ZT-------和美国男人约会....(中英文对照）

Awa

DATING AMERICAN MEN... （part one）
　　和美国男人约会…
　　
　　 I started dating American men a few months ago.
　　 几个月前，我开始和美国男人约会。

　　 The dating game... I was definitely out of practice. I had married my college sweetheart in my 20s, and stayed in my marriage, as a typical Chinese woman would do. A 15-year stay, until one day my husband declared that he had a new love, a much younger woman of course.
　　 约会这件事，我可是真是完全生疏了。二十多岁的时候，我就和大学里的恋人结了婚，之后就跟典型的中国妇女一样留在婚姻里面，一留就是十五年。直到一天，丈夫说他又爱上别人了。当然，那是个年轻得多的女人。

　　 Outraged and heartbroken, I left my old life behind and started over – new place, new job, and, after a couple of years, searching for my own new love. After my divorce, I swore that I would never ever look at another Chinese guy again, for they had such a recent memory of taking concubines. Yes, concubines, women who massage the egos of men, and who stand as trophies of male successes. Moreover, Chinese men would consider my doctorate from Harvard most threatening – men with small ... – well, many American feminists would comment loudly and clearly. Not me. I still preferred somehow to remain a Chinese lady.
　　 既愤怒又伤心，我抛下了原来的整个生活重新开始——到了新的地方，有了新的工作，过了两年后，也开始寻找新的爱情。离婚后，我发誓再也不找中国男人，因为纳妾这件事情，对于他们仍然记忆犹新。没错，妾，就是那些让男人自我膨胀、用来标志他们的成功的女人。而且，中国男人会觉得我的哈佛博士学位是个威胁。小男人……算了，美国的女权主义者大声说的那些话还是不说的好。我其实想保持做个中国女人。

　　 But I wanted to date American men.
　　 但是我还是希望和美国男人约会。

　　I have to confess that even when I was married, I fantasized about dating American men. My ex-husband was a good and caring companion, but, like a typical Chinese man, he was also short of expression with regard to love. He would never say “I love you” to me, nor did he ever touch me in public. I always wondered how it would feel to be loved in the way American men love their girl friends or wives – zealous expression, sweet kissing, and open affection. Let's face it: we all want passion. We all want to become crazy about someone, and to show the entire world the joy of our ecstasy.
　　老实坦白说，哪怕是在结着婚的时候，我也闪过和美国男人约会的念头。我的前夫倒是个很不错的伴侣，但是和典型的中国男人一样，他总是不怎么会表达爱情。他绝不会对我说句“我爱你”，也绝不会当着人的面碰我一下。我总想，如果有人像美国男人爱他们的妻子或女友那样爱我——热情的表达，甜蜜的亲吻，公开的爱恋——会是一种什么样的感觉。事实是，我们都希望有激情，我们都希望疯狂地去爱一个人，并且向世界显示我们多么地享受这热恋。

　　With great curiosity and expectation, I started my dating life among the social circles of professionals in the Washington DC area.
　　怀着好奇心和期待，我开始和华盛顿的社交和专业人士圈子中的人约会。

　　My first discovery greatly reduced the level of my curiosity. Although I came from a very different cultural background, it seemed to me that the procedure of dating was not that much variant – you went out to meet a man, usually got bored in the first ten or twenty minutes, and left without further contact. Occasionally you could make a friend, but it was only when you were exceptionally lucky, or exceptionally unlucky, depending on your perspective, that you would meet some one who could spark the fire inside you, which burnt like hell.
　　我的好奇心很快就降低了。虽然我来自完全不同的文化背景，但是约会的程序看上去却并没有多少区别——到外面去见人，往往是头十分二十分钟就觉得无趣，没留下任何联络信息就告别了。某些时候能够交个朋友，可只有在非常幸运——或者非常不幸运，就看你从哪个角度说了——的时候你才会与一个人擦出火花，之后就像炼狱一般燃烧起来。

　　Love and chemistry between men and women work the same way in any culture, after all.
　　爱情及其男女间的化学反应原来在所有文化中都是一样的。

