冈脱离关系，加入“爱国教会组织”。由于共产党的宣传，教堂在我心目中是个既神秘又可怕的地方。
The first time I ever heard about rape was reading about one attributed to a foreign priest in a novel. Priests also invariably appeared as imperialist spies and evil people who used babies from orphanages for medical experiments.
我就是在一本描写外国传教士的小说中第一次读到“强奸”这个字眼的。传教士还被说成是帝国主义间谍和用孤儿院的婴儿做医学实验的凶残角色。
Every day on my way to and from school, I used to walk past the top of scholar-tree-lined Safe Bridge Street and see the profile of the church gate. To my Chinese eye, it had the most alien-looking pillars: they were made of white marble, and were fluted in the Greek style, whereas Chinese pillars were always made of painted wood. I was dying to look inside, and had asked the girl to let me visit her home, but she said her father did not want her to bring any visitors. This only increased the mystery. When this girl offered to get some plants from her garden I eagerly volunteered to go with her.
每天我上学、放学的路上，都要经过槐树夹道的平安桥街街头，可以看到教堂的侧面。在我看来，最富异国情调的是它的立柱，白色大理石质地，古希腊风格。中国的柱子多是涂漆的木头。我很渴望进去看看，曾要求那位女同学带我去她家玩，但她说她父亲不准地带任何人来家里。她的拒绝更增强了我的好奇心，所以这次当她主动邀我去教堂花园采花时，我就追不及待地跟她去了。
As we approached the church gate I tensed up and my heart almost stopped beating. It seemed to be the most imposing gate I had ever seen. My friend stood on tiptoe and reached up to bang a metal ring on the gate. A small door creaked open in the gate, revealing a wrinkled old man, bent almost double. To me he seemed like a witch in one of the illustrations in a fairy tale. Although I could not see his face clearly, I imagined that he had a long hooked nose and pointed hat and was about to ride up into the sky on a broomstick. The fact that he was of a different sex from a witch was irrelevant to me. Avoiding looking at him, I hurried through the doorway. Immediately in front of me was a garden in a small, neat courtyard. I was so nervous I could not see what was in it. My eyes could only register a proliferation of colors and shapes, and a small fountain trickling in the middle of a rockery. My friend took my hand and led me along the arcade around the courtyard. On the far side, she opened a door and told me that that was where the priest delivered his sermons.
越来越靠近教堂时，我心情越来越紧张。到达门口时，心仿佛快跳出了喉咙。我似乎从没见过这样威严的大门。我的同学踮着脚扣了扣门上一个金属环。门边一扇小门嘎吱一声开了，昏暗中一个满脸皱褶、背驼得厉害的老头出现了，他的样子简直和神话故事里的女巫一样。我看不清他的脸，但凭想象他有一只很长的鹰钩鼻，戴顶尖帽子，就要骑上扫帚腾空而去。我完全没想到他是个男的，不可能是女巫。我躲开他，赶快迈进大门，跃入眼帘的是一个小巧玲珑的花园。我由于太紧张，也没看清花园里有些什么，只记得花草尽是鲜艳夺目的色彩，形状稀奇古怪，还有一眼小喷泉，泉水从假山中涓涓流淌下来。那位女同学拉着我的手，领我沿院子周围的长廊走。走到远远的那一头时，她打开一扇门，告诉我那儿是神父布道的地方。
Sermons!? I had come across this word in a book in which the priest used his 'sermon' to pass state secrets to another imperialist spy. I tensed up even more when I crossed the threshold into a large, dark room, which seemed to be a hall; for a moment I could not see anything. Then I saw a statue at the end of the hall. This was my first encounter with a crucifix. As I got nearer, the figure on the cross seemed to be hovering over me, enormous and crushing.
布道！我曾在一本书里见过这个词，说是传教士利用布道把国家机密泄露给帝国主义间谍。我跨过门槛进入这间很大但光线很暗的厅堂时，更加紧张了，有一阵子什么也看不见。后来我终于看清大厅那头有一尊塑像。这是我第一次看到耶稣受难像，我走近时，十字架上的那个人似乎悬在半空中，笼罩在我头上，朝我压下来。
The blood, the posture, and the expression on the face combined to produce an utterly terrifying sensation. I turned and dashed out of the church. Outside, I nearly collided with a man in a black robe. He stretched out a hand to steady me; I thought he was trying to grab me, and dodged and rushed away. Somewhere behind me a heavy door creaked. The next moment it was terrifyingly still except for the murmuring of the fountain. I opened the small door in the front gate and ran all the way to the end of the street without stopping. My heart was pounding and my head was spinning.
