26 "Sniffing after Foreigners"
二十六 “外国人放个屁都是香的”
——Learning English in Mao's Wake (1971-1974)
——在毛泽东治下学英语(1972—1974年)
Since her return from Peking in autumn 1972, helping her five children had been my mother's major occupation.
自1972年秋，从北京回来后，照顾五个孩子成了母亲的主要工作。
My youngest brother, Xiao-fang, then aged ten, needed daily coaching to make up for his missed school years, and the future of her other children depended largely on her.
我最小的弟弟小方那时已十岁了，需要每天辅导以补上他缺的课。其他孩子的未来也大部分要仰仗她。
With the society half paralyzed for over six years, an enormous number of social problems had been created, and simply left unsolved.? One of the most serious was the many millions of young people who had been sent to the countryside and who were desperate to come back to the cities.? After the demise of Lin Biao it began to be possible for some to get back, partly because the state needed labor for the urban economy, which it was now trying to revitalize.? But the government also had to put strict limits on the number who could return because it was state policy in China to control the population of the cities: the state took it on itself to guarantee the urban population food, housing, and jobs.
社会半瘫痪了六年多，大量社会问题出现了，并且积压了下来，最严重的问题之一是几百万年轻人被送去了农村，现在又都削尖了脑袋想返回城市。林彪垮台后，国家开始重建经济，城里需要劳动力，因此一部分人有可能回城。但是政府同时也得对回城人数严加限制，因为在中国，国家保证城里人的食物，住房和工作，于是争取有限的“回城证”的奋斗达到了白热化程度。
So competition for the limited 'return tickets' was fierce.
The state created regulations to keep the number down.
Marriage was one criterion for exclusion.? Once married, no organization in the city would take you.? It was on these grounds that my sister was disqualified from applying for a job in the city, or to a university, which were the only legitimate ways to get back to Chengdu. She was extremely miserable, as she wanted to join her husband; his factory had started working normally again, and as a result he could not go to Deyang and live with her, except for the official 'marriage leave' of just twelve days a year.? Her only chance of getting to Chengdu was to obtain a certificate that said she had an incurable disease which was what many like her were doing.? So my mother had to help her get one from a doctor Mend which said Xiao-hong suffered from cirrhosis of the liver.? She came back to Chengdu at the end of 1972
国家定的若干规定，使相当多的人不能参加竞争。已婚是排除一些人的一条规定，一旦结了婚，城里哪个单位都不要你。正是如此，我姐姐不能向城里申请工作或上大学，而进工厂上大学又是回成都的唯一合法渠道。她非常难过，因为她想和丈夫生活在一起，当时他的工厂已经正常开工，他不能呆在德阳了，除非是官方规定的探亲假时间，一年只有十二天。她只剩一条回成都的路，那就是弄一张得了某种严重疾病的医院证明，许多和她情况类似的人都是这样回成都的。为此母亲不得不去找一位医生朋友，帮姐姐搞到一张肝硬化的证明。她于1972年底回到成都。
The way to get things done now was through personal connections.? There were people coming to see my mother every day schoolteachers, doctors, nurses, actors, and minor officials appealing for help to get their children out of the countryside.? Often she was their only hope, although she had no job, and she pulled strings on their behalf with unflagging energy.? My father would not help; he was too set in his ways to start 'fixing."
现在要办什么事都得通过私人关系，走后们。每天都有人来找我母亲，有老师、医生、护士、演员和下层干部，都来求她帮忙把自己的孩子弄进城。她常常是他们唯一的希望。尽管她没有工作，但她总是热心为他们东奔西跑。父亲是不可能帮别人的忙，他已经固守在自己的原则里永远也学不会“灵活”了。
Even when the official channel worked, the personal connection was still essential to make sure things went smoothly and to avoid potential disaster.? My brother Jin-ming got out of his village in March 1972.? Two organizations were recruiting new workers from his commune: one was a factory in his county town making electrical appliances, the other an unspecified enterprise in the Western District of Chengdu. Jin-ming wanted to get back to Chengdu, but my mother made inquiries among her friends in the Western District and found out that the job was in a slaughterhouse.
即使通过正式渠道，为了保证不会节外生枝，私人关系仍然非常重要。1972年3月，有两个单位在我弟弟京明所在的公社招收新工人：一家是位于德阳县的东方电机厂；另一处是成都西城区，但未说明是哪个企业。京明想回成都，但我母亲向西城区朋友们打听，才知道是一家屠宰场。
Jin-ming immediately withdrew his application and went to work in the local factory instead.
京明马上撤回申请，进入德阳的电机厂。
It was in fact a large plant which had relocated from Shanghai in 1966 as part of Mao's plan to conceal industry in the mountains of Sichuan against an American or Soviet attack.? Jin-ming impressed his fellow workers with his hard work and fairness, and in 1973 he was one of four young people elected by the factory to attend a university, out of 200 applicants.? He passed his exam papers brilliantly and effortlessly. But because Father had not been rehabilitated, my mother had to make sure that when the university came to do the obligatory 'political investigation' they would not be scared off, and would instead get the impression that he was about to be cleared.? She also had to ensure that Jin-ming was not pushed out by some failed applicant with powerful connections.? In October 1973, when I went to Sichuan University, Jin-ming was admitted to the Engineering College of Central China at Wuhan to study casting.
这是一家在1966年从上海迁来的大厂，当时毛泽东把工业疏散到四川大山里，要防美、苏袭击。京明以工作勤奋和正直博得工人们的好感。1973年，他是厂里两百名申请者中选出来上大学的四个人之一。他轻松地通过了笔试。但是由于父亲还没有平反，母亲得设法使大学在做必不可少的“政审”时，不会被京明的背景所吓倒，反而会得到这样一个印象：我父亲就要恢复名誉了。她还得确保京明不会被别的有后台的候选者挤下来。就这样，在1973年10月，我进入四川大学时，京明获准进入位于武汉的华中工学院学习铸造，他的爱好是物理，但不管怎么说，他已觉得如登七重天了。
He would have preferred to do physics, but he was in seventh heaven anyway.
While Jin-ming and I had been preparing to try to get into a university, my second brother, Xiao-her, was living in a state of despondency.? The basic qualification for university entrance was that one had to have been either a worker, a peasant, or a soldier, and he had been none of these.? The government was still expelling urban youth en masse to the rural areas, and this was the only future facing him except joining the armed forces.? Dozens applied for every place, and the only way in was via connections.
就在京明和我准备功课考大学时，我的二弟小黑很伤心，进大学的基本资格是当过工人、农民或士兵。而他一样经历也没有。政府仍不断把城里的年青人大批送到乡下去，除了下乡，他唯一的出路就是参军了。每个名额都有几十个人报名，要进得去只好通过关系走后门。
My mother got Xiao-her in in December 1972, against almost impossible odds, as my father had not been cleared.
父亲还没有平反，母亲几乎是克服了不可逾越的障碍而使小黑于1972年11月参了军，小黑被分到中国北部一所空军航校。三个月基本训练后，他成了一名无线电通信士。他每天只需工作五个小时，极为轻松，其余时间都花在“政治学习”和种粮食上。
Xiao-her was assigned to an air force college in northern China, and after three months' basic training became a radio operator.? He worked five hours a day, in a supremely leisurely manner, and spent the rest of the time in 'political studies' and producing food.
In the 'studies' sessions everyone claimed they had joined the armed forces 'to follow the Party's command, to protect the people, to safeguard the motherland."? But there were more pertinent reasons. The young men from the cities wanted to avoid being sent to the countryside, and those from the country hoped to use the army as a springboard to leap into the city.? For peasants from poor areas, being in the armed forces meant at least a better filled stomach.
在学习会上，每个人都说自己参军是为了“听党的召唤，保卫人民、保卫祖国”。但是大家都有个更实际的动机：城里的年轻人想躲避下农村，来自农村的人想利用部队作跳板跳进城市。从穷乡僻壤来的农民呢？参军意味着至少能填饱肚子。
As the 1970s unfolded, joining the Party, like joining the army, became increasingly unrelated to ideological commitment.? Everyone said in their applications that the Party was 'great, glorious, and correct," and that 'to join the Party means to devote my life to the most splendid cause of mankind the liberation of the world proletariat."
