外孙的一篇英语课文

—08岁末上海行(3)

14岁、念初二的外孙课外就读于“上海乐宁英语补习学校”,据说老师是位美国老头，很善良敬业，他也很喜欢外孙，因为小家伙的英语学的不错,特别是口语较出众。我到上海不久，外孙就拿来一份复印的英语阅读材料让我给看一下，也就是本文下面打出来的这份课文。它是原封不动地照抄《致用美语教程》中Unit 2的内容Couples的一部份,实际上那是一篇用当代心理学、精神病学阐述的关于婚姻与爱情的论文。

看了这份材料，我有点傻眼了：不懂。现代生僻词汇太多，文章立意也相当艰深。我去找女儿问，她也说：“我这点儿水平，哪能看懂这么深奥的英语呀。”外孙补充说，连他们中学的英语老师看了也摇头。这就是现在小孩课外所学英语的梗概，大人都受不了，他们可咋办哪？他们一样得应付，还需进行课堂讨论哪！孩子们真是不容易呀，可造成此种生吞活剥现象的主因是什么，倒没有人多过问了。可能有些家长认为，多学总比少学强，更比不学强,学深了总比学浅了强。可照我这个倔老头看，这样的学法还真赶不上不学。为什么哪？……。

笔者不才，试着着手翻译一下上述这篇论文，结果也附于原文之后，费了不少劲，上网查了多次，连猜带蒙，牵强附会,错误肯定很多很严重，请网友、学者们不吝指正。实际上这比我的一项科研还难呢。

Why Couples Stay Together

①All the celerity couples are doing it—wearing identical outfits, Madonna and her husband Guy Ritchie, for example, were recently pictured in matching baggy pants and flip flops, and Ronan Keating and his wife Yvonne went to a party dressed in suits which were exactly the same color and style. Hollywood’s most enthusiastic wardrobe clones, however, are Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston, who already look like brother and sister! When out and about, they choose identical combats, sandals, jeans, black T—shirts and even the same color and style sunglasses.

②What is the massages behind the dress—alike phenomenon? Do couples who dress alike really believe that if they do everything together and in exactly the same way, their marriages will last longer, or even forever?  If so, they are going to have a terrible shock because, according to psychotherapists, the phenomenon is just a fad, and there is, at any rate, little hope for love which is based on dependence or a notion of perfect and permanent bliss.

③One of the first-and initially shocking-messages from modern psychiatry is that the concept of romantic love is a myth. Even the notion of falling in love is problematic, as it has more to do with physical attraction than with lasting love.

④In his book《The road less traveled》 the famous psychiatrist and spiritual guru M. Scott Peck maintains that confusing physical attraction with love will always lead to misery. You may succeed in marrying the object of your desire, but you will soon discover that what you thought was love was nothing more than an illusion. Romance always fades, says Peck. With effort and discipline, love might come later, but there is little connection between physical attraction and true love.

⑤True love is not dependency either. If people’s lives are ruled or dictated by a relationship to the extent that they cannot do any thing or go any where without their partners, they become depressed when faced with rejection or separation.

⑥True love finds a balance between togetherness and separateness. Great marriages are those where partners enjoy time together as well as time apart. Genuine love respects each partner’s individuality. Successful marriages and partnerships are also those where both partners adopt a healthy attitude to problems-all kinds of problems. They accept that they are inevitable and work together to resolve them. In this way, they avoid the terrible disillusionment that many couples experience when they discover that there are things about their partners which they do not like!

⑦Recent research has shown that some of the most successful marriages and partners are LATs, Live Apart Togethers. LATs are people who are married or have a serious relationship but, for a variety of reasons, do not live together permanently. They may work in different parts of the country, for example. Many LATs eventually move in together, having had time to experience and accept each other’s weakness, which makes a pleasant change from moving out because they have only just discovered them!

     译 文：        情侣们为何在一起

①所有的名人情侣都在做这样的事—穿同样的服装。比方说，麦当娜和她的丈夫力奇最近被拍到穿着相配的宽松的短裤和拖鞋，还有凯庭及其妻子范娜共同参加聚会时穿着完全同样颜色与风格的正装。还有，好来坞最热情的服装模特皮特与安妮丝看上去就像兄妹似的。他们做户外活动时，选择同样的多袋休闲裤、休闲凉鞋、牛仔裤、黑色T恤衫，甚至颜色和风格一样的太阳镜。

②那么，在这种穿着相似现象的背后，传递出一种什么样的信息呢？那些穿着相似的情侶们真的相信，如果他们做每件事都在一起，并且采取完全相同的方式去做，那么他们的婚姻或爱情就能持续久远？如果他们果真这样想,那么真实情况将会令他们“昏倒”，因为按照精神治疗医师的意见，这种着装趋同现象只不过是一种狂热的时尚而已，并且从任一方面来说，都不能用来支持那种认为基于附庸观念或长久而完美的福祉概念的爱情是永恒的说法。