那血淋淋、受刑的姿态和脸上的神情，令我十分恐怖，我转身跑出大厅，差点在门口和一位身穿黑袍的男子撞了个满怀。他伸手想扶我，我以为他要抓我，马上闪身急躲，飞快逃走。身后不知什么地方有一扇重门嘎吱响了，接下来是死一般地沉寂，只听见喷泉轻轻的流淌声。我拉开小门，一路逃到街口，心咚咚乱跳，头阵阵发昏。
* * *
Unlike me, my brother Jin-ming, who was born a year after me, was independent-minded from a young age. He loved science and read a lot of popular scientific magazines.
比我晚一年出世的弟弟京明和我不一样，从小思想就很独立。他酷爱自然科学，读了许多通俗的科学杂志。
Although these, like all other publications, carried the inevitable propaganda, they did report advances in science and technology in the West, and these impressed Jin-ming enormously. He was fascinated by photographs of lasers, Hovercraft, helicopters, electronics, and cars in these magazines, in addition to the glimpses he got of the West in the 'reference films." He began to feel that school, the media, and adults in general could not be trusted when they said that the capitalist world was hell and China was paradise.
尽管这类杂志和其他出版物一样不可避免会有政治宣传，但它们也报道了西方科技进步的情形，这些让京明印象十分深刻。他完全被这些杂志所介绍的镭射、气垫船、直升机、电子仪器和汽车等图片所吸引。此外，“参考片”也使他见识到西方科技进步的情形。他开始对学校、新闻媒体和大人所说的资本主义世界是地狱的话表示怀疑。(此处删去一句)。
The United States in particular caught Jin-ming's imagination as the country with the most highly developed technology. One day when he was eleven and was excitedly describing new developments in lasers in America over the dinner table, he said to my father that he adored America.
由于美国具有最先进的科技，京明就特别注意这个国家。十一岁那年，一天他兴奋地在餐桌上向全家描述美国在镭射方面的新发展，说着说着向父亲表示他很崇拜美国。
My father was at a loss about how to respond, and looked deeply worried. Eventually he stroked Jin-ming's head and said to my mother, "What can we do? This child is going to grow up to become a rightist!"
父亲一下子茫然以对，不知说什么才好，看上去非常忧虑。好一会儿，他才摸着京明的脑袋，对母亲说：“我们该怎么办呢？这孩子长大了一定是右派！”
Before he was twelve, Jin-ming had made a number of 'inventions' based on illustrations in children's science books, including a telescope with which he tried to observe Halley's Comet and a microscope using glass from a light bulb. One day he was trying to improve a repeating Rubber band 'gun' which fired small stones and yew nuts. In order to create the right sound effect he asked a classmate of his, whose father was an army officer, to find him some empty bullet casings. His friend got hold of some bullets, took off the ends, emptied out the gunpowder, and gave them to Jin-ming without realizing that the detonators were still inside. Jin-ming filled a shell with a cut-up toothpaste tube and held it over the coal stove in the kitchen with tongs to bake it. There was a kettle sitting on a grill over the coal, and Jin-ming was holding the tongs under it when suddenly there was an enormous bang, and a big hole in the bottom of the kettle. Everyone rushed in to see what had happened. Jin-ming was terrified. Not because of the explosion, but because of my father, who was a very intimidating figure.
不到十二岁，京明就根据儿童科学书上的图片，完成了几项“发明”。其中有一个是他想用来观察哈雷彗星的望远镜和用灯泡的碎玻璃片烧制的显微镜。有一天，他想改进一把可连续发射鹅卵石或罗汉果的橡皮筋“枪”。为求逼真的音响效果，他向一位父亲是现役军官的同学讨一些子弹壳，以烧制撞击发声装置。这位同学找到一些子弹，拔去弹头，掏空弹药，把弹壳给了京明——没想到雷管还留在里面。京明用剪碎的牙膏锡管充填到弹壳里，用火钳夹着放到厨房的煤炉上烘烤。当时炉上有个水壶，京明把火钳伸到水壶下面时，突然一声巨响，壶底炸出一个大洞。大家都跑来看出了什么事。京明给吓坏了，倒不是怕爆炸危脸，而是怕我父亲——父亲在我们心目中很严厉。
But my father did not hit Jin-ming, or even scold him.