七十年代，像参军一样，入党变得与思想越来越少有关联。每个人都在入党申请书中说党是“伟大、光荣、正确的”、“入党意味着把生命奉献给人类最伟大的事业——全世界无产阶级的解放事业”。
But for most the real reason was personal advantage.? This was the obligatory step to becoming an officer; and when an officer was discharged he automatically became a 'state official," with a secure salary, prestige, and power, not to mention a city registration.? A private had to go back to his village and become a peasant again. Every year before discharge time there would be stories of suicides, breakdowns, and depressions.
但对许多人来说，真正原因是为了个人利益。不是党员就当不了军官，军官退役后可自动转为“国家干部”，有固定的工资、相应的特权，更不用说拿城市户口了，而一名士兵退伍后得回到他的村庄再做农民。每年快退伍时，总有人自杀、发精神病或意志消沉。
One evening Xiao-her was sitting with about a thousand soldiers and officers, and the officers' families, watching an open-air movie. Suddenly submachine-gun fire crackled out, followed by a huge explosion.? The audience scattered, screaming.
一天晚上，小黑正和一千多名士兵、军官及军官家属们一块看露天电影。突然之间响起了半自动步枪的砰砰声，接着是猛烈的爆炸声，观众们纷纷尖叫着四散逃开。
The shots came from a guard who was about to be discharged and sent back to his village, having failed to get into the Party and thus to be promoted to officer grade. First he shot dead the commissar of his company, whom he held responsible for blocking his promotion, and then he fired at random into the crowd, tossing a hand grenade.
开枪的是一名即将复员回去当农民的士兵。他没能入党，因此没当上军官。他先开枪打死了他连队的政治指导员，他认为是这人不让他入党，然后他朝人群乱开枪，还扔了一枚手榴弹。
Five more people were killed, all women and children from officers' families.? Over a dozen were wounded.? He then fled into a residential block, where he was besieged by fellow soldiers, who shouted at him through megaphones to surrender.? But the moment the guard fired out of the window, they broke and ran, to the amusement of the hundreds of excited onlookers.? Finally, a special unit arrived.? After a fierce exchange of fire, they broke into the apartment and found the guard had committed suicide.
有五人被打死，都是军官的妻子，还有十多个人受了伤。后来他跑进一座楼里，战士们把楼团团围住，用扩音器向他喊话劝降。但当这个卫兵向窗外开火时，他们立即中止喊话一溜烟四散了，这使众多激动的围观者乐不可支。最后，调来一支特种部队，经过一阵激烈交战，他们冲进了被士兵占据的房间，发现这个士兵已经自杀了。
Like everyone else around him, Xiao-her wanted to get into the Party. It was not such a matter of life and death for him as for the peasant soldiers, since he knew he would not have to go to the countryside after his military career. The rule was that you went back to where you came from, so he would automatically be given a job in Chengdu whether he was a Party member or not.? But the job would be better if he was a Party member.? He would also have more access to information, which was important to him, since China at the time was an intellectual desert, with almost nothing to read apart from the crudest propaganda.
像周围的每一个人一样，小黑想入党。这对他倒不是像对那位农民士兵那样生死攸关。他知道他在退役后不会下乡，按规定是哪里来就回哪里去，他自然可以在成都工作，无论他是不是党员。但如果他是党员，工作就会分得好些。他也可以接触到更多的信息，这对他极为重要，因为那时的中国是一个知识的沙漠，除了简单的宣传外，很少东西可读。
Besides these practical considerations, fear was never absent.? For many people, joining the Party was rather like taking out an insurance policy.? Party membership meant you were less distrusted, and this sense of relative security was very comforting.? What was more, in an extremely political environment like the one Xiao-her was in, if he did not want to join the Party it would be noted in his personal file and suspicion would follow him: "Why does he not want to join the Party?" To apply and not be accepted was also likely to give rise to suspicion: "Why was he not accepted?? There must be something wrong with him."
除了这些实际问题外，恐惧的心理也绝非没有。对许多人而言，入党有点像拿保险。有党员资格就表示会少受点怀疑，这种相对的安全感叫人放心。此外，在小黑所处的那种政治气氛极端浓厚的环境里，如果他不努力入党，他的档案中准会记上可疑的一笔：“他为什么不想入党呢？”申请入党没有被接纳也会产生疑问：“为什么他没有被吸收呢？这其中一定有点什么问题。”
Xiao-her had been reading Marxist classics with genuine interest they were the only books available, and he needed something to satisfy his intellectual thirst.? Because the Communist Party charter stated that studying Marxism-Leninism was the first qualification for being a Party member, he thought he could combine his interest with practical gain. But neither his bosses nor his comrades were impressed.? In fact, they felt shown up because, coming mostly from peasant backgrounds and being semi-literate, they could not understand Marx.? Xiao-her was criticized for being arrogant and cutting himself off from the masses.? If he wanted to join the Party, he would have to find another way.
小黑以真正的兴趣阅读了不少马克思主义经典——部队里少有其他书，而他总得有什么东西来满足对知识的渴求。因为党常说学习马列主义是党员的首要条件。所以小黑以为自己可以一举两得，既能满足兴趣，又能获得实际的好处——入党。可惜他的上司和同志们并不欣赏他学马列，反说他是在炫耀自己。他们大多数是农民出身，半文盲，看不懂马克思的那些大部头书。小黑受到批评，说他骄傲，脱离群众。
The most important thing, he soon realized, was to please his immediate bosses.? The next was to please his comrades.? In addition to being popular and working hard at his job, he had to 'serve the people' in the most literal sense.
想入党，他得另找路子。很快，他意识到最重要的事是取悦他的直接上司。还有就是跟同志们搞好关系。除了随和、干活卖力外，他得按最字面上的“为人民服务”办事。
Unlike most armies, which assign unpleasant and menial tasks to the lower ranks, the Chinese army operated by waiting for people to volunteer for jobs like fetching water for morning ablutions and sweeping the grounds.? Reveille was at 6:30 a.m.; the 'honored task' of getting up before this fell to those who aspired to join the Party. And there were so many of them they fought each other for the brooms. In order to secure a broom, people got up earlier and earlier.? One morning Xiao-her heard someone sweeping the grounds just after 4 a.m.
和大多数军队不同，中国军队不把讨厌的杂活简单地分派给下级，而是要人们主动去做。早晨六点三十分起床集合，那些想入党的人得提前起床去做打水、扫地这样的“光荣任务”。这些人人数之多，以至于大家争来争去。为了弄到一把扫帚，人们起得越来越早。一天早上，凌晨四点刚过，小黑就听到有人在扫地了。
There were other important chores, and the one which counted most was helping to produce food.? The basic food allowance was very small, even for officers.? There was meat only once a week.? So every company had to grow its own grain and vegetables and raise its own pigs.? At harvest time the company commissar would often deliver pep talks:
还有其他一些杂事，最要紧的是种粮食。基本粮食供给非常少，甚至对军官也不例外，每个星期只能吃一回肉。因此每个连队得自己种谷物和蔬菜，为自己养猪。在收获时，连指导员常常会做如此动员讲话：
"Comrades, now is the time of testing by the Party!? We must finish the whole field by this evening!? Yes, the work needs ten times the manpower we have.? But every one of us revolutionary fighters can do the job of ten men!
“同志们，现在是党考验你们的时候了！我们必须在天黑之前做完整块地！当然，我们任务很重，但是我们革命战士一人能顶十个人！党员要起带头作用。争取入党的同志们，这是党考验你们的关键时刻！通过这场考验的人可以在劳动结束时火线入党！”
Communist Party members must take a leading role.? For those who want to join the Party, this is the best time to prove yourselves!? Those who have passed the test will be able to join the Party on the battlefield at the end of the day!"
党员确实要起“带头作用”，但是，渴求的申请者才真正得竭尽全力。有一次，小黑累得筋疲力竭，倒在田里。当“火线”入党的新党员举起右手宣誓“为光荣的共产主义事业奋斗终身”时，小黑被送进医院，住了好多天。
Party members did have to work hard to fulfill their 'leading role," but it was the aspiring applicants who really had to exert themselves. On one occasion, Xiao-her became so exhausted that he collapsed in the middle of a field.? While the new members who had earned 'battlefield enrollment' raised their right fists and gave the standard pledge 'to fight all my life for the glorious Communist cause," Xiao-her was taken to a hospital, where he had to stay for days.
