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Epilogue

跋

I have made London my home. For ten years, I avoided thinking about the China I had left behind. Then in 1988, my mother came to England to visit me. For the first time, she told me the story of her life and that of my grandmother. When she returned to Chengdu, I sat down and let my own memory surge out and the unshed tears flood my mind. I decided to write Wild Swans. The past was no longer too painful to recall because I had found love and fulfillment and therefore tranquillity.

伦敦成了我的家。十年的时间里，我不愿想起往事。1988年，母亲到英国来看我。她生平第一次给我讲她和姥姥一生的遭遇。她回成都后，回忆如洪水涌出，多年未流的眼泪淹没了我的心。我决定写《鸿》。往事已不再痛苦得不堪回首。我已找到了爱和充实，心境已然平和。

China has become an altogether different place since I left. At the end of 1978, the Communist Party dumped Mao's 'class struggle." Social outcasts, including the 'class enemies' in my book, were rehabilitated; among them were my mother's friends from Manchuria who had been branded Counter revolutionaries in 1955. Official discrimination against them and their families stopped. They were able to leave their hard physical labor, and were given much better jobs. Many were invited into the Communist Party and made officials. Yu-lin, my great-uncle, and his wife and children were allowed back to Jinzhou from the countryside in 1980. He became the chief accountant in a medicine company, and she the headmistress of a kindergarten.

我走后，中国发生了翻天覆地的变化。1978年底，共产党摒弃了毛泽东的“阶级斗争”，挨整的人们(包括我书中的“阶级敌人”)平了反。这些人中有母亲在东北的朋友，他们在1955年被打为“反革命”。现在他们和家庭不再受歧视，他们不再做繁重的体力劳动，分配了较好的工作。许多人被邀请参加了共产党，当了官。我的舅姥爷玉林和他的妻儿都于1980年从农村回到了锦州。他当上了一家中药厂的会计科长，妻子做了幼儿园园长。

Verdicts clearing the victims were drawn up and lodged in their files. The old incriminating records were taken out and burned. In every organization across China, bonfires were lit to consume these flimsy pieces of paper that had ruined countless lives.

被整的人恢复了名誉，重新做了结论，放入他们的档案。整人的旧结论被取出烧毁。火焰在中国大陆每一个单位燃起，吞蚀了一张张薄薄不起眼，但却毁掉过无数生命的纸。

My mother's file was thick with suspicion about her teenage connections with the Kuomintang. Now all the damning words went up in flames. In their place was a two-page verdict dated 20 December 1978, which said in unambiguous terms that the accusations against her were false. As a bonus, it redefined her family background: rather than the undesirable 'warlord," it now became the more innocuous 'doctor."

母亲的档案很厚，满是对她在青年时代和国民党关系的猜疑。现在所有这些坑人的话化为灰烬。取而代之的是两面结论，作于1978年12月20日。结论明确地说对她的怀疑都是错的。她的家庭成份也从可怕的“军阀”换成了无害的“医生”。

In 1982, when I decided to stay in Britain, it was still a very unsuitable choice. Thinking it might cause dilemmas in her job, my mother applied for early retirement, and was granted it, in 1983. But a daughter living in the West did not bring her trouble, as would certainly have been the case under Mao.

1982年，我决定留居英国，这在当时是个不寻常的选择。母亲认为这可能会给她带来工作上的不便，就申请提前退休。1983年，她的要求获准了，有女儿住在海外并没有给她带来麻烦，要是在以前，这可是不得了的罪。

The door of China has been opening wider and wider.

My three brothers are all in the West now. Jin-ming, who is an internationally recognized scientist in a branch of solid-state physics, is carrying out research at Southampton University in England. Xiao-her, who became a journalist after leaving the air force, works in London. Both of them are married, with a child each. Xiao-fang obtained a master's degree in international trade from Strasbourg University in France, and is now a businessman with a French company.

中国的门越开越大。我的三个弟弟如今都在西方。京明在英国搞他的科学研究。小黑从空军退伍后当记者，现在在伦敦。他俩都结了婚，各有一子。小方在法国斯特拉斯堡大学拿到国际贸易硕士学位后，如今在一家法国公司从商。

My sister, Xiao-hong, is the only one of us still in China.