但父亲并没有打京明，甚至没责备他。
He just looked at him hard for a while, then said he was already scared enough, and should go outside and take a walk. Jin-ming was so relieved he could hardly keep from jumping up and down. He never thought he would get off so easily. After his walk, my father said he was not to do any more experiments without being supervised by an adult. But he did not enforce this order for long, and soon Jin-ming was carrying on as before.
他只盯着京明看了一会儿后说，他已经吓得够厉害了，应该到外面散散步。京明如释重负，连蹦带跳地跑走了。他没有想到自己能如此轻松过关。等他回来后，父亲对他说，在没有大人指导的情况下，不得再做任何实验。不过父亲没有严格约束他，京明很快就又我行我索。
I helped him with a couple of his projects. Once we made a model pulverizer powered by tap water which could crush chalk into powder. Jin-ming provided the brains and the skill, of course. My interest never lasted.
我帮京明做过几次实验。有一次，我们做了一个以自来水为动力，可以把粉笔打碎的粉碎机模型。当然这是京明动脑又动手的，我只有三分钟热度。
Jin-ming went to the same key primary school as I did.
京明和我同读实验小学。
Mr. Dali the science teacher who had been condemned as a rightist, also taught him, and played a crucial role in opening up the world of science to him. Jin-ming has remained deeply grateful to him all his life.
达力先生也教他的班级，他为京明打开了科学世界的大门，京明一直很感谢他。
My second brother, Xiao-her, who was born in 1954, was my grandmother's favorite, but he did not get much attention from my father and mother. One of the reasons was that they thought he got enough affection from my grandmother. Sensing he was not in favor, Xiao-her became defensive toward my parents. This irritated them, especially my father, who could not stand anything he considered unstraightforward
我的二弟小黑出生于1954年，是姥姥的宠儿，但我父母很少关注他，原因之一是他们认为他已从姥姥处得到不少爱了。他本能地觉得父母不太喜欢自己，所以总在他们面前畏畏缩缩。这使得我父母很烦。特别是父亲，他不能忍受照他看来不直接了当的行为。
Sometimes he was so enraged by Xiao-her that he beat him. But he would regret it afterward, and at the first opportunity he would stroke Xiao-her on the head and tell him he was sorry he had lost control of his temper. My grandmother would have a tearful row with my father, and he would accuse her of spoiling Xiao-her. This was a constant source of tension between them. Inevitably, my grandmother grew even more attached to Xiao-her and spoiled him even more.
有时父亲被小黑惹火了，就打他一顿。但事后父亲又后悔了，有机会就摸摸小黑的头，说自己不该发脾气。姥姥总是一把鼻涕一把泪地和父亲吵，父亲又会怪她惯坏了小黑，结果他们之间的关系老是紧绷绷的，姥姥因此更疼小黑。
My parents thought that only their sons should be scolded and hit, and not their daughters. One of the only two times when my sister, Xiao-hong, was hit was when she was five. She had insisted on eating sweets before a meal, and when the food came she complained that she could not taste anything because of the sweet taste in her mouth. My father told her she had only got what she wanted. Xiao-hong took umbrage at this and started yelling and threw her chopsticks across the dining room. My father smacked her and she grabbed a feather duster to hit him. He snatched the duster away from her, so she got hold of a broom. After some scuffling, my father locked her in our bedroom and kept saying, "Too spoiled!? Too spoiled!" My sister missed her lunch.
我父母认为只有儿子可以打骂，对女儿则不能这样。我姐姐小鸿只挨过两次打。一次是在五岁时，她非要在饭前吃糖果不可，饭菜端上桌后，由于嘴里还在嚼水果糖，她又嚷嚷说吃什么都没有味道。父亲回头瞪了她一眼说：“叫你不要吃糖偏不听。”小鸿一听觉得挨了骂，哇的一声就哭了起来，把筷子扔到房间对面。父亲一下子火了，随手给她两巴掌。她马上抓起一把鸡毛掸子就打父亲，他从她手中夺过鸡毛掸，小鸿又抓起扫帚。一场混战后，父亲把她锁进了我们的卧室，嘴里不停地说：“惯得不成样子了！真给惯坏了！”我姐姐没吃成这顿午饭。
Xiao-hong was quite willful as a child. For some reason, she absolutely refused to watch films or plays, or to travel.