The most direct path to the Party was raising pigs. The company had several dozen of these and they occupied an unequaled place in the hearts of the soldiers; officers and men alike would hang around the pigsty, observing, commenting, and willing the animals to grow.? If the pigs were doing well, the swine herds were the darlings of the company, and there were many contestants for this profession.
通往党大门的最直接的道路是养猪。连里有儿十头猪，是全体官兵的宝贝儿。大家都喜欢围着猪圈转悠，左看右看，品头论足，眼巴巴地盼望这些可爱的动物快快长大。要是猪长得好，猪倌就成了全连队的宠儿。这个位置有许多竞争者。
Xiao-her became a full-time swineherd.? It was hard, filthy work, not to mention the psychological pressure.
小黑成了一名全日制的猪倌。这是一项又脏又累的活，更别说心理上的压力了。
Every night he and his colleagues took turns to get up in the small hours to give the pigs an extra feed.? When a sow produced piglets they kept watch night after night in case she crushed them.? Precious soybeans were carefully picked, washed, ground, strained, made into 'soybean milk," and lovingly fed to the mother to stimulate her milk.
每天半夜，他和他的同事们轮流起床喂猪吃额外的饲料。当母猪产子时，他们又一夜接一夜地值班观察，以防母猪压死小猪。珍贵的黄豆经过精心挑选、洗净、磨碎、过滤后，制成豆浆，满怀感情地喂给母猪催奶。
Life in the air force was very unlike what Xiao-her had imagined. Producing food took up more than a third of the entire time he was in the military.? At the end of a year's arduous pig raising, Xiao-her was accepted into the Party.
空军的生活和小黑想象的真正相差十万八千里，生产粮食占据了他三分之一以上的时间。一年艰苦地养猪后，小黑终于被吸收入党。像其他许多人一样，他算是船到码头车到站，可以歇口气了。
Like many others, he put his feet up and began to take it easy.
After membership in the Party, everyone's ambition was to become an officer; whatever advantage the former brought, the latter doubled it. Getting to be an officer depended on being picked by one's superiors, so the key was never to displease them.? One day Xiao-her was summoned to see one of the college's political commissars.
入党后，每个人都向往当军官。(此处删去一句)要升为军官得由上级决定，所以绝不能让他们不高兴。
Xiao-her was on tenterhooks, not knowing whether he was in for some unexpected good fortune or total disaster.? The commissar, a plump man in his fifties with puffy eyes and a loud, commanding voice, looked exceedingly benign as he lit up a cigarette and asked Xiao-her about his family background, age, and state of health.? He also asked whether he had a fiance to which Xiao-her replied that he did not.? It struck Xiao-her as a good sign that the man was being so personal.? The commissar went on to praise him: "You have studied Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought conscientiously.? You have worked hard.? The masses have a good impression of you.? Of course, you must keep on being modest; modesty makes you progress," and so on.? By the time the commissar stubbed out his cigarette, Xiao-her thought his promotion was in his pocket.
一天，小黑被叫去见这个航校的政委。因为吉凶未卜，他惴惴不安。那位政委五十多岁，身材肥肥的，眼睛有几分浮肿，说话声音宏亮。当他点燃一根香烟，问小黑家庭背景、年龄、健康状况时，他显得特别亲切温和。他还问小黑是否有未婚妻，小黑回答说没有。政委这么关心他，小黑感到是个好兆头。政委继续称赞他说：“你认真学习马列主义、毛泽东思想，工作也很勤奋，群众对你印象很好。当然你必须保持谦虚谨慎，谦虚使人进步……”诸如此类等等。到政委捻熄烟头时，小黑猜想他的军官委任状已是囊中之物了。
The commissar lit a second cigarette and began to tell a story about a fire in a cotton mill, and about a woman spinner who had been severely burned dashing back in to rescue 'state property."? In fact, all her limbs had had to be amputated, so that there was only a head and a torso left, although, the commissar stressed, her face had not been destroyed, or more important her ability to produce babies.? She was, said the commissar, a heroine, and was going to be publicized on a grand scale in the press.? The Party would like to grant all her wishes, and she had said that she wanted to marry an air force officer. Xiao-her was young, handsome, unattached, and could be made an officer at any time ....
孰料政委点燃了第二根烟，开始讲述一家棉纺厂失火的事：一位女纺织工冲进火海抢救国家财产，被严重烧伤。她的四肢不得不切除，只有头和躯体留了下来。尽管如此，政委强调说，她的脸没有被毁容，更重要的是她还有生育能力。政委说报上正准备大力宣传这位女英雄，党想满足她的希望，她说她想和一位空军军官结成革命伴侣。小黑年轻、英俊、未婚，又是军官提拔对象……。
Xiao-her sympathized with the lady, but marrying her was another matter.? But how could he refuse the commissar?? He could not produce any convincing reasons.? Love?
小黑是同情这位姑娘的，但谈到和她结婚则是另一同事了。不过他怎么拒绝政委呢？他找不出理由。爱情？
Love was supposed to be bound up with 'class feelings," and who could deserve more class feelings than a Communist heroine?? Saying he did not know her would not get him off the hook either.? Many marriages in China had been the result of an arrangement by the Party.? As a Party member, particularly one hoping to become an officer, Xiao-her was supposed to say: "I resolutely obey the Party's decision!"? He bitterly regretted having said he had no fiance.? His mind was racing to think of a way to say no tactfully as the commissar went on about the advantages: immediate promotion to officer, publicity as a hero, a fulltime nurse, and a large allowance for life.
爱情不就是“阶级感情”吗？谁能比一位共产主义女英雄更应得到阶级感情呢？说他不了解她，也不行。中国许多婚姻都是党安排的。身为党员，特别是一名想做军官的党员，小黑本应说的话是：“我完全服从党的决定！”他痛悔自己先说了没有未婚妻。政委继续讲他当军官是不成问题的，与女英雄结合将是一段佳话，国家自然会派护士照顾她，也会让他们生活得很好。可是小黑一心只想找一个得体的托词来拒绝。
The commissar lit yet another cigarette, and paused.
Xiao-her weighed his words.? Taking a calculated risk, he asked if this was already an irreversible Party decision.? He knew the Party always preferred people to 'volunteer."? As he expected, the commissar said no: it was up to Xiao-her.
政委又点了一支烟，等着小黑作答。小黑仔细地措词，问是不是组织上已经决定了。他知道党总是喜欢人们“自愿”。如他所料，政委说不是，并说：这取决于小黑。
Xiao-her decided to bluff his way through: he 'confessed' that although he did not have a fiancte, his mother had arranged a girlfriend for him.? He knew this girlfriend had to be good enough to knock out the heroine, and this meant possessing two attributes: the right class background and good works in that order.? So she became the daughter of the commander of a big army region, and worked in an army hospital. They had just begun 'talking about love."
小黑决定放手一搏，他“供认”自己虽然没有未婚妻，但他的母亲已为他物色了一个女朋友。他心里明白这位女朋友必须有慑服力，本人也应“条件很好”。于是他说女朋友是某大军区司令员的女儿，现在一家军区医院工作，他们刚刚开始“谈恋爱”。
The commissar backed off, saying he had only wanted to see how Xiao-her felt, and had no intention of forcing a match on him.? Xiao-her was not punished, and not long afterward he became an officer and was put in charge of a ground radio communications unit.? A young man from a peasant background came forward to marry the disabled heroine.