③近代精神病学给出的第一个也最令人吃惊的信息是，罗曼蒂克式的爱情只不过是一种神话。甚至连坠入爱河这样的概念也是有问题的，因为后者更多地是基于肉体的相互吸引，而非持久的爱情。

④著名精神病学家、精神学权威思可特·皮克在其新著《很少有人走过的路》中坚持他的观点：把肉体上的相互吸引和爱情混为一谈永远将导至悲剧性的结局，即心灵或身体的痛苦。你可以成功地和你心仪的人结婚，但你很快发现，你所期望的爱情只不过是一种幻影。浪漫终将凋谢，皮克如此警告说。藉助努力及训练，爱情随后可能来到，但是在肉体的相互吸引与真正的爱情之间并无多少联系。

⑤真正的爱情也排除附庸性。如果人们的生活被某种关系加以控制，使其在没有他们的情侣一道参与的情况下，不得做任何事情，不准去任何地方，那在遭到情侣拒绝或与情侣分别时，他们将变得沮丧。

⑥真正的爱情能在一致性和分离性两者之间找到平衡。美好的婚姻应是这样的，每位配偶既享受相聚的幸福，又享受独处分开的快乐。真正的爱情尊重每个配偶的个性。在成功的婚姻及情侣关系中两人对各类问题都应该采取健康的姿态。他们应承认彼此都是不可或缺的，并共同努力来解决问题。这样子，双方才可避免可怕的失望，通常情侣们在结合后会发现他们的配偶身上存在他们所不喜欢的某些东西，从而经历这种失望。

⑦最近的研究表明，某些最成功的婚姻与情侣关系属于LAT式(“宾客婚姻”)，即Live Apart Together方式。此方式中，人们婚后，可能因存在严重的关系问题，或各种原因，而不能长久地住在一起，他们则可能在一个国家的不同城市工作。许多LAT者们最后搬到一起住，从而有时间经受并接受彼此的缺点，这较之“搬出去”是一种可喜的变化，并使他们感到好像刚刚发现了对方。

后记   为暂避风头来到上海，心中惆怅之际，读了上述文章，好像笔者的行为还挺符合LAT时尚的，从而感叹不已。

蛰居一隅感受世界经济危机

                  —大年初三早晨与朋友网上聊天

由于退休生活有保障，每日过着无忧无虑的日子，虽谈不上田园牧歌式的惬意，却也是远离尘世的喧嚣。对于世界经济危机肆虐到何种程度，心中没数，觉得反正离我们还很遥远，再说了，凡事有胡温二巨首顶着，没我们的操心的必要，…。可今天（2009年1月28日，大年初三），在MSN网站上与朋友相遇，谈天中对方让我切切实实感觉到了世界经济危机的严重性与广泛性，回过头来方想到了咱们中国人的幸福，…。

下面便是我们的谈话，笔者只对有些单词上的错误作了纠正（主要是笔者犯的，对方的英语基础很好，这读者肯定会感受到），其余就没改动什么，所以说内容到话语都是真实的。我也没有征求朋友的同意，故而致以歉意,并对一些具体的名字、国度、公司名称等均作了隐蔽处理，主要想突出时势的严峻性,而非一些具体的论点。文中“M”指笔者，“F”指朋友。

“F”: Professor Jia, Good morning!!  I will visit DaLian this May.

“F”: How are you?

“M”: Hi, □, I am fine, thank you. You are welcome to be back to Dalian.

“F”: Thanks.

“M”: I hope to see you this May.

“F”: I wish to see you too! I will visit DaLian Maritime University. It will be the 100th anniversary    of it this year.

“M”: Yes, I suppose there will be lots of graduates back in that time, and I myself am one of them.

“F”: I suppose June 8th would be the peak time. But I am not going to stay until 8th of June. I will stay in DaLian for a couple of days in May.

“F”: What happens in DaLian? Has it influenced by this economic crisis?

“M”: I do not know much about the influence of the economic crisis in Dalian.

“F”: If you do not feel, then it means normal people does not feel so much about this economic crisis.

“F”: But western country is hit by this economic crisis. In ◆, everyday there is layoff news. In United States, company like Intel, Microsoft, Sprint, all cut employees. In ◆, ★ layoff  5000 Employees, the biggest cut in the history.

“M”: But Dalian is a midium-sized city, and its industrial  foundation is rather solid, so I will say it will be going on ahead as usual, there would not be so much influence as to the big cities.

“F”: But you probably do not know, in Zhe Jian province, there are 2.7million farmers leave for their own home, since there is no work for them there. Similar case also happens in Guang Dong province. Those provinces which do a lot of exportation are hit more heavily by the economic crisis.

“M”: Thanks for the above information. I know some of similar news from newspapers.

“F” :My own job is under threat. I have no project for almost 1.5 months. I do not know how long I should wait for the next project.

“F”: But so far, I have already started searching for new jobs.

“M”: Perhaps I live rather isolatedly.  My wages are even increased a little bit these days.

“F”: ★ company publishes bad news this quarter. If it continues to publish poor result, whole ◆is under depression, not only recession. In the past, ★ always have ways to exit from recession. Let's see this time.