我姐姐在她童年时代很任性。不知为什么，她绝对拒看电影或戏剧，也拒绝旅行。
And there were a lot of things she hated eating: she would scream her head off when she was fed milk, beef, or lamb.
有许多东西她讨厌吃。要她喝牛奶、吃牛羊肉，就好像给她灌毒药似的。
When I was a child, I followed her example, and missed out on many films and a lot of delicious food.
我小时候因为跟她学，错过了许多电影和无数美味佳肴。
My character was very different, and people said I was both sensible and sensitive (dong-shl) well before my teens.
我却不任性，还不满十岁，大人们都说我懂事。
My parents never laid a hand on me or said a harsh word to me. Even their rare criticisms were delivered extremely delicately, as if I were a grown-up and easily wounded.
我父母从来没对我动过一根指头，也没骂过我。他们难得的批评也很谨慎客气，好像我是个成人，自尊心容易受到伤害。
They gave me plenty of love, particularly my father, who always took his after-supper walk with me, and often took me with him when he visited his friends. Most of his closest friends were veteran revolutionaries, intelligent and able, and they all seemed to have something 'wrong' in their pasts in the eyes of the Party, and so had been given only lowly posts. One had been in the branch of the Red Army led by Mao's challenger Zhang Guo-tao. Another was a Don Juan-his wife, a Party official whom my father always tried to avoid, was insufferably stern. I enjoyed these adult gatherings, but I liked nothing better than to be alone with my books, which I sat reading all day during my school holidays, chewing the ends of my hair. Apart from literature, including some reasonably simple classical poems, I loved science fiction and adventure stories. I remember one book about a man spending what seemed to him to be a few days on another planet and coming back to earth in the twenty-first century, finding everything had changed.
他们给了我很多爱，特别是父亲。晚饭后，他常常带我去散步或去他朋友家拜访。他最亲密的朋友都是些老革命，聪明能干，而且背景上似乎都有什么“污点”，因此职位都不高。有一位朋友曾是毛泽东的挑战者张国焘领导的红四方面军的军官；另一位是唐寅似的风流才子，他的妻子——也是位党的官员，总扳着一张冷冰冰的面孔，我父亲尽力回避她。我喜欢这些成人聚会，但更喜欢一个人悄悄呆在一边读我喜爱的书。学校放假时，我整天都一边咬着自己的辫梢，一边读书。除了文学和一些较简单的古诗集外，我还喜欢科幻和探险故事。我记得有一本科幻小说描写一个人在另一座星球上只呆了几天，返回地球时，发现已是二十世纪了。所有事物都变了，人们吃装在胶囊内的食物，乘气垫船旅行，用电视通话。我渴望能生活在这些拥有神奇发明的世界里。
People ate food capsules, traveled by Hovercraft, and had telephones with video screens. I longed to be living in the twenty-first century with all these magic gadgets.
I spent my childhood racing toward the future, hurrying to be an adult, and was always daydreaming about what I would do when I was older. From the moment I could read and write, I preferred books with substantial amounts of words to picture books. I was also impatient in every other way: when I had a sweet, I would never suck it, but bit into it and chewed it at once. I even chewed my cough lozenges.
童年时代，我急着快点长大，常梦想长大后要做什么。从开始阅读、写字起，我就喜欢看尽是文字的大部头书，而不喜欢小人书。我也很性急，吃水果糖从来没耐性慢慢吮，总是一进嘴就几口嚼了，甚至连喉片也咬碎吞了。
My siblings and I got on unusually well. Traditionally, boys and girls seldom played together, but we were good friends and cared about each other. There was little jealousy or competitiveness, and we rarely had rows. Whenever my sister saw me crying, she would burst into tears herself. She did not mind hearing people praising me. The good relationship between us was much commented on, and parents of other children were constantly asking my parents how they did it.