政委马上说他只是征求意见，无意包办小黑的婚姻。小黑没有因拒绝而受到惩罚，之后不久他也升为军官，负责一个地区无线电通讯分队的工作。一个出身农家的年轻人主动要求和那位残废女英雄结了婚。
* * *
Meanwhile, Mme Mao and her cohorts were renewing their efforts to prevent the country from working.? In industry, their slogan was: "To stop production is revolution itself."? In agriculture, in which they now began to meddle seriously: "We would rather have socialist weeds than capitalist crops."? Acquiring foreign technology became 'sniffing after foreigners' farts and calling them sweet."? In education: "We want illiterate working people, not educated spiritual aristocrats." They called for schoolchildren to rebel against their teachers again; in January 1974, classroom windows, tables, and chairs in schools in Peking were smashed, as in 1966.? Mme Mao claimed this was like 'the revolutionary action of English workers destroying machines in the eighteenth century."? All this demagoguery' had one purpose: to create trouble for Zhou Enlai and Deng Xiaoping and generate chaos.? It was only in persecuting people and in destruction that Mme Mao and the other luminaries of the Cultural Revolution had a chance to 'shine."? In construction they had no place.
在此期间，毛夫人和她的同伙又在加紧活动，阻止国家恢复正常。在工业方面，他们的口号是：“停工停产也是革命”。他们开始干扰农业了，说：“宁要长社会主义的草，不栽资本主义的苗。”吸收外国技术成了：“外国人放个屁都是香的。”在教育方面：我们“宁要一个没文化的劳动者，而不要一个有文化的精神贵族。”他们又号召中、小学生对老师造反，1974年1月和1966年一样，北京中、小学一些教室的窗户、桌椅被砸得稀烂。毛夫人声称这是“和十八世纪英国工人破坏机器一样的革命行动”。所有的这些煽动只有一个目的：给周恩来和邓小平制造麻烦，在全国重新引起混乱。只有害人、捣乱，毛夫人和其他文革明星才有机会生存下来，搞建设他们是一窍不通。
Zhou and Deng had been making tentative efforts to open the country up, so Mme Mao launched a fresh attack on foreign culture.? In early 1974 there was a big media campaign denouncing the Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni for a film he had made about China, although no one in China had seen the film, and few had even heard of it or of Antonioni.? This xenophobia was extended to Beethoven after a visit by the Philadelphia Orchestra.
周恩来和邓小平竭力使国家开放，因此毛夫人发动了对外国文化的攻击。1974年初，她在报上大规模地谴责意大利导演米开朗基罗·安东尼奥尼执导的一部有关中国的电影。尽管在中国谁也没有看过这部电影，连名字也没听说过，更不用说安东尼奥尼这个人了。这种对外国的畏惧和憎恨又在费城交响乐队访华之后，延伸到贝多芬身上。
In the two years since the fall of Lin Biao, my mood had changed from hope to despair and fury.? The only source of comfort was that there was a fight going on at all, and that the lunacy was not reigning supreme, as it had in the earlier years of the Cultural Revolution. During this period, Mao was not giving his full backing to either side.
林彪垮台已有两年时间了，我的情绪从希望转为绝望和愤怒。唯一使我宽慰的是现在不像文革初期那样疯狂、为所欲为，现在有人不断和疯狂斗。在这段时间，毛泽东对两派都不全力支持。
He hated the efforts of Zhou and Deng to reverse the Cultural Revolution, but he knew that his wife and her acolytes could not make the country work.
他不喜欢周恩来和邓小平想要扭转他的文化大革命，但也清楚他的夫人及其追随者们治理不了这个国家。
Mao let Zhou carry on with the administration of the country, but set his wife upon Zhou, particularly in a new campaign to 'criticize Confucius."? The slogans ostensibly denounced Lin Biao, but were really aimed at Zhou, who, it was widely held, epitomized the virtues advocated by the ancient sage.? Even though Zhou had been unwaveringly loyal, Mao still could not leave him alone.? Not even now, when Zhou was fatally ill with advanced cancer of the bladder.
毛泽东让周恩来继续管理国家，但他的夫人又咬周恩来。毛发动了一场“批林批孔”新运动。这运动表面是谴责林彪，实际上矛头是针对周恩来的。人们普遍认为周恩来是孔教大儒的典范。尽管他一直都十分忠于毛泽东，但仍不被放过，即便他身患癌症，生命垂危。
It was in this period that I started to realize that it was Mao who was really responsible for the Cultural Revolution.? But I still did not condemn him explicitly, even in my own mind.? It was so difficult to destroy a god!? But, psychologically, I was ripe for his name to be spelled out for me.
就是在这一段时间，我开始醒悟到毛泽东应该对文化大革命负责，但我依然没有明确地在脑子里谴责他，就是想也没有想过。打破一个偶像实在是太困难了！(此处删去一句)。
Education became the front line of the sabotage by Mme Mao and her cabal, because it was not immediately vital to the economy and because every attempt at learning and teaching involved a reversal of the glorified ignorance of the Cultural Revolution.? When I entered the university, I found myself in a battlefield.
教育成了毛夫人和她的同伙搞乱的前线，因为教育对经济建设不产生直接影响，而且教学每走一步都等于是否定文革所提倡的愚昧。我入大学后，发现自己身居战场。
Sichuan University had been the headquarters of 26 August, the Rebel group that had been the task force of the Tings, and the buildings were pockmarked with scars from the seven years of the Cultural Revolution. Scarcely a window was intact.? The pond in the middle of the campus, once renowned for its elegant lotuses and goldfish, was now a stinking, mosquito-breeding swamp.? The French plane trees which lined the avenue leading from the main gate had been mutilated.
四川大学曾是“八·二六”造反派的司令部，是“二挺”依靠的力量。学校的建筑物上到处是七年文革留下的伤痕，完好的窗户寥寥无几。校园中央原先以优美的莲花和金鱼出名的池塘现在成了臭气冲天的蚊蝇滋生地。学校大门内的法国梧桐林荫道也不成荫了。
The moment I entered the university a political campaign started up against 'going through the back door."? Of course, there was no mention of the fact that it was the Cultural Revolution leaders themselves who had blocked the 'front door."? I could see that there were a lot of high officials' children among the new 'worker-peasant-soldier' students, and that virtually all the rest had connections the peasants with their production team leaders or commune secretaries, the workers with their factory bosses, if they were not petty officials themselves. The 'back door' was the only way in.? My fellow students demonstrated little vigor in this campaign.
我一进校门，一场反对“走后门”的政治运动就开始了。当然，没有人挑明这样一个事实：正是因为文革当权者自己堵死了“前门”，人们才不得不走“后门”。我可以看出新的“工农兵学员”中有许多人是高干子弟，其他所有人也都多多少少有点门路才进得来，要么自己就是小干部，要么和生产队长或公社书记或工厂头头有关系，“后门”是唯一的门。我的同学们对过场运动都不太积极。
Every afternoon, and some evenings, we had to 'study' turgid People's Daily articles denouncing one thing or another, and hold nonsensical 'discussions' at which everyone repeated the newspaper's overblown, vapid language.
每天下午和一些晚上，我们必须“学习”那些望而生厌的《人民日报》文章，不是批这个就是批那个，还得进行毫无意义的“讨论”，众口一词重复报纸上的陈词滥调。
We had to stay on the campus all the time, except Saturday evening and Sunday, and had to return by Sunday evening.
我们得住在校园里，只有星期六晚上和星期日才能回家，而星期日晚上就得回校。
I shared a bedroom with five other girls.? There were two tiers of three bunk beds on opposite walls.? In between was a table and six chairs where we did our work.? There was scarcely room for our washbasins.? The window opened onto a stinking open sewer.
我和另外五个女孩合住一间寝室，三张上、下铺的床对面而立。床之间是供我们学习用的一张桌子和六把椅子。剩下的一点空地放洗脸盆。窗户下面是恶臭的污水沟。
English was my subject, but there was almost no way to learn it.? There were no native English speakers around, indeed no foreigners at all. The whole of Sichuan was closed to foreigners.? Occasionally the odd one was let in, always a 'friend of China," but even to speak to them without authorization was a criminal offense.? We could be put into prison for listening to the BBC or the Voice of America.
英语是我的专攻科目，但几乎没有办法学习。四周没有母语是英语的人，根本就没有外国人。整个四川当时都不对外国人开放，偶然有一两个人进四川，总是“中国的朋友”，但即便是跟他们说几句活也会受到怀疑。收听BBC或美国之音可能进监狱。
No foreign publications were available except The Worker, the paper of the minuscule Maoist Communist Party of Britain, and even this was locked up in a special room.? I remember the thrill of being given permission once, just once, to look at a copy.? My excitement wilted when my eyes fell on the front-page article echoing the campaign to criticize Confucius.? As I was sitting there nonplussed, a lecturer whom I liked walked past and said with a smile, "That paper is probably read only in China."