我姐姐小鸿是我们几个兄弟姊妹中唯一留在中国的。

She works in the administration of the Chengdu College of Chinese Medicine. When a private sector was first allowed in the 1980s, she took a two-year leave of absence to help set up a clothes design company, which was something she had set her heart on. When her leave was up, she had to choose between the excitement and risk of private business and the routine and security of her state post. She chose the latter. Her husband, Specs, is an executive in a local bank.

她在成都中医学院做行政工作。八十年代允许私营企业时，她按政策许可离开医院两年去协助兴办一家服装设计公司，这是她一心向往的职业。两年到期后，她得选择要私营企业的兴奋和冒险呢，还是要国家机构的按部就班和铁饭碗。她选择了后者，她丈夫“眼镜”在银行做管理工作。

Communication with the outside world has become part of everyday life. A letter gets from Chengdu to London in a week. My mother can send me faxes from a downtown post office. I phone her at home, direct dial, from wherever I am in the world. There is filtered foreign media news on television every day, side by side with official propaganda.

与外部世界的联系已成为日常生活的一部分。从成都到伦敦，一封信只要一星期，母亲可以从街上邮局发传真给我。无论我在世界何地，都可以直拨电话回家给母亲。电视上天天有经过筛选的外电新闻，跟官方宣传摩肩接踵。

Major world events, including the revolutions and upheavals in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, are reported.

主要世界大事，包括东欧和苏联的革命与动乱，都报道了。

Between 1983 and 1989, I went back to visit my mother every year, and each time I was overwhelmed by the dramatic diminution of the one thing that had most characterized life under Mao: fear.

1983至1989年，我每年回去探望母亲。每次我都不胜惊喜地发现：毛泽东治下生活的主要特征——恐惧——已在戏剧性地慢慢消失(此处删去六行)。

In spring 1989 I traveled around China researching this book. I saw the buildup of demonstrations from Chengdu to Tiananmen Square. It struck me that fear had been forgotten to such an extent that few of the millions of demonstrators perceived danger. Most seemed to be taken by surprise when the army opened fire. Back in London, I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw the killing on television. Was it really ordered by the same man who had been to me and to so many others a liberator?

Fear made a tentative comeback, but without the all pervasive and crushing force of the Maoist days. In political meetings today, people openly criticize Party leaders by name. The course of liberalization is irreversible. Yet Mao's face still stares down on Tiananmen Square.

它已没有毛泽东时代那种无处不在、摧毁一切的强大力量。今天的政治会议上，人们可以公开指名议论党领导人。(此处删去一句)。可是毛的脸还俯视着天安门广场。

The economic reforms of the 1980s brought an unprecedented rise in the standard of living, partly thanks to foreign trade and investment Everywhere in China officials and citizens greet businessmen from abroad with overflowing eagerness. In 1988, on a trip to Jinzhou, my mother was staying at Yu-lin's small, dark, primitive apartment, which was next to a rubbish dump. Across the street stands the best hotel in Jinzhou, where lavish feasts are laid on every day for potential investors from overseas.

八十年代的经济改革使中国人的生话水准有了前所未有的提高。因为一部分功劳归于外国贸易与投资，全国各地官员和平民都争先恐后地欢迎海外商人。1988年，母亲回锦州，住在玉林家。那是套狭小、简陋的公寓房子，旁边有个垃圾堆。街对面耸立着锦州最高级的宾馆，那里每天都大张宴席款待海外投资者。

One day, my mother spotted one such visitor coming out of a banquet, surrounded by a flattering crowd to whom he was showing off photographs of his luxury house and cars in Taiwan. It was Yao-han, the Kuomintang political supervisor at her school who, forty years earlier, had been responsible for her arrest.

一天，我母亲看到一个人走出宴会厅，被恭维的人群簇拥着，他正给人们看他在台湾的豪华住宅和汽车的照片。这人是母亲念中学时的政治主任。四十年前，就是他把母亲送进国民党监狱的。

May 1991

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