我和弟弟、姐姐相处融洽。按传统，男孩子和女孩子很少在一块玩，但我们是好朋友，彼此关心，不会忌妒或竞争，也很少吵嘴。我姐姐一看到我哭，自己也会哭起来；听到别人表扬我，她会很高兴。我们之间的良好关系常被人夸赞，别的孩子家长常请教我父母是怎样教育孩子的。
Between them my parents and my grandmother provided a loving family atmosphere. We saw only affection between our parents, never their quarrels. My mother never showed us her disenchantment with my father. After the famine, my parents, like most officials, were no longer as passionately devoted to their work as they had been in the 195os. Family life took a more prominent place, and was no longer equated with disloyalty. My father, now over forty, mellowed and became closer to my mother. My parents spent more time together, and as I was growing up I often saw evidence of their love for each other.
父母和姥姥共同营造了一个爱的家庭。我们只看见父母相爱，从没有见过他们吵架。饥荒年之后，我父母和大多数干部一样，不再像五十年代那样从早上八点工作到晚上十一点了，家庭生活占据了较重要的位置，也不再被视为对共产党不忠诚。我父亲这时已四十出头，人也成熟了，变得和我母亲更亲近。他们有较多的时间在一起，随着年纪渐长，我看见他们越来越相爱。
One day I heard my father telling my mother about a compliment paid to her by one of his colleagues, whose wife had the reputation of being a beauty.
一天，我听到父亲告诉母亲，他的一位同事对她的恭维话。这位同事的妻子素有美人之称。“这是我们俩人的好运气，老婆这样出色。”他对我父亲说，“看看周围，她们俩是无人可及的。”我父亲很是得意，以一种喜不自胜的表情回想当时的情景，“当然，我客气地笑了笑，心里可在想，你老婆怎么可以跟我老婆比？我老婆才更出色呢！”
"The two of us are lucky to have such outstanding wives," he had said to my father.
"Look around: they stand out from everyone else." My father was beaming, recalling the scene with restrained delight.
"I smiled politely, of course," he said.
"But I was really thinking, How can you compare your wife with mine? My wife is in a class of her own!"
Once my father went away on a three-week sight-seeing tour for the directors of the Public Affairs departments of every province in China, which was to take them all over the country. It was the only such tour ever given in the whole of my father's career and was supposed to be a special treat. The group enjoyed V.I.P treatment all the way, and a photographer traveled with them, recording their progress. But my father was restless. By the start of the third week, when the tour had reached Shanghai, he missed home so much that he said he did not feel well, and flew back to Chengdu. Forever afterward, my mother would call him a 'silly old thing."
有一次，我父亲参加了一个为时三星期的招待全国各省宣传部部长们旅游全国的观光团。在父亲整个官宦生涯中，这是他唯一的一次旅游，这个团一路上备受礼遇，还有一位摄影师随行帮他们拍照留念，但我父亲却觉得若有所失。到了第三个星期，旅游团到达上海时，他想家想得不得了，借故说不舒服，飞回了成都。从此以后，我母亲就叫他“老傻瓜”，“你的家飞不了，我也丢不了，就这一星期你都玩不下去？你看你平白失掉了多好的游览机会啊！”但我能感觉得到，母亲其实是蛮高兴我父亲会如此想家。
"Your home wouldn't have flown away. I wouldn't have disappeared. Not in that week, anyway. What a chance you missed to have fun!" I always had a feeling when she said this that she was really quite pleased about my father's 'silly homesickness."
In their relationship with their children, my parents seemed to be concerned above all with two things. One was our academic education. No matter how preoccupied they were with their jobs, they always went through our homework with us. They were in constant touch with our teachers, and firmly established in our heads that our goal in life was academic excellence. Their involvement in our studies increased after the famine, when they had more spare time. Most evenings, they took turns giving us extra lessons.
我父母最关心小孩的两件事是：学业和品德。无论工作有多忙，他们常检查我们的家庭作业，也经常和老师联系，希望我们在学业上出人头地。饥荒年后，他们有较多的空闲时间，对我们的学习情况更加关心。晚上他们轮流给我们做课外辅导。
My mother was our math teacher, and my father tutored us in Chinese language and literature. These evenings were solemn occasions for us, when we were allowed to read my father's books in his study, which was lined from floor to ceiling with thick hardbacks and thread-bound Chinese classics. We had to wash our hands before we turned the leaves of his books. We read Lu Xun, the great modern Chinese writer, and poems from the golden ages of Chinese poetry, which were considered difficult even for adults.