外国出版社一概没有，只有毛主义的英国共产党党报《工人》，就连它，也被锁在个特殊的房间里。我还记得自己第一次，也是最后一次获准看此报纸时的激动心情。当我的双眼落到头版支持批林批孔运动的文章时，激动顿时烟消云散，坐在那里发呆。这时一位我喜欢的讲师走了过来，带着微笑对我说：“这张报纸可能只在中国看得到。”
Our textbooks were ridiculous propaganda.? The first English sentence we learned was "Long live Chairman Mao!"? But no one dared to explain the sentence grammatically.? In Chinese the term for the optative mood, expressing a wish or desire, means 'something unreal."? In 1966 a lecturer at Sichuan University had been beaten up for 'having the audacity to suggest that "Long live Chairman Mao!"? was unreal!"? One chapter was about a model youth hero who had drowned after jumping into a flood to save an electricity pole because the pole would be used to carry the word of Mao.
我们的教材里尽是一些荒谬的宣传。学习的第一个英语句子是：“Long Live Chairman Mao！”(毛主席万岁！)但没有人敢从语法上分析这个句子。在英文里，表达祝愿或希望的语法术语叫“虚拟语气”。1966年，四川大学的一位讲师因胆敢说“毛主席万岁”是虚拟(即非现实)而遭毒打。有一篇课文讲的是溺水身亡的青年英雄金训华，他跳进洪水抢救电线杆，说是电线杆载着毛主席的声音。
With great difficulty, I managed to borrow some English language textbooks published before the Cultural Revolution from lecturers in my department and from Jin-ming, who sent me books from his university by post.? These contained extracts from writers like Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, and Oscar Wilde, and stories from European and American history.? They were a joy to read, but much of my energy went toward finding them and then trying to keep them.
有一套文革前出版的教材，里面节录了奥斯汀、狄更斯和王尔德等大师的作品，还有欧美历史的故事，我读起来津津有味。但我得千方百计从系上讲师们那里一本本地借，叫京明从他的大学图书馆里设法为我借到寄来，两周到了期又寄回去让他续借。生活很大一部分精力都花在找书上了，找到后又想方设法要多留几天。
Whenever someone approached, I would quickly cover the books with a newspaper.? This was only partly because of their 'bourgeois' content. It was also important not to appear to be studying too conscientiously, and not to arouse my fellow students' jealousy by reading something far beyond them.? Although we were studying English, and were paid partly for our propaganda value by the government to do this, we must not be seen to be too devoted to our subject: that was considered being 'white and expert."? In the mad logic of the day, being good at one's profession ('expert') was automatically equated with being politically unreliable ('white').
在读这些书时，一旦有什么人来了，我就一把用报纸把书盖起来。一部分原因是因书的“资产阶级”内容。更重要的是，我不能表现得太用功了，也不能显得超越别的同学太远而引起他们的忌妒。尽管英语是我们的主修科目，而且政府也出钱供我们学习——“工农兵上大学的优越性”之一，但是我们不能让人感到太热衷学习，这叫做“白专”。在那个逻辑混乱的年代，“专”(擅长自己的专业)就一定是“白”(反革命的颜色)。
I had the misfortune to be better at English than my classmates, and was therefore resented by some of the “student officials," the lowest-level controllers, who supervised political indoctrination sessions and checked the 'thought conditions' of their fellow students. The student officials in my course had mostly come from the countryside.? They were keen to learn English, but most of them were semi-literate, and had little aptitude.? I sympathized with their anxiety and frustration, and understood their jealousy of me.? But Mao's concept of 'white and expert' made them feel virtuous about their inadequacies, and gave their envy political respectability, and them a malicious opportunity to vent their exasperation.
不幸的是我的英语比同学们好。于是招来一些“学生干部”的不满意。大学里的学生干部是最基层的当权者，主持政治学习，检查同学们的“思想状况”。我班上的学生干部大多数来自农村，他们想学好英语，但他们往往底子太差，又没有多少语言天分。我同情他们焦虑和不得志的心理，也理解他们对我的忌妒。但毛泽东的“白专”概念使他们对自己的学习落后感到理直气壮——他们觉得自己是“红”——给他们的忌妒穿上了漂亮的革命外衣，让他们以政治口实发泄个人的压抑心理。
Every now and then a student official would require a 'heart-to-heart' with me.? The leader of the Party cell in my course was a former peasant named Ming who had joined the army and then become a production team leader.? He was a very poor student, and would give me long, righteous lectures about the latest developments in the Cultural Revolution, the 'glorious tasks of us worker peasant-soldier students," and the need for 'thought reform."? I needed these heart-to-hearts because of my 'shortcomings," but Ming would never come straight to the point.? He would let a criticism hang in midair "The masses have a complaint about you.? Do you know what it is?"? and watch the effect on me.? He would eventually disclose some allegation.? One day it was the inevitable charge that I was 'white and expert."? Another day I was 'bourgeois' because I failed to fight for the chance to clean the toilet, or to wash my comrades' clothes all obligatory good deeds.? And yet another time he would attribute a despicable motive: that I did not spend most of my time tutoring my classmates because I did not want them to catch up with me.
不时地总有个学生干部找我“谈心”。我们班有个班干部姓明，以前是个农民，参过军，又当过生产队长。他的学习能力很差，但是老爱一本正经地给我上政治课，大讲一通文化大革命的最新形势、“工农兵学员的光荣使命”以及“思想改造的必要性”。我不断地被叫去“谈心”是因为我有“缺点”，但明先生从来不直接了当地指明，他会让批判的利剑悬在半空中，说：“群众对你有意见，你知道是什么吗！——”然后观察我的反应。他最后也会泄露出一点天机，今天是老生常谈的“白专”，明天又说我没有争着去做像打扫厕所、洗同学们衣服之类的“好人好事”。有一天，我被指责说我不愿把大量时间花在辅导同学们身上，还给我加上一个罪恶的动机，说是我不想让他们赶上我。
One criticism that Ming would put to me with trembling lips (he obviously felt strongly about it) was "The masses have reported that you are aloof.? You cut yourself off from the masses."? It was common in China for people to assert that you were looking down on them if you failed to hide your desire for some solitude.
有一条批评，明先生更说得嘴唇颤抖，显然是深深发自内心：“群众反映你骄傲，脱离群众。”在当时的中国，要是你想自己单独呆一呆又没能掩饰这种愿望，人们准会说你瞧不起他们。
One level up from the student officials were the political supervisors, who also knew little or no English.? They did not like me.? Nor I them. From time to time I had to report my thoughts to the one in charge of my year, and before every session I would wander around the campus for hours summoning up the courage to knock on his door.? Although he was not, I believed, an evil person, I feared him.? But most of all I dreaded the inevitable tedious, ambiguous diatribe.? Like many others, he loved playing cat and mouse to indulge his feeling of power.? I had to look humble and earnest, and promise things I did not mean and had no intention of doing.
学生干部之上是政治工作干部，对英语他们是知之甚少或一窍不通。他们不喜欢我，我也不喜欢他们。我不时得向一个管我们年级的政工干部汇报思想，每次去之前，我都在校园里徘徊好几个小时才能鼓足勇气去敲他的门。尽管我相信他不是坏人，但我怕他，更讨厌他千篇一律的说教、话里带话的旁敲侧击。像许多人一样，他喜欢弄权，玩猫捉老鼠的游戏。我得做出一副谦卑和诚恳的模样，保证一些我不想答应也无意去做的事。
I began to feel nostalgia for my years in the countryside and the factory, when I had been left relatively alone.? Universities were much more tightly controlled, being of particular interest to Mme Mao.? Now I was among people who had benefited from the Cultural Revolution. Without it, many of them would never have been here.
我开始怀念乡下和工厂的岁月，那时相对来说没人管我。大学控制得紧多了，因为毛夫人对它特别感兴趣，而且现在我落在那些文革受益的人群之中了。没有文革，系里很多人绝不可能在大学学府里。
Once some students in my year were given the project of compiling a dictionary of English abbreviations.? The department had decided that the existing one was 'reactionary' because, not surprisingly, it had far more 'capitalist' abbreviations than ones with an approved origin.
