瀟灑人生路
人的一生最重要的是自由和隨之而來的責任。
我有個非洲來的同學很有意思。他讀過毛選五卷，還有個“紅寶書”。
起先，他看我趾高氣揚的，以為我是個日本人，沒理我。後來一起做項目，才知道我是中國人。我立馬成了他關於中國“十萬個為什麽”的專家了。
他對毛澤東的一生佩服的五體投地。對於他來說，毛澤東一農民的孩子成了全世界勞苦大眾的精神領袖，那就是耶穌再世，上帝下凡了。
有一次，這個非洲同學問我，中國的奴隸製度是什麽樣的。黑人在中國會是什麽樣？
這個其實問題太大，太難回答。
我因為出國前工作性質的原因，受過這方麵的訓練，說大道理那是琅琅上口。就跟他說些中國過去是多麽黑暗，現在新中國了，我們中國人同黑人是同誌加兄弟，如此雲雲。
他信以為真，說既然如此，將來我一定要給他介紹一個中國MM。
我先是一愣，又不好拒絕，就跟他說，毛主席說了，要知道梨子的滋味，就要親口嚐一嚐。言下之意，您還是自己找吧，我這還有事兒，忙著呐。
“WHERE CAN I FIND A CHINESE WOMEN？” 他覺得有道理，還認真上了。
“CHINA TOWN。“ 我說。
他還真去了。
後來聽他說，去了CHINA TOWN， 發現老中們都不愛搭理他。
我知道會是這個結果，就跟他說，也許在美國的華人都白人化了, 真正了解中國和中國人，要到中國去一次才行。
他聽了覺得有道理，決定去中國一次。
到了中國，他發EMAIL給我，說中國實在太大，太複雜了。他說中國比他想象的更西方化，而不是他心中第三世界人民的聖地。
我說，你太古董了，毛澤東早死了，他代表的哪個時代早結束了。時代在前進，社會在發展，人民在變化了。你沒有經曆毛澤東的時代，不知道什麽是精神折磨和物質貧乏，你隻是看他的書，崇拜他的人，覺得他是你的神。你所追求的那些都是空的。同第三世界國家的結合，對於今天的中國來說，經濟利益大慨要多於政治利益吧。
他說，難到中國要變成象美國這樣的霸權主義和資本主義的國家嗎？那第三世界的人民什麽時候才能翻身，中國隻管自己富起來，不要窮兄弟了嗎。
我說你這問題太大，你還是找找看，有沒有自己喜歡的中國MM吧。
他說，中國人都不喜歡黑人，我看他們的眼神和對我說話的態度就知道了，中國的女孩子不喜歡黑人。我在美國沒有經曆的歧視，在中國到經曆了。
我說，你太敏感了，沒人知道你是誰，有什麽理想，對毛澤東如何崇拜，如何熱愛中國。中國人民是好客的，了解到你以後，會喜歡你的。
他不同意，說，其實從陌生人對陌生人之間的關係，才能顯示出一個民族的素質。沒想到中國人這麽不喜歡黑人。
我真是無言以對。在美國，黑人沒少搶劫中餐館和打華人的劫。美國的黑人對亞裔也沒少歧視。反過頭來老說別人歧視他們的還是黑人。不過，美國的黑人也是有差別的，美國的黑人同非洲的黑人是有很多區別的。我有幾個美國的黑人朋友，也認識的很多非洲來的黑人。我很想知道他們，特別是非洲黑人對中國和中國人的看法，就記錄下我這個非洲同學的看法。
無獨有偶，有個朋友推薦了一篇一個據說是黑人寫的自己在中國的經曆。我把它轉貼到這裏。
文章寫的非常好，其中對中國普通老百姓的描述可以說是入骨三分。最精彩的是對他自己複雜心裏的描述和同一個退伍軍人的對話。
用這位退伍軍人的話說，現在的國人，錢是多了，但缺乏為人的好素質，這點還不如非洲的黑人。中國老百姓對外麵的世界的了解，都是借助於官方的媒體，沒有比較，過於自信。作為一個熱愛中國學過中文美國人，作者所表達的思想和感受，值得我們好好讀一讀。
The loneliest man in China
In a nondescript rural restaurant, an expat is humbled by a local's worldly honesty.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Paolo Bacigalupi
The loneliest Chinese man I ever met lived halfway up the Three Gorges, in Sichuan Province.