母亲是我们的数学教师，父亲辅导我们国文。这些晚上对我们来说是个严肃的时刻。我们可以进父亲书房去看书，书房里硬皮精装书和线装古书从地板一直堆到天花板。在翻书之前，我们得先洗手。我们读过大作家鲁迅的作品，也读了唐宋诗词，有些诗即使是大人也难理解。
My parents' attention to our studies was matched only by their concern for our education in ethics. My father wanted us to grow up to be honorable and principled citizens, which was what he believed the Communist revolution was all about. In keeping with Chinese tradition, he gave a name to each of my brothers which represented his ideals: Zhi, meaning 'honest," to Jin-ming; Pu, 'unpretentious," to Xiao-her; and Fang, 'incorruptible," was part of Xiao-fang's name. My father believed that these were the qualities which had been lacking in the old China and which the Communists were going to restore. Corruption, in particular, had sapped the old China.
父母也十分注重我们的道德教育，父亲想让我们长大后成为诚实而有人格的公民。对他来说，共产主义革命其实说是道德革命。他给每个儿子各取了个能表达他理想的名字：“直”，正直、诚实，给了京明；“朴”，朴实无华，给小黑；“方”，廉正、不圆滑，给了小方。我父亲相信这些都是旧中国缺少的品质，共产党革命就是要复兴这些东西。
Once he rebuked Jin-ming for making a paper airplane out of a sheet of paper with his dep~iment letterhead on it. If we ever wanted to use the telephone at home we had to get his permission. As his job covered the media, he was supplied with a lot of newspapers and periodicals. He encouraged us to read them, but they could not be taken out of his study. At the end of the month he took them back to his department, as old newspapers were sold for recycling. I spent many tedious Sundays helping him check that not one was missing.
一次他训斥京明。原因是他用公家信笺做纸飞机，我们用家里的电话得先征求他同意。由于他的工作包括新闻媒体，公家提供给他多份报纸和期刊。他鼓励我们看，但不许拿出书房。每到月底，他就把它们拿回部里上交，因为旧报纸都卖给旧货收购部门，他不要占国家一丁点儿便宜。为了帮他检查报纸是否齐全，我不知花了多少枯燥的星期日。
My father was always very strict with us, which was a constant source of tension between him and my grandmother, and between him and us. In 1965 one of the daughters of Prince Sihanouk of Cambodia came to Chengdu to give a ballet performance. This was a great novelty in a society which was almost totally isolated. I was dying to see the ballet. Because of his job, my father was given complimentary tickets, the best, for all new performances, and he often took me. This time, for some reason, he could not go. He gave me a ticket but said I had to exchange it with somebody with a seat at the back so that I would not be in the best seat.
父亲对我们很严格，这使他和姥姥、和我们之间不时关系紧张。1965年柬埔寨西哈努克亲王的帕花公主到成都表演芭蕾舞。这对一个几乎与世隔绝的社会来说是桩极为新鲜的事，我非常想看演出，由于父亲的职务关系，他常有新上演节目的招待票，而且通常是贵宾座。他常带我去，这一次，他因事不能去，但给了我一张票，不过却要我不得坐在贵宾座上，得找人换到后排。
That evening I stood by the door of the theater, holding my ticket in my hand, while the audience crowded in all, in fact, with complimentary tickets, allocated according to their rank. A good quarter of an hour passed and I was still by the door. I was too embarrassed to ask anyone to swap. Eventually the number of people going in thinned out; the performance was about to start. I was on the verge of tears, wishing I had a different father. At that moment I saw a junior official from my father's department. I summoned up my courage and pulled the edge of his jacket from behind. He smiled and immediately agreed to let me have his seat, which was right at the back. He was not surprised. My father's strictness to his children was legendary in our compound.
那天晚上，我手里拿着票站在剧场门口。观众们蜂拥而入，拿的全是招待票，座位好坏视职位高低而定。当演出就要开始时，我仍站在门口，不好意思吆喝换票。入场的人渐渐少了，我急得差点哭出来了，心想要是有个不那么严厉的爸爸就好了。正在这时，我看见一位父亲部门里的青年干部，就鼓足勇气，从后面拉了拉他的衣角，恳求他换票。他笑了，立刻同意让我去坐他的后排位子。他一点儿也不觉得意外，我父亲对孩子管教严格在省委大院是出名的。
For Chinese New Year, 1965, a special performance was organized for schoolteachers. This time my father went to the performance with me, but instead of letting me sit with him, he exchanged my ticket for one at the very back. He said it was inappropriate for me to sit in front of the teachers. I could hardly see the stage, and felt miserable.