有一次，我们年级的一些学生接受了一项编辑英文缩写字典的“任务”。系里认为现有的一本是“反动的”，因为书中的资本主义的缩写词选多于“革命的”缩写词。
"Why should Roosevelt have an abbreviation FDR and not Chairman Mao?" some students asked indignantly.? With tremendous solemnity they searched for acceptable entries, but eventually had to give up their 'historic mission' as there simply were not enough of the right kinds.
“为什么罗斯福有FDR这个缩写词，而毛主席却没有呢？”有些学生义愤填膺的问道。他们极其严肃地到处去找“革命的”缩写词，真真是“上穷碧落下黄泉”。但最终不得不放弃“历史使命”——英国国家还没有搞我们的文化革命。
I found this environment unbearable.? I could understand ignorance, but I could not accept its glorification, still less its right to rule.
我难以忍受这个环境，我可以理解无知，但不能接受对它的颂扬，更不能心甘情愿地由它统治。
We often had to leave the university to do things that were irrelevant to our subjects.? Mao had said that we should 'learn things in factories, the countryside, and army units."? What exactly we were meant to learn was, typically, unspecified.? We started with 'learning in the countryside."
我们经常得离开大学去做那些和我们专业毫不相干的事。毛泽东说过我们得“学工、学农、学军”。但我们究竟学什么呢？他又照例不讲清楚。
One week into the first term of my first year, in October 1973, the whole university was packed off to a place on the outskirts of Chengdu called Mount Dragon Spring, which had been the victim of a visit by one of China's vice-premiers, Chen Yonggui.? He was previously the leader of a farming brigade called Dazhai in the mountainous northern province of Shanxi, which had become Mao's model in agriculture, ostensibly because it relied more on the peasants' revolutionary zeal than on material incentives.
我们先“学农”，进校一月后，1973年10月，整个学校都打点行装出发到成都郊区的一个叫龙泉山的地方。这里是副总理陈永贵一次访问的牺牲品，陈以前是山西省山沟里一个叫大寨的生产大队的队长。这个大队成了毛泽东在农业上树立的模范。说是因为它靠农民的社会主义热情而不是靠物质刺激来生产。(此处删去一句)。
Mao did not notice, or did not care, that Dazhai's claims were largely fraudulent.? When Vice-Premier Chen visited Mount Dragon Spring he had remarked, "All, you have mountains here!? Imagine how many fields you could create!"? as if the fertile hills covered in orchards were like the barren mountains of his native village.? But his remarks had the force of law.? The crowds of university students dynamited the orchards that had provided Chengdu with apples, plums, peaches, and flowers.? We transported stones from afar with pull carts and shoulder poles, for the construction of terraced rice paddies.
陈永贵副总理访问龙泉山时，一时兴起说：“嗯，原来你们这里也有山。想想看你们能造出多少梯田来！”在他眼里，成都肥沃的果园和他老家贫瘠的山岗一个样。可悲的是他的话具有效力，成群的大学生赶来炸毁为成都提供苹果、李子、桃子、花卉的果园和花圃，接着从老远肩挑手推运来石头以建设水稻梯田。
It was compulsory to demonstrate zeal in this, as in all actions called for by Mao.? Many of my fellow students worked in a manner that screamed out for notice.? I was regarded as lacking in enthusiasm, par fly because I had difficulty hiding my aversion to this activity, and partly because I did not sweat easily, no matter how much energy I expended.? Those students whose sweat poured out in streams were invariably praised at the summing-up sessions every evening.
凡是毛泽东号召的活动，我们都必须表现出莫大的热情。许多同学的干活方式好像是在大喊：“快看我干！”我被认为“不积极”，一方面是我藏不住对这种活动的厌恶，另一方面是因为无论我怎么使劲也不出汗。那些汗流浃背的同学总是在每晚的总结会上大受表扬。
My university colleagues were certainly more eager than proficient. The sticks of dynamite they shoved into the ground usually failed to go off, which was just as well, as there were no safety precautions.? The stone walls we built around the terraced edges soon collapsed, and by the time we left, after two weeks, the mountain slope was a wasteland of blast holes, cement solidified into shapeless masses, and piles of stones.? Few seemed concerned about this.
大学生们只顾表现卖力，忘了效果。大家胡乱塞进地下的炸药经常炸不了，这倒好了，因为根本没有安全措施，我们造的围梯田的石埂很快就倒塌了。两个星期后，我们离开时，山已不成样子，到处是炸药眼，一滩滩固化的、不成形的水泥和一堆堆乱石没有人过问。
The whole episode was ultimately a show, a piece of theater - a pointless means to a pointless end.
整个活动不过是一场表演、一出闹剧，一种毫无意义的手段来达到一个毫无意义的目的。
I loathed these expeditions and hated the fact that our labor, and our whole existence, was being used for a shoddy political game.? To my intense irritation, I was sent off to an army unit, again with the whole university, in late 1974.
我讨厌这些活动，反感我们的劳动、我们的整个存在被用来玩弄劣等政治把戏。1974年末，当我和全校一起被送到一个军营去“学军”时，我已厌烦之至。
The camp, a couple of hours' truck journey from Chengdu, was in a beautiful spot, surrounded by rice paddies, peach blossoms, and bamboo groves.? But our seventeen days there felt like a year.? I was perpetually breathless from the long runs every morning, bruised from falling and crawling under the imaginary gunfire of 'enemy' tanks, and exhausted from hours of aiming a rifle at a target or throwing wooden hand grenades.? I was expected to demonstrate my passion for, and my excellence at, all these activities, at which I was hopeless.? It was unforgivable for me to be good only at English, my subject.? These army tasks were political assignments, and I had to prove myself in them.
军营离成都有两个小时的卡车路，其实这里是个美丽的地方，四周有稻田、桃树和竹林环绕。但是我们在这里呆的十七天对我来说漫长得就像一年。每天早上的长跑使我喘不过气来，身上也因不断卧倒，在假想的坦克火力下匍匐前进而伤痕累累，我们还得几个小时地用枪瞄准目标和扔木头手榴弹。这些军事活动都是政治任务，尽管我完全没有这方面的能力，也非表现得满脸热情不可，还得在其中取得好成绩。英文好，军事不好，那简直是大逆不道，是“白专”。
Ironically, in the army itself, good marksmanship and other military skills would lead to a soldier being condemned as 'white and expert."
具有讽刺意味的是，在军队本身，军事技术又算业务不算政治了，强调军事就是“以军事压政治”，是要倒楣的。
I was one of the handful of students who threw the wooden hand grenades such a dangerously short distance that we were banned from the grand occasion of throwing the real thing.? As our pathetic group sat on the top of a hill listening to the distant explosions, one girl burst into sobs.? I felt deeply apprehensive too, at the thought of having given apparent proof of being 'white."
我是少数几个没能把木头手榴弹扔在危险范围外的学生之一，我们因此没资格参加投掷真家伙的隆重场合。当我们几个人可怜巴巴地坐在一个山顶上听远处的爆炸声时，一个姑娘痛哭失声。我也忧心忡忡，这又证明了我“白”。
Our second test was shooting.? As we marched onto the firing range, I thought to myself: I cannot afford to fail this, I absolutely have to pass.? When my name was called and I lay on the ground, gazing at the target through the gunsight, I saw complete blackness.? No target, no ground, nothing.? I was trembling so much my whole body felt powerless. The order to fire sounded faint, as though it was floating from a great distance through clouds.? I pulled the trigger, but I did not hear any noise, or see anything.
第二关是射击。当我们朝射击场行进时，我对自己说：这次可不能不及格，绝对必须通过。轮到我时，我趴倒在地上，透过准星瞄准目标，但是我看到的却是一片漆黑，没有目标、没有地面，什么也没有。我抖得厉害，沉得全身软绵绵的，一股劲儿向下瘫。射击命令听上去是那么轻微，好像是从遥远的云端里飘来的。我扣动了扳机，但什么也没有听见，什么也没有看见，报结果时，军官教练迷惑了，我十颗子弹居然一颗也没有打上靶板，更不用说击中目标了。
When the results were checked, the instructors were puzzled: none of my ten bullets had even hit the board, let alone the target.