　　The cultural shock came from the aftermath of love.
　　文化的差异在于爱情之后的表现。

　　However educated and westernized I have become superficially, in essence I am a rather simple Chinese girl. I always felt very comfortable playing the role of a traditional wife – cooking, house keeping, assisting my husband in his business, caring for him and his family, and standing by him whenever he needed me. That is the way I had been brought up. Perhaps it is somewhat exceptional in my case, since I have a full and successful career of my own. Yet, I never let my professional life interfere with my private life. Therefore, falling in love to me is a rather simple and straightforward matter: a man and a woman like each other or even fall in love, become boy friend and girl friend, and if things work out after a certain period, they get married and stay together for the rest of their lives.
　　不管从表面上看我受的教育程度和西方化的程度有多高，本质上我是个简单的中国女性。我从来都觉得当传统式的妻子挺自在——做个饭，收拾个房子，帮着丈夫干点活，照顾他和他的家人，在他需要我的时候站在他背后。我就是这么长大的。和别人不太一样的地方，大概就是我自己有个成功的事业。不过，我从来没有让职业生活打搅我的个人生活。因此，恋爱就我来看是件简单的事：一男一女相互喜欢甚至堕入爱河，成为男女朋友，如果过了一段时间事情进展顺利，那就结婚过一辈子。

　　Isn't this also supposed to be the American way? Listen to the wedding vow: for health or for sickness, for richer or for poorer... until death...
　　美国人难道不也是这样的吗？结婚誓言中就是这么说的：无论健康还是疾病，无论富裕还是贫困，直到死亡才将我们分开……

　　I soon learned not to be fooled by the words. With all the joy and the pain that I have so far experienced in this dating game, I have made a few crucial discoveries. Such discoveries help me to better understand American culture, and my own heritage as well.
　　很快我就不再让语言迷惑了。经过一段时间约会的经历，感受过了其中所有的喜悦和痛苦，我有了几个重要的发现。这些发现帮助我进一步了解美国文化，甚至也帮助我看清楚自己原来的传统。

　　My most important discovery is that American men generally have very different expectations about love and marriage from mine. For instance, American men love to talk about “romance.” Once I asked a gentleman to describe “romance” to me, since I had no visual imagination of what he was talking about. “Candlelight dinners,” he said. “They can be so romantic.”
　　我最重要的发现，是美国人对爱情和婚姻有着和我非常不一样的期待。比如，美国男人总是提到“浪漫”这个字。一次，我请一位男士对我解释什么是他说的浪漫，因为我脑子里没有这样一幅图景。“烛光晚餐,”他说，“那是多么浪漫啊。”

　　I could not help but bursting into laughter.
　　我忍不住大笑了起来。

　　Having grown up in a communist state, “romance” to me always implied extreme hardship. The best romance, from my perspective, would be a couple fighting a war for justice together, going to prison for resisting the dictatorship together, or even bravely facing torture and death together.
　　在一个共产党国家里长大，“浪漫”对于我来说意味着艰难困苦。在我看来，最浪漫的就是两人携手为正义而战，一起抵抗专制制度，甚至一起勇敢地面对酷刑和死亡。

　　In fact, decades ago in my late teens I did spend a year in prison with my boy friend, who was the first man I ever loved. We participated in the protest movement together in the 70s. Once we half-heartedly joked about a possible future – fighting a war for freedom. "I can be the commander-in-chief in the army," he said, "and you can be the commissar."
　　事实上，许多年以前，我爱上的第一个人曾经和我在一个案子中被抓起来过，我被关了将近一年。那是在七十年代的抗议运动中。一次，我们谈起将来为自由而战，他半开玩笑地说：“我当司令，你可以当政委。”

　　"I don't want to be a god-damn commissar!" I screamed. "I want to be the commander-in-chief!"
　　“我才不要当什么狗屁政委呢！”我嚷嚷道，“我要当那个司令！”

　　I was ready to die for him, and for the cause, too. That was the best romance in my life.
　　那个时候，我是可以为他，也为一个目标而去死的。那是我生命中最浪漫的时刻。

　　If that option is not available, the traditional ideal of romance in Chinese society, which lives on in numerous masterpieces of literature, often includes poverty, repression, forced separations, and other kinds of physical and psychological hardships. Hardship tests true love, and elevates a sexual love into a spiritual unification. And what about candlelight dinners? How can such a temporary and material occurrence be a part of romance?
　　如果没有那种机会，中国社会里面传统的浪漫理想通常都包括了贫困、压迫、被迫分离等等各种物质与心理的艰难，这在无数的传统文学作品中都可以找到。艰难困苦考验爱情，将两性的吸引提升为精神的结合。烛光晚餐？那是什么东西？这种暂时的和物质的享受怎么能够叫做浪漫呢？