We were both in a restaurant, looking out at the Yangtze. It was night. I was waiting for a boat to get me out of Wushan town, and out of the Gorges in general. When I had planned my trip, I had imagined how cool it would be to go up the Gorges slowly, taking river taxis between towns and savoring the scenery. Now, many towns later, I was sick of the idea and ready to get out of the countryside and on to Chengdu, a big city with good food, relaxed teahouses and a populace that had grown bored with foreigners and so left them alone.
I kept looking out into the darkness and watching the searchlights on the ships as they came up the river, sweeps of light on blackness, waiting for the one that would get me out of this place.
The woman who ran the restaurant kept telling me that the boat wouldn't come for a while and that I should fangxin, relax (literally, set down my heart); she would warn me when the boat was coming. I didn't see how she could tell one ship from the next any better than I could, and because I'd made the mistake of depending on others to take care of my problems before, I agreed with her that I could relax, and then kept on watching anyway.
The man sitting at the table next to mine had come in earlier and was fed by the woman without his asking or ordering. He had listened with some half interest when the woman's husband came into the restaurant, a little boy howling in tow, and shouted at me all the questions that his wife had asked before when she found out I could speak some Chinese: Where are you from? How old are you? How much money do you earn in America? Your Chinese is very good, he yelled.
Then came The Topics.
Everyone in China knows The Topics. The television stations and newspapers run the same state-generated stories all across the country, and the Chinese form their opinions based on these somewhat controlled sources. This time, the hot topics were how racist Americans were and what imperialist bastards we were for bombing Kosovo. It didn't matter whom I talked to, the conversation inevitably turned to those topics, and the opinions were always the same. It gave me a real respect for the power of state-run media.
The husband finished up the how-shitty-
The man at the next table offered me a cigarette. When I declined, he lit one for himself and put the pack away. He asked quietly, "What do you think of China?"
I thought about possible answers. I thought of the touts who had trailed me that day, trying to convince me to book into a hotel -- and when that failed, vying to sell me a boat ticket out. Their insistence and trailing tactics annoyed me enough that I finally threatened to lead them to the Public Security Bureau and let them do their pitch in front of the cops.
I thought of the confidence scam that had targeted me on a bus, and of the Chinese who had silently watched its progress. When the scam failed and the thieves got off, my fellow bus riders said that the thieves weren't local, but that they were afraid to warn me because they didn't know if the strangers carried knives.
I thought of the businessman, riding on my latest river taxi, who had vigorously pursued the Racist American and Kosovo Topics, getting red in the face and talking loudly and so fast that I only understood half of what he said, even though I could guess the rest from his expression. Undoubtedly, he would have been even angrier if we had met two weeks later, after we bombed his embassy. Then again, two weeks later, I would have lied and told him I was Canadian.
I thought about those experiences and another fistful like them and then said enthusiastically, "China's great!"
In the end, it's what I always say to Chinese people in China. It's what they want to hear: an affirmation of country and culture and a stroke for their nascent sense of superiority, which these days they're nursing into a full-blown complex. "China's great," I said again. "I'm so glad to have a chance to come back here and travel. See new scenery. The Three Gorges are great. Very beautiful."
I'm such a liar.