I could not believe it.? My eyesight was perfect.? I told the instructor the gun barrel must be bent.? He seemed to believe me: the result was too spectacularly bad to be entirely my fault.? I was given another gun, provoking complaints from others who had asked, unsuccessfully, for a second chance.? My second go was slightly better: two of the ten bullets hit the outer rings.? Even so, my name was still at the bottom of the whole university.? Seeing the results stuck on the wall like a propaganda poster, I knew that my 'whiteness' was further bleached.? I heard snide remarks from one student official: "Humph! Getting a second chance!? As if that would do her any good!? If she has no class feelings, or class hatred, a hundred goes won't save her!"
我简直不能相信这个结果，我的视力十全十美。我告诉教练枪筒可能弯了，他觉得我有道理，这结果是差得太离谱了，不可能全是我的错。我拿了另一枝枪，得到第二次机会，自然引起那些也希望打两次但没有获准的人的不满。我的第二次射击稍有改善，十发子弹有两发击中的外圈。尽管如此，我的名次仍是全校倒数第一。看着贴在墙上的宣传画一样的结果表时，我明白这下我被漂得更“白”了。我听见一个学生干部幸灾乐祸地说：“哼！打两回！多打一次对她有什么用！要是她没有阶级感情，没有阶级仇恨，就是扣一百次也救不了她。”
In my misery, I retreated into my own thoughts, and hardly noticed the soldiers, young peasants in their early twenties, who instructed us. Only one incident drew my attention to them.? One evening when some girls collected their clothes from the line on which they had hung them to dry, their knickers were unmistakably stained with semen.
我每天心情压抑，退缩进了自己的天地，几乎没有注意到指导我们的士兵——二十岁刚出头的年轻农民。只有一件偶然的事吸引了我对他们的注意，一天晚上，当一些女孩收回晒在绳子上的衣服时，她们发现内裤上有干了的精液。
* * *
In the university I found refuge in the homes of the professors and lecturers who had obtained their jobs before the Cultural Revolution, on academic merit.? Several of the professors had been to Britain or the United States before the Communists took power, and I felt I could relax and speak the same language with them.? Even so, they were cautious.? Most intellectuals were, as the result of years of repression.? We avoided dangerous topics.? Those who had been to the West rarely talked about their time there.
我在大学里那些文革前因学术优秀任职的教授、讲师家里找到安慰。好几位教授在共产党掌权前曾到过英国和美国，跟他们在一块我感到轻松自在，有共同语言。尽管如此，他们仍很小心谨慎，多年的压制使大多数知识分子都这样。我们避开危险的话题，那些到过西方的人很少谈论他们在那儿的日子。
Although I was dying to ask, I checked myself, not wanting to place them in a difficult position.
虽然我很好奇，想问得要命，但是我管住自己，不希望给他们出难题。
Partly for the same reason, I never discussed my thoughts with my parents.? How could they have responded with dangerous truths or safe lies?? Besides, I did not want them to worry about my heretical ideas. I wanted them to be genuinely in the dark, so that if anything happened to me they could truthfully say they did not know.
出于同样的原因，我从来不和父母讨论我的想法。我能指望他们说什么呢？说危险的真实思想还是安全的谎言呢？还有一层，我不想让他们因我的异端思想而担忧。我想让他们蒙在鼓里，这样，如果我出了什么事，他们也可以诚实地说他们不知道。
The people to whom I did communicate my thoughts were friends of my own generation.? Actually, there was little else to do except talk, particularly with men friends.
能交谈思想的人是我同一代的朋友。那时候除了说话以外也没有别的事可做，特别是和男性朋友。
To 'go out' with a man being seen alone together in public was tantamount to an engagement.? There was still virtually no entertainment to go to anyway.? Cinemas showed only the handful of works approved by Mine Mao.
和一个男人“出去”，在公开场合被人看见在一起，就等于要订婚了。出去又能去哪儿呢？电影院只放那几部毛夫人批准的片子。
Occasionally a rare foreign movie, perhaps from Albania, would be screened, but most of the tickets disappeared into the pockets of people with connections.? A ferocious crowd would swamp the box office and try to tear each other away from the window to get the remaining few tickets.? Scalpers made a killing.
偶尔演一部稀罕的外国片子，多是阿尔巴尼亚的，大多数的门票又都落人那些有关系的人的口袋里了。疯狂的人群挤在售票处，你扯我拉，像打仗似地要买那仅剩的几张票。卖黄牛票的从中得高利。
So, we just sat at home and talked.? We sat very properly, as in Victorian England.? For women to have friendships with men was unusual in those days, and a girlfriend once said to me, "I've never known a girl who has so many men friends.? Girls normally have girlfriends."? She was right.? I knew many girls who married the first man who came near them.? From my own men friends, the only demonstrations of interest I got were some rather sentimental poems and restrained letters one of which, admittedly, was written in blood from the goalkeeper on the college football team.
因此我们只得坐在家里聊天了。我们坐得规规矩矩，就像维多利亚时代的英国人。在那些年月里，和男人交朋友是不寻常的事，一位女友一次对我说：“我从来不知道哪个女孩有你这么多男朋友。女孩子通常只有女朋友。”她说得对。我认识的许多女孩都和第一个接近她们的男人结了婚。我自己的男朋友呢？他们对我唯一的表白是伤感的诗和克制的信，当然其中有一封是血书，来自我们大学足球队的守门员。
My friends and I often talked about the West.? By then I had come to the conclusion that it was a wonderful place.
我和朋友们经常谈到西方。那时我想象西方一定是个美妙的地方。(此处删去一句)。
Paradoxically, the first people to put this idea into my head were Mao and his regime.? For years, the things to which I was naturally inclined had been condemned as evils of the West: pretty clothes, flowers, books, entertainment, politeness, gentleness, spontaneity, mercy, kindness, liberty, aversion to cruelty and violence, love instead of 'class hatred," respect for human lives, the desire to be left alone, professional competence .... As I sometimes wondered to myself, how could anyone not desire the West.}
许多年来，我天性倾心的东西统统被斥责为西方的罪恶：漂亮的衣服、花、书、娱乐、有礼貌、温文尔雅、自然无拘、怜悯、善良、自由、对残酷和暴力的憎限、爱而非“阶级仇恨”、对人的生命的尊重、希望独处、专业好……。有时我问自己：谁能不向往西方呢？
I was extremely curious about the alternatives to the kind of life I had been leading, and my friends and I exchanged rumors and scraps of information we dug from official publications.? I was struck less by the West's technological developments and high living standards than by the absence of political witch-hunts, the lack of consuming suspicion, the dignity of the individual, and the incredible amount of liberty. To me, the ultimate proof of freedom in the West was that there seemed to be so many people there attacking the West and praising China. Almost every other day the front page of Reference, the newspaper which carded foreign press items, would feature some eulogy of Mao and the Cultural Revolution.? At first I was angered by these, but they soon made me see how tolerant another society could be.? I realized that this was the kind of society I wanted to live in: where people were allowed to hold different, even outrageous views.? I began to see that it was the very tolerance of oppositions, of protesters, that kept the West progressing.
我非常好奇地想知道不同于我的生活的西方生活是什么样子，我和朋友们交换传闻和从官方出版物中挖出的只言片语。西方技术发达和高生活水准给我留下深刻的印象，但最使我感叹的是他们没有整人的政治运动，没有无时不在的猜疑，好像人人有尊严，更有难以置信的自由。对我来说，西方自由的最终证明是那儿居然有那么多人抨击西方、赞扬中国。几乎每隔一天，专门登载外国新闻的《参考消息》的头版就有一些对毛泽东和文革的颂扬。最初我对这些报导很生气，但是很快地，我从中看到那些国家是多么宽容，那里的人们可以有不同意见，甚至是极端“错误”的意见！我心想这正是我想生活的社会！我开始认识到正是这种对反对派、异议者的容忍，才使西方不断进步。
Still, I could not help being irritated by some observations.? Once I read an article by a Westerner who came to China to see some old friends, university professors, who told him cheerfully how they had enjoyed being denounced and sent to the back end of beyond, and how much they had relished being reformed.? The author concluded that Mao had indeed made the Chinese into 'new people' who would regard what was misery to a Westerner as pleasure.