[ 本帖最后由 Awa 于 2007-6-12 14:52 编辑 ]

Awa

DATING AMERICAN MEN... (part two)
　　和美国男人约会…
　　
　　The more I learned about American men, the more I understood the significance of this difference in the two notions of romance.
　　对美国人了解得越多，我就越能发现对浪漫的不同理解的重要性。

　　Americans usually are looking for a good time in their love affairs. They expect fun, lust, and happiness. When a man and a woman court, they have fun, they have lust, and at the peak of such fun and lust, they marry – the expectation of permanent happiness. Happiness – Americans have taken it as a norm for at least a century. It is the universal promise of marriage. And when the fun and lust fade away, when there is no happiness, and the daily grind takes over, the marriage is in jeopardy. Unfulfilled promises of eternal happiness generate a high divorce rate.
　　美国人在恋爱中寻找的是美好时光。他们期待快乐、性、幸福。当男人和女人开始约会的时候，他们很快乐，相互之间吸引，快乐和吸引到了一个高度，他们就结婚了——期待着永恒的幸福。美国人将幸福作为生活的一部分已经有至少一个世纪的历史。幸福是婚姻的承诺。当快乐和吸引逐渐减低的时候，当幸福无法实现的时候，当每日的琐事充斥着生活的时候，婚姻就开始出麻烦。幸福承诺的无法兑现导致了高离婚率。

　　The Chinese – at least my generation and the earlier generations – have completely different priorities for love. Love, or marriage, is a preparation for hard times. Because of the poverty, famines, wars, and political turmoil in China over the past century, hardship, rather than happiness, has been the only sure promise of life. Only those who experience real hardship know what a difference the presence of a caring person makes. Therefore, in a Chinese setting, when a man and a woman fall in love, they start to prepare for hardship together, and for each other, like two birds nesting a home. The union of two souls in matrimony is the only safe haven in the blizzard of life.
　　中国人——至少是我这一代以及更早的多少代人——对爱情有非常不一样的要求。爱情，或者婚姻，是对未来艰苦生活的准备。由于中国在一个世纪中的贫困、饥荒、战争、政治动乱，艰难而不是幸福是生活中唯一可以预期的前途。只有那些经历过真正艰难困苦人知道，有个关心你的人会是多么重要。因此，在中国的背景下，当男人和女人堕入爱河的时候，他们开始共同准备应付未来的艰辛。如同两只一起筑巢的鸟一样，他们准备好了相互照应。两个灵魂的厮守是生命的暴风雨中唯一的避风港。

　　Oh, yes, we Chinese also seek happiness, just as many Americans also prepare for hardship. However, the differences in priorities are revealed in different attitudes toward courtship and marriage.
　　不错，我们中国人也在寻找幸福，正如许多美国人也在准备应付艰辛一样。但是，对生活侧重点的不同解释了人们对恋爱和婚姻态度的不同。

　　The man whom I date often brings me roses, and takes me to nice restaurants, concerts, dances, and museums. He (whoever he is) tells me jokes, and makes small talk, but he never asks if I feel sick even when I clearly have a tired or pale face. When I am really sick, he politely says he is sorry but he stays away, leaving me there alone to deal with the hardship – being with me is no longer fun.
　　和我约会的人通常会给我带来玫瑰花，请我到漂亮的餐馆吃饭，去音乐会和舞会，去参观博物馆。他（无论他是谁）给我说笑话，和我聊天，但是如果我脸色疲倦而苍白，他却从来不问我是否生了病。如果我真的生了病，他总是很有礼貌地告诉我他很难过，但却躲得远远的，让我独自面对困难。那时和我在一起不那么好玩了。

　　When I care about a man, I may constantly ask him if he feels all right – if he needs food to eat, clothes to wear, or medicine to take. I may propose cooking at home instead of going to a romantic restaurant dinner, thinking of saving money. I may buy food for him instead of roses. It is my way of courtship – the only way a woman coming from scarcity and hardship has learned. But this can be quite annoying to an American man.
　　如果我对一个人有意的话，我就会不断地问他是否需要吃的、喝的、穿的、或者药品。我会提议在家里做饭而不倒餐馆去吃个浪漫晚餐，脑子里想的是给人家省钱。我会给他买吃的而不是玫瑰花。这是我谈恋爱的方式——一个来自短缺社会和艰难环境的女人从小学会的方式。可惜，这样做经常会让美国男人感到不舒服。