“M”: I do hope you will find new opportunities.

“F”: Thanks. I am looking for them now. But I am not in a hurry. Even I lost my job, I could still get unemployment benefits for the next two years.

“F”: Job is still plenty in ★ website. But they are not located in ◆. Rather they are located in Germany and U.S.

“M”: You are a citizens of ◆, so I believe you will get enough offer from its government.

“F”: Yes. As a ◆, it is difficult to starve. No big worry!

“M”: Are not you thinking of being back to China to make further development?

“F”: No. I am already western type of thinking. I am not Chinese type of thinking. I could not get used to Chinese system.

“M”: You can stay, for instance, in Shanghai, where life is Europeanized to a great extent.

“F”: Shanghai is good, but not as good as Europe. It is a too commercialized city.

“F”: My parents are always asking me to go back China. But I could not get used to Shanghai’s traffic in rush hours. But in ◆, even in rush hours, I could find a seat to sit.

“F”: Shanghai is businessman's paradise. When people meet each other, after 3 minutes, it must be business opportunity. It is not a quiet place for researchers to do research peacefully. It is irritating.

“M”: That is true. And Shanghai is also the paradise for people who got technologies.

“F”: Every technology has its life cycle. After one technology ends its life cycle, then its owner is useless.

“M”: I will tell you a story. A graduate of DMU, Dr.●, after 8 years struggle in Shanghai,  got a salary of 200 thousand Yuan a year working for Siemens, but he does not know if that job will last for long. Dr. ● has bought an apartment just now. But he does not have a car yet, because of the lack of RMB.

“F”: In Shanghai, there is 100% sure job.

“F”: They said nowadays the best job is retirement. Since you do not need to wake up early and there is no pressure to you.

“M”: Yes, I have felt that already. But for these guys, there are no new hopes.

“F”: In◆, because of the  pressure from Asia, people are beginning to work more and more.

“M”: The Europeans should be a little bit hard working nowadays. They were too comfortable in the past.

“F”: Yes. Really comfortable, but work is very stress at this moment. Everyone is worrying about his job. People without project like me, has to learn something new to keep my own skill up to date.

“M”: I am going to prepare my breakfast now, can we stop here?  Thanks for talking. Hope to see you in May in Dalian. Hope you a good luck.

“F”: Thanks. Talk to you later.

“M”: Bye.

“F”: 886.

     亲爱的读者朋友，从本文中，您“听”到了笔者的什么心声？ 笔者是希望，那些在国外受到经济危机影响的中国学者，回来为国效力。相信国家会为他们提供满意的工作岗位，发挥他们的技术特长。

                          时尚登机

            -08岁末上海行(1) 

由于需要，得一个人临时到上海的女儿家小住几天，帮助料理一下家务，顺便也放松一下神经，过一段轻闲的日子。

2008年12月30日6：30早起，到“快客”买了一份早点：牛肉汉堡，茶叶蛋，王老吉饮料。狼吞虎咽吃完，背上双带背包，左手拎起挎包，右手拿起装各种药品的红尼龙袋，出门叫辆出租车就往机场奔，时间大概是7：00。事先没买机票就要出行，这对我还是破天荒头一遭。女儿说，到机场现买票，大连到上海每天不下10个航班，不会有问题的。

到了机场，问柜台要“尽可能早的到上海的机票”，那位女售票员真想得出：CZ6521,打折后票价830元，8：10起飞，只有不到50分钟时间了。我问：来得及吗？她说，抓紧，赶快到32号窗口办登机手续。待我跑到32号窗口，工作人员却告知，这是南航机票，快到34号窗口办理。又转了一大圈才拿到登机牌。安检人员一见我的航班号就说：快起飞了，下次别搞的这么紧。安检程序比以前严了许多，上衣也要脱下通过x光透视仪，连鞋底也须用手提安检仪扫描呢。

过了安检，才顾得上看一眼登机口：Gate 16。这时广播响了：CZ6521马上就要起飞了。我顾不上喘口气继续快奔，终于赶上了载客登机的大客车（即shuttle bus），这才算心定了。76岁老翁如此折腾，登机过程每一关都成了“最后一位”，确实是有点刺激过头了，何况我还有高血压等毛病呢。

登上飞机,才落座,飞机就准时起飞了。从启程开始算,只用了一个钟头10分钟就稳稳当当地飞往上海了，这对我自己来说还真是个记录呢。机上无话。下飞机时，空姐见我孤身一老者，问，有人接你么，我告诉她，打的，这是到女儿家玩的。她要帮我将挎包也背到双带背包之上，我说不用，随即将背带掖进夹层使挎包变为手拎包，她说，还挺专业呢。向她道谢之后，昂首挺胸地下了飞机。心想，退回15年，乘飞机国内外遛达着，对我还不是小菜一碟，现在老了，也还不至于一蹶不振了罢。

乘出租到女儿家，大概用了1.5小时,比飞机上的时间还长，这就是现代化的城市间交通的实景。花了180元的士费,其中包括司机转悠我的钱,但我还是感谢他安全地将我拉到了目的地。