I'm not proud of it, but I'm a great liar when I travel. I smile and lie and things are smooth. Every once in a while I don't just lie to smooth the way, I lie for fun. Once, I told a taxi driver in Beijing that I'd been studying Chinese for a week. This, after having painfully studied the language for four years and lived and worked (and lied) in Beijing for another year. I think I even told him that Chinese was an easy language to learn. Perhaps most people wouldn't think that's funny, but it was the only time a Chinese person ever told me my Chinese was very good and really meant it.
My restaurant companion looked at me more closely and asked, "And what do you think of the Chinese people?"
Cold and heartless, but nice if you're in their clique of friends. "They're great, too," I said.
"Really?"
Well ... I hedged and said that there were good people and bad people everywhere, and China was no different, but still overall, I liked them. This was actually true, at least on my good days. Then, because I was bored and tired of having the same conversations over and over, I asked about his own opinion of the Chinese people.
He looked at me, and then he looked away. I waited. He wasn't a rich man. Not poor like the transient laborers pouring into China's cities, but also not one of the new rich stomping around China courtesy of the economic reforms. He was wearing green army pants, and a turtleneck, and a leather jacket. Looking at him made me think laobaixing, "old hundred names": China's average man, backbone of the nation.
He said, "I think that we Chinese are lacking in quality."
I managed to say, "Oh," and then sat there feeling like an asshole for lying through the earlier part of our conversation.
I finally got my voice back and asked why he would say such a thing.
He shrugged. "I used to drive trucks. For the army, over in Africa. We were over there building dams, projects like that for the Africans. Water and electricity projects, mostly. The Africans had black hair and black skin, very black skin, and they were poor."
He shook his head thoughtfully, "Qiong de hen." Really poor. "But they were very good to us. We Chinese couldn't compare to them. They were better people. We were richer, but they had more quality. Bi bu shang tamen." We can't beat them.
I've stood on buses in Beijing and watched Chinese people refuse to sit next to an African student no matter how crowded the bus got, and I've talked to people in Kunming who, after accusing me of being a racist American, cheerfully went on to explain how black people were the stupidest people on earth. Of all the foreign devils in China, blacks get the hardest treatment. And now I was sitting with a guy who looked like a peasant, dressed in green cotton army pants and wearing a dirty leather jacket, and who had just said that the Chinese couldn't compare with the Africans. I wondered what it cost a Chinese person to say that anyone, let alone a black African, was better than his own kind.
I finally said, "I've never heard anyone in China say that."
"They haven't gone out of the country," he said. "When you're always in your own country, you don't know what's out there. You can't compare. But after you go, you see clearly. Economically, we Chinese are doing OK. But as people, we lack quality. Nobody here sees it that way. But they haven't gone away. They don't know what it's like on the outside. They can't compare." He shook his head.
I didn't have any answer, but his experience reminded me of going home to America and trying to tell people what I had seen abroad. It made me sad. Sad for his experience, and sad that I had spent so much time blithely lying my way across China, always well-shielded from the Chinese, and now that I was leaving, I had finally found a Chinese person I wanted to know.
We sat together for a while longer while he smoked, and then my boat came, and I left.
Now that I'm back home in America and feel like an alien, I think about him. I think about him sitting in that one-room restaurant, watching the darkness and smoking, surrounded by his countrymen, and all alone.
話說回來，有些黑人，比白人好多了。我好多朋友深有同感哇。
其實，黑人文化有很多與中國文化相近的地方，難道不是嗎？
Glad you like it. Thanks.