　　Such behavioral differences are highly symbolic: searching for a good time and preparation for a bad time.
　　这种行为方式上的差别具有象征性：寻找好时光与准备艰难日子。

　　But such differences also profoundly affect our attitudes toward marriage.
　　这中间的距离导致两边对婚姻态度的差别。

　　While many American marriages break up in bad times, many Chinese marriages end during the good times – such as dramatic increases of wealth and improved social status. Chinese couples are not prepared for such positive changes. The wife, particularly, who has been programmed her entire life to stand by her husband in times of hardship, has no idea about how to adjust, and how to enjoy a good time. The husband, either out of frustration or a sudden inflation of his ego, often turns to a traditional type of trophy –a younger or more submissive woman.
　　许多美国人的婚姻是在困难的日子里打碎的，而许多中国人的婚姻却是在好时光中完结的——比如财富与社会地位的突然上升。中国的夫妻们对这样的变化总是没做好准备。当妻子的一辈子都在想如何在艰难时候支持丈夫，却不知道如何调整，如何享受好时光。当丈夫的，或者是失望或者是突然间个人自我感觉膨胀，通常就会转向传统对男人的奖励——年轻与顺从的女人。

　　Marriages do break up, in every culture, for different or similar reasons. But whatever the reason, when the promise of marriage is broken, so are human hearts.
　　婚姻破裂起因异同，却无论哪个文化中都存在。不管起因是什么，当婚姻的承诺被打破的时候，人们的心也会碎裂。

　　More and more Americans are staying single because they know that the good times will end, sooner or later.
　　越来越多的美国人选择单身，因为他们知道好时光迟早总要结束。

　　Chinese, on the other hand, are constantly looking for marriage because they understand that the bad times will come, sooner or later.
　　中国人却总在寻求婚姻，因为他们知道艰难困苦迟早总要到来。

　　And what about me?
　　那我该什么办呢？

　　I am still searching for that perfect love. Not a perfect man, but a perfect love. No man is perfect, not even perfect only for me. People in love have the will power to make themselves perfect for each other. I hope in my next love affair, I will be able to bridge the two cultures. I hope that I will be able to create and share a great time with someone I love. Meanwhile, I should also prepare for the bad times, either alone or with someone beside me. I should prepare for both the good times and the bad times.
　　我依旧在寻找那个完美的爱情。不是完美的人，而是完美的爱情。世界上没有完美的人，哪怕仅仅只对于我这个人来说是完美。恋爱中的人有那种相互为对方将自己变得完美的意志与决心。我希望在未来的爱情中，我能够沟通这两种文化。我希望能够与相爱的人一同享受美好的时光。同时，一个人也好，和别人在一起也好，我也要也去准备艰难时世的到来。我要为好坏都做好准备。

　　Yes, I will keep searching for that perfect love. After all, when two people love each other, one share of a good time will become two, and one share of a bad time will be reduced to half.
　　不错，我将一直去寻找那个完美的爱情。说到底，当两个人相爱的时候，一份好时光就变成了两份；而当他们分担艰难的时候，这艰难也就减去了一半。

　　In the future, however, I will no longer exclude my own countrymen from my dating circles. At least they stay during the hard times.
　　无论如何，在未来我再不会将中国人排除在外了。至少，他们在艰难的时候是会留下来的。

[ 本帖最后由 Awa 于 2007-6-12 14:53 编辑 ]

Awa

END...................................................

fcb

看得眼花花

分分行

Awa

原帖由 fcb 于 2007-6-12 14:50 发表
看得眼花花

分分行

Yes, sir.............................$郁闷$

whitetea

$支持$ $支持$
喜欢这篇文章，
英文写的也很漂亮。中文是awa楼主自己翻译的嘛？

fcb

$NO$ 不明白原帖主为嘛要玩双文麻花$NO$

whitetea

原帖由 fcb 于 2007-6-12 14:50 发表
看得眼花花

分分行

可不可以要求不要那么高呀。$害羞$

whitetea

原帖由 fcb 于 2007-6-12 14:54 发表
$NO$ 不明白原帖主为嘛要玩双文麻花$NO$

这样即可以看文章内容本身，同时也可以提高英文水平。
一举两得，赞$送花$

Awa

原帖由 whitetea 于 2007-6-12 14:54 发表
$支持$ $支持$
喜欢这篇文章，
英文写的也很漂亮。中文是awa楼主自己翻译的嘛？

No.......................not me...........

Yes, I think it's helpful for english study if in two language........