1965年春节，为慰劳教师举办了一场特别演出。这次父亲带我去看，但他不让我和他坐在一起，把我换到最后一排，说我坐在教师前面不合适。结果我几乎看不见舞台，心里直气爸爸。
Later I heard from the teachers how much they appreciated his sensitivity. They had been annoyed at seeing other high officials' children lounging on the front seats in a manner which they regarded as disrespectful.
后来我听老师们赞扬他的周到，教师们看到一些高干子弟懒散地半躺在前排座位上，感到很刺眼。
Throughout China's history there was a tradition of officials' children being arrogant and abusing their privileges. This caused widespread resentment. Once a new guard in the compound did not recognize a teenage girl who lived there and refused to let her in. She screamed at him and hit him with her satchel. Some children talked to the chefs, chauffeurs, and other staff in a rude and imperious manner. They would call them by their names, which a younger person should never do in China it is supremely disrespectful. I will never forget the pained look in the eyes of a chef in our canteen when the son of one of my father's colleagues took some food back and said it was no good, and shouted out his name. The chef was deeply wounded, but said nothing. He did not want to displease the boy's father. Some parents did nothing about this kind of behavior by their children, but my father was outraged.
纵观历史，权贵子弟往往骄横无礼，令老百姓大为反感。有一次，一位新来的门卫没认出一个住在大院的女孩，不让她进来，结果她对他大吼大叫，还用书包打他。有些孩子常粗鲁地冲着厨师、司机和其他公务员直呼其名，这样对长辈是一种大不敬。有一次我目睹一个男孩子把饭菜退回小食堂，指名道姓地说厨师饭菜做得不好吃。那位厨师流露出深受刺伤的眼神，但什么也没说，显然是不想得罪孩子的父亲。有些家长对孩子的纨绔作风不以为然，我父亲却非常生气，“这种干部怎么会是共产党员！”
Often he said: "These officials are no Communists."
My parents regarded it as very important that their children should be brought up to be courteous and respectful to everyone. We called the service staff "Uncle' or "Aunt' So-and-so, which was the traditional polite form for a child addressing an adult. After we had finished our meal, we always took the dirty bowls and chopsticks back to the kitchen. My father told us we should do this as a courtesy to the chefs, as otherwise they would have to clear the tables themselves. These small things earned us immense affection from the compound staff. The chefs would keep food warm for us if we were late. The gardeners used to give me flowers or fruit. And the chauffeur happily made detours to pick me up and drop me home this was strictly behind my father's back, as he would never let us use the car without him being there.
我父母亲教我们要懂礼貌、尊重别人，称服务员“叔叔”、“阿姨”。我们在餐桌上吃完饭后，总把用过的碗筷送回厨房，我父亲说这样做是尊重厨师。这些琐碎小事使我们赢得大院职工的好感。我们回来迟了，厨师会把饭重新温热。花匠给我们花和水果。司机会乐意绕路接送我们——当然是瞒着我父亲，因为如果他不在车上，我们不得坐他的车。
Our modern apartment was on the third floor, and our balcony looked down on a narrow alley of mud and cobbles outside the compound wall. One side of the alley was the brick wall of the compound; the other was a row of thin wooden one-story terraced houses, typical of poor people's dwellings in Chengdu. The houses had mud floors and no toilets or running water. Their facades were made out of vertical planks, two of which served as the door. The front room led directly into another room, which led to another, and a row of several such rooms formed the house. The back room opened onto another street. Since the side walls of the house were shared with neighbors, these houses had no windows. The inhabitants had to leave the doors at both ends open to let in light or air. Often, especially on hot summer evenings, they would sit on the narrow pavement, reading, sewing, or chatting. From the pavement they could look straight up at the spacious balconies of our apartments with their shiny glass windows. My father said we must not offend the feelings of the people living in the alley, and so he forbade us to play on the balcony.