謝謝你的評論，加油。: )
Thanks for visiting
07年8月26日 星期日 7:35:58
本周最受歡迎的博客
1. noso： 瀟灑人生路
2. 留日留學生：《我們的留學生
3. 遠方的河：【遠方的河】
48小時最受歡迎的前100名文章
1. 黑人在中國：看黑人兄弟對中國和中國人的看法 (圖) (57748 views)
說的好。謝謝。
魯迅是一代文學巨匠，是我們中華民族的真正偉人。他年少時想從戎就國，後來又東渡日本學醫，最後決定通過筆杆來救國。。。假想如果他能活到今天，他可能會更加的痛心疾首。
九十年後，中國發生了翻天覆地的變化，世界加工廠的命運和西方垃圾文化的入侵掃蕩了文革後僅殘留的一點中華文明，我們整個民族被“金錢”這個鴉片打敗了，腐敗滲透到社會的各個角落和層麵，道德水平的急劇墮落，笑貧不笑娼，高離婚率,高失業率（嚴重擴招大學生研究生畢業都找不到工作），連作為民族脊柱的大學獨立精神都被閹割。太多的麻木不仁，太多的見死不救，太多的傷天害理，太多的無法無天。
連我們賴以生存的這片土壤也受到了嚴重的破壞，所有的河流湖泊都發綠發黑白沫漂浮，母親河在哭泣啊。。。有毒不安全的食物隨時都有可能威脅你的生命,各種怪病都出現，癌症率很高，青少年和年輕人的體質急劇下降，如山的課本和考試逼得他們挺不起腰…
We need 一個新時代的魯迅，一個新時代的狂人!
Really well said.
1.人的基本人性都是一樣的，都有虛榮心，都怕死，都會明哲保身，都或多或少的喜歡拍馬屁和被拍，都或多或少的喜歡賺點小便宜。把孤立的普通人拿出來差別都不是太大。
2.中國很大，南方人和北方人的區別之大也許就跟中國人和美國人的區別大小差不多。然而一些細小的傳統和習慣差別在一個社會裏匯聚成了文化，這就大大的不同了。
3.中國的老百姓其實很善良，但善良的象豬。隻顧自己的利益，眼前多吃長膘，但後果是什麽卻不看到。看到同伴甚至自己被宰似乎沒什麽反應。很聰明，但沒什麽獨立思想，別人被趕著去屠宰場，自己也去了.
4.獨尊儒術幾千年的惡果。儒家統治的社會基本是一個世俗功利的社會，隻注重現世，卻不考慮來生，一個缺乏遠慮的標誌。
5.黑人被歧視並不是因為他們黑，隻是因為他們窮。
6.打倒孔家店!
這都哪兒跟哪兒呀?
Majority of the Chinese are simply kind and nice. We sure have long way to improve. A long long way. I can't agree with that lonely guy in green army pants more, that many of us need to come out and see the outside world. 井底之蛙是沒有智慧可談的.
不要這麽搞笑好不好，哈哈哈哈~~~~~~~
Photo by Beth Gwinn
windupstories.com - fiction by paolo bacigalupi
http://www.salon.com/travel/feature/1999/11/17/china/index1.html
"I am pretty sure that the author is a Chinese who is either Min-Yun-Fenzi or Fa-Lun-Gong. The style is reallty Chinese English"
How sure you can be? You are stupid and refuse to learn.
我用的詞是“據說”。能確定是同一個人嗎？謝謝。
Well said indeed.
轉文者應當稍做點調查，況且從文章內容來看也可以知道作者不是黑人。LLC更是胡言亂語，你的英語恐怕是最正宗的--Chinglish--吧？
很欣賞你這樣有深度的評論。謝謝。
但如果母語不是英語，為何不用母語寫？
http://mumpsimus.blogspot.com/2004/09/conversation-with-paolo-bacigalupi.html
另外在長城上, 來自中國各地的遊客, 沒有任何秩序的, 插隊亂擠, 男人女人, 沒有一點點應有的尊重和個人的尊嚴. 實在是可惡. 我不得不喝斥那些不管不顧擠別人小孩的男人們(幸虧他們個頭矮小一些, 我才鬥膽喊起來)
很多中國人(當然不是所有, 但是很多)的確是缺乏教養. 公認的事實. 應該改!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paolo_Bacigalupi
他懂中文.
http://www.salon.com/travel/feature/1999/11/17/china/index.html
應該是老外寫的，作者看來懂中文。