我还是情不自禁被一些言论所激怒。一个西方人到中国看老朋友，一些大学教授，回去后撰文说这些人高高兴兴地告诉他，他们是多么喜欢被批判、下乡劳动、是多么乐意被改造。作者的结论是：毛泽东使中国人变成了“新人”，这些“新人”把西方人认为的悲痛看成快乐。
I was aghast.? Did he not know that repression was at its worst when there was no complaint?? A hundred times more so when the victim actually presented a smiling face?? Could he not see to what a pathetic condition these professors had been reduced, and what horror must have been involved to degrade them so?? I did not realize that the acting that the Chinese were putting on was something to which Westerners were unaccustomed, and which they could not always decode.
我气得说不出话来。难道他真的不知道没有抱怨的时候，压制正是登峰造极吗？是什么样的高压才使人们挨了打还要叫好？难道他真看不出这些教授已被搞到何等可悲的地步？他们心里有多少恐惧？当时我没意识到，西方人少见中国人那样的违心的表演，不知道他们在被迫做戏。
I did not appreciate either that information about China was not easily available, or was largely misunderstood, in the West, and that people with no experience of a regime like China's could take its propaganda and rhetoric at face value.? As a result, I assumed that these eulogies were dishonest.? My friends and I would joke that they had been bought by our government's 'hospitality."? When foreigners were allowed into certain restricted places in China following Nixon's visit, wherever they went the authorities immediately cordoned off enclaves even within these enclaves.? The best transport facilities, shops, restaurants, guest houses and scenic spots were reserved for them, with signs reading "For Foreign Guests Only."? Mao-tai, the most sought-after liquor, was totally unavailable to ordinary Chinese, but freely available to foreigners.? The best food was saved for foreigners.? The newspapers proudly reported that Henry Kissinger had said his waistline had expanded as a result of the many twelve-course banquets he enjoyed during his visits to China.? This was at a time when in Sichuan, "Heaven's Granary," our meat ration was half a pound per month, and the streets of Chengdu were full of homeless peasants who had fled there from famine in the north, and were living as beggars.? There was great resentment among the population about how the foreigners were treated like lords.? My friends and I began saying among ourselves: "Why do we attack the Kuomintang for allowing signs saying "No Chinese or Dogs" aren't we doing the same.'
我也不知道西方人不容易得到中国的信息，得到的大部分又被误解了，人们不了解文革，相信了它的宣传和高调。结果，我认定那些颂扬文革的西方人是不诚实的。朋友们和我开玩笑说他们是被我们政府的“盛情款待”收买了。尼克松访华后，当外国人获准进入中国某些指定地区时，无论他们走到哪里，那里就马上出现一块中国人不得接近的禁地。最好的交通设施、商店、餐馆、宾馆和风景点都为外国人保留，挂上“仅供外宾”的牌子。中国人最喜爱的茅台酒，普通中国人完全买不到，外国人却可以随意喝。最好的食物都留给外国人享用。报纸上自豪地报导基辛格说他访问中国后，腰线变粗了，因为享用了多次十二道菜的宴会。而正是这段时间，在四川“天府之国”，我们的肉食供应是每月半磅，成都街上是从北方逃荒来的无家可归的农民，靠讨饭过日子。老百姓普遍对把外国人当王公贵族款待十分怨恨。朋友们和我私下常说：“为什么要骂国民党挂‘华人与狗不许入内’的牌子？——我们不是在做同样的事吗？”
Getting hold of information became an obsession.? I benefited enormously from my ability to read English, as although the university library had been looted during the Cultural Revolution, most of the books it had lost had been in Chinese.? Its extensive English-language collection had been turned upside down, but was still largely intact.
在那些年月里，我全身心地渴望外界信息，千方百计、削尖了头脑地找寻。懂英文给我很大便利。尽管大学图书馆在文革中被查抄，损失的多是中文书。英文藏书被翻了个底朝天，但大部分保留了下来。
The librarians were delighted that these books were being read, especially by a student, and were extremely helpful.? The index system had been thrown into chaos, and they dug through piles of books to find the ones I wanted.? It was through the efforts of these kind young men and women that I laid my hands on some English classics.
图书管理员很高兴有人来借阅这些书，特别是一个学生来借，他们非常热心地帮我找。因为目录系统乱七八糟，他们得从一堆堆的书中翻找出我想要的。正是通过这些善良的年轻男女的大力帮助，我才看了一些英文古典书。
Louisa May Alcott's Little Women was the first novel I read in English. I found women writers like her, Jane Austen, and the Bronte sisters much easier to read than male authors like Dickens, and I also felt more empathy with their characters.? I read a brief history of European and American literature, and was enormously impressed by the Greek tradition of democracy, Renaissance humanism, and the Enlightenment's questioning of everything.? When I read in Gulliver's Travels about the emperor who 'published an Edict, commanding all his Subjects, upon great Penalties, to break the smaller End of their Eggs," I wondered if Swift had been to China.? My joy at the sensation of my mind opening up and expanding was beyond description.
奥尔科特(Louisa May Alcott)的《小妇人》是我读的第一本英文小说。我发现阅读像她及奥斯汀和布朗特姐妹这样的女作家作品比狄更斯等男作家要容易得多，描述的人物也更能引起我的共鸣。我读了一本欧美文学简史，对希腊的民主传统、文艺复兴的人文主义、启蒙运动的怀疑主义大为倾倒。当我在《格列佛游记》中读到皇帝发布一道文告，命令他所有的臣民必须从小的一端打鸡蛋、违者处以重罚时，我想斯维夫特(Swift)到过中国吧？眼界大展，茅塞顿开的惊喜是难以描绘的。
Being alone in the library was heaven for me.? My heart would leap as I approached it, usually at dusk, anticipating the pleasure of solitude with my books, the outside world ceasing to exist.? As I hurried up the flight of stairs, into the pastiche classical-style building, the smell of old books long stored in airless rooms would give me tremors of excitement, and I would hate the stairs for being too long.
一人呆在图书馆对我来说是进了天堂。黄昏时分，走近它时，我的心总是激动地跳跃，期待着独自和书本呆在一起，任外部世界消失的乐趣。当我急急忙忙跑上楼梯进入这幢中国古典式建筑时，长久埋藏在不通气的房间里的旧书味使我兴奋地发抖，我憎恨楼梯太长。
With the help of dictionaries which some professors lent me, I became acquainted with Longfellow, Wait Whitman, and American history.? I memorized the whole of the Declaration of Independence, and my heart swelled at the words "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal," and those about men's 'unalienable Rights," among them "Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."? These concepts were unheard of in China, and opened up a marvelous new world for me.? My notebooks, which I kept with me at all times, were full of passages like these, passionately and tearfully copied out.
借助于一些教授借给我的字典，我开始读朗费罗、惠特曼以及美国历史，《独立宣言》我从头到尾背了下来。当我读到“我们认为这些真理是不言而喻的，即所有人都生来平等”，人的“不可剥夺的权利”包括“自由与追求幸福的权利”时，我的心为泪水所鼓胀。这些观念在中国是闻所未闻，为我打开了一个美妙无比的新天地。我随身总带着的笔记本上写满了这样的段落，都是我含着眼泪一字字抄下来的。
One autumn day in 1974, with an air of extreme secrecy, a friend of mine showed me a copy of Newsweek with pictures of Mao and Mme Mao in it.? She could not read English, and was keen to know what the article said.? This was the first genuine foreign magazine I had ever set eyes on.? One sentence in the article struck me like a flash of lightning. It said that Mme Mao was Mao's 'eyes, ears, and voice."? Up till that moment, I had never allowed myself to contemplate the obvious connection between Mme Mao's deeds and her husband.? But now Mao's name was spelled out for me.? My blurred perceptions surrounding his image came sharply into focus.? It was Mao who had been behind the destruction and suffering.? Without him, Mme Mao and her second-rate coterie could not have lasted a single day.? I experienced the thrill of challenging Mao openly in my mind for the first time.
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