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1、Lesson 1 Paper TigersWhat happens to all the Asian-American overachievers when the test-taking ends?当考试结束时，所有的亚裔美国人都会有怎样的表现呢？By Wesley Yang Published May 8,2011para 1 Sometimes Ill glimpse my reflection in a window and feel astonished by what I see. Jet-black hair. Slanted eyes. A pancake-flat surfa
2、ce of yellow-and-green-toned skin. An expression that is nearly reptilian in its impassivity. Ive contrived to think of this face as the equal in beauty to any other. But what I feel in these moments is its strangeness to me. Its my face. I cant disclaim it. But what does it have to do with me?有时我会从
3、窗户里瞥见我的倒影，我会对我所看到的感到惊讶。乌黑的头发。斜眼。黄绿色肤色的薄煎饼状的表面。一种近乎爬行动物般冷漠的表情。我想方设法地认为这张脸在美貌上与其他任何人都不相上下。但在这些时刻我感觉到的是它对我来说很奇怪。这是我的脸。我不能否认。但这和我有什么关系呢？Para 2 Millions of Americans must feel estranged from their own faces. But every self-estranged individual is estranged in his own way. I, for instance, am the child of
4、 Korean immigrants, but I do not speak my parents native tongue. I have never dated a Korean woman. I dont have a Korean friend. Though I am an immigrant, I have never wanted to strive like one. 一定有无数的美国人对他们自己的长相会有一种疏离感,但是其中每个人的原因却又不尽相同。以我自己为例,我是韩国移民的后裔,但我却不会讲我父母的母语。我从未跟韩国女性约过会,甚至都没有韩国朋友。虽然我是移民,但是我从
5、未想过像移民那样努力奋斗。para 3 You could say that I am a banana. But while I dont believe our roots necessarily define us, I do believe there are racially inflected assumptions wired into our neural circuitry. And although I am in most respects devoid of Asian characteristics, I do have an Asian face.你可能会说我是亚裔
6、美国人。虽然我并不认为一个人的种族出身就会决定他的一切,但我相信对各个种族的成见已经深深地植入了我们的思想里。尽管在很多方面,我已经没了什么亚洲人的特点，但我确实长着一张亚洲人的脸。para 4 Here is what I sometimes suspect my face signifies to other Americans: An invisible person, barely distinguishable from a mass of faces that resemble it. A conspicuous person standing apart from the cro
7、wd and yet devoid of any individuality. An icon of so much that the culture pretends to honor but that it in fact patronizes and exploits. Not just people “who are good at math” and play the violin, but a mass of stifled, repressed, abused, conformist quasi-robots who simply do not matter, socially
8、or culturally.我有时怀疑我的长相对于其他美国人来说代表着什么:像一个长着大众脸的隐形人;一个站在人群里很显眼但毫无个性的人;一个美国文化表面上十分尊重而实际上却鄙视并利用的形象。我们不只是那些”数学学得很好”和会拉小提琴的人,而且是一大群憋屈得要死、压迫得不行、被虐得快残了的循规蹈矩的半机器人,对社会和文化根本就没什么影响力。para 5 Ive always been of two minds about this sequence of stereotypes. 对于以上各种成见，我总在两种想法间摇摆不定。On the one hand, it offends me grea
9、tly that anyone would think to apply them to me, or to anyone else, simply on the basis of facial characteristics. On the other hand, it also seems to me that there are a lot of Asian people to whom they apply. 一方面，仅仅因为相貌特征就将我或其他任何人与这些成见对号入座，这让我觉得不舒服；但另一方面，我自己确实也发现了不少这样的亚洲人。para 6 Let me summarize m
10、y feelings toward Asian values: Damn filial piety. Damn grade grubbing. Damn Ivy League mania. Damn deference to authority. Damn humility and hard work. Damn harmonious relations. Damn sacrificing for the future. Damn earnest, striving middle-class servility. 让我总结一下我对亚洲价值观的感受：该死的孝道。该死的好好学习。该死的常春藤联盟狂
11、热。该死的服从权威。该死的谦逊努力。该死的和谐关系。该死的为未来牺牲。该死的认真努力的中产阶级奴性。para 7 I understand the reasons Asian parents have raised a generation of children this way. Doctor, accountant, engineer: These are good jobs open to whoever works hard enough. What could be wrong with that pursuit? Asians graduate from college at a
12、 rate higher than any other ethnic group in America, including whites. They earn a higher median family income than any other ethnic group in America，including whites. This is a stage in a triumphal narrative, and it is a narrative that is much shorter than many remember. Two thirds of the roughly 1
13、4 million Asian-Americans are foreign-born. There were less than 39,000 people of Korean descent living in America in 1970, when my elder brother was born. There are around 1 million today. 我理解亚洲父母为何用这种手段抚养整整一代子女。医生、律师、会计、工程师:无论是谁,只要足够努力就能得到这些好的工作机会。难道追求这些好工作有错吗?亚裔美国人从大学毕业的比率比包括白人在内的美国其他种族人群都高。他们家庭收
14、入中位数也比包括白人在内的美国其他种族人群高。这些只是亚裔取得成功故事中的一个缩影,这远比很多人记忆中的成功故事要短得多。在约1400万的亚裔美国人中,有三分之二的人不是在美国出生的。在1970年,美国只有不到39000名韩国后裔,而今天,韩国后裔达到了大约100万人。para 8Asian American success is typically taken to ratify the American Dream and to prove that minorities can make it in this country without handouts. Still, an und
15、ercurrent of racial panic always accompanies the consideration of Asians, and all the more so as China becomes the destination for our industrial base and the banker controlling our burgeoning debt. But if the armies of Chinese factory workers who make our fast fashion and iPads terrify us, and if t
16、he collective mass of high-achieving Asian American students arouse an anxiety about the laxity of American parenting, what of the Asian American who obeyed everything his parents told him? Does this person really scare anyone?亚裔美国人的成功总被用来证实美国梦,证明那些少数族裔在这个国家依靠自己也能取得成功。但是,想到亚洲人时,总是伴随着潜在的种族恐慌特别是在中国成了美国的工业基地和控制迅速增长的债务的债主的时候。但是,如果那些制造出快速时尚服饰和iPad的中国的劳动力大军让我们感到惧怕的话,如果众多的优秀亚裔学生让美国父母为他们那宽松的教育方式感到焦急的话,那对于处处听从父母