我们的现代化公寓在第三层楼上，阳台面朝大院院墙，墙外是泥巴石子路面小巷，对面是一排穿斗式木板连檐平房，是成都人的典型住所。这些房子都是泥巴地面，没有厕所或自来水。房子正面是用直立的木板一块接一块拼成的，其中两块木板构成了门。前面的房间直通里面一间，这一间又通到另一间，一连几间就是一户人家。房子后门通向另一条街道。由于房子两侧的墙与邻居共有，这些房子都没有窗户。居民们为了通气透光，得让前、后两面门敞开着。盛夏夜晚，他们坐在狭窄的街沿上读书、补衣或聊天。从他们坐的位置可以直接仰视我们寓所亮晶晶的玻璃窗和宽绰的阳台。我父亲说不要刺激住在小巷里的人们，不许我们在阳台上玩。
On summer evenings, boys from the huts in the alley often used to walk through the streets peddling anti mosquito incense. They sang a special tune to attract attention to their wares. My evening reading used to be punctuated by this lingering, sad tune. Through my father's constant reminding, I knew that being able to study undisturbed in a big, cool room with a parquet floor and mosquito-netted open windows was an enormous privilege.
夏季晚上，小巷里居住的男孩子常常沿街叫卖蚊香。他们吆喝着一种特别的调子，“蚊香哟蚊香”以吸引买主。我的夜读就这样被这种悲伤的调子所萦绕。由于父亲的不断提醒，我明白能在宽敞、凉爽、有嵌木地板和防蚊纱窗的房间里看书是一种特权。
"You must not think you are superior to them," he would say.
“不要认为你们比那些卖蚊香的孩子高一等”，他说，“你们不过是运气好。我们为什么要搞共产主义？就是为了让每个人都住进像我们这样的房子，住进更好的房子。”
"You are just lucky to be here. You know why we need communism? So that everyone can live in a good house like ours, and in much better ones."
My father said things like this so often that I grew up feeling ashamed of my privileges. Sometimes boys from the compound would stand on their balconies and mimic the tune the young peddlers sang. I felt ashamed when they did this. When I went out with my father in his car, I was always embarrassed when the car honked through the crowds. If people stared into the car, I would sink down in my seat and try to avoid their gaze.
父亲的教诲，使我逐渐对自己的特权感到羞愧，每听到大院里一些男孩子，站在阳台上模仿穷孩子叫卖蚊香的小调，我都为他们感到羞耻。当我随父亲乘轿车外出，司机按着喇叭穿过拥挤的人群时，我觉得窘得不得了。人们一往车里窥视，我就往座位底下滑，以避开他们的目光。
In my early teens I was a very serious girl. I liked to be on my own, thinking, often about moral issues that confused me. I had become rather lukewarm about games and fairgrounds and playing with other children, and rarely gossiped with other girls. Although I was sociable and popular, there always seemed to be a certain distance between me and the others. In China people easily become familiar with one another, particularly women. But ever since I was a child, I have always wanted to be left alone.
十一二岁时，我就是这么一个严肃的姑娘。我喜欢独自沉思，想着那些令我困惑的道德问题。儿童乐园、做游戏早已引不起我的兴趣，和别的女孩子在一起说长道短，我也觉得没意思。尽管我容易接近，也招人喜欢，但是我和别人之间似乎总有一段距离。在中国，人们相互间很容易熟得不分你我，特别是女人们。但我从孩提时代起，就喜欢独处。
My father noticed this side of my character, and would comment on it with approval. While my teachers constantly said I should have more 'collective spirit," he told me that familiarity and living on top of each other could be a destructive thing. With this encouragement, I kept my privacy and my space. There are no exact words for these two concepts in the Chinese language, but they were instinctively yearned for by many, certainly by my siblings as well as me. Jin-ming, for instance, insisted so strongly on being allowed to lead his own life that he was sometimes thought by those who did not know him to be antisocial; in fact he was gregarious and extremely popular with his peers.
父亲注意到我性格的这一面，曾称赞我是“君子之交淡如水”。当我的老师要求我要有“集体主义”精神时，父亲却告诉我，过分“甜如蜜”、“群居终日、言不及义”没什么好处。父亲的教育，实际上就是给我英文所说的privacy与space。这两个词中文没有完全对应的字，但这不等于中国人没有这类要求。京明也坚持要有自己的生活，不了解他的人以为他孤僻、脾气古怪。事实上他爱交际，也惹人喜爱。
My father often said to us, "I think it is marvelous that your mother has this policy of "letting you roam free on the pasture." Our parents left us alone and respected our need to keep our separate worlds.
父亲常对我们说，“我觉得你们的母亲用‘自由放牧’的方式来培养你们，实在是好。”父母让我们自在生长，任我们保有自己的天空。