The other day, I came across a Cantonese girl online, who was then looking anxiously for someone that could help her a bit with English. She was a first-year student from an anonymous vocational school, she told me, and in order to become an undergraduate, she must learn English, of which she had virtually zero knowledge. I wouldn’t call myself an altruist but if helping a stranger costs me little to nothing, I am normally willing to reach out a helping hand. I thus added her on the very social app where we met, thinking I could at least give the girl a push on her way to whichever university she wished to attend. 前幾日，我在網(wǎng)上遇到了一個廣東女孩，她當時正焦急地尋找可以幫助她學習英語的人。她告訴我，她是一所默默無聞的職業(yè)學校的一年級學生，為了升入本科，她必須學習英語，盡管她對英語幾乎一無所知。我并不認為自己是個利他主義者，但如果幫助陌生人只是舉手之勞，我通常也愿意伸出援助之手。因此，我在我們相遇的社交軟件上添加了她，我想，我至少可以在這個女孩的升學路上給她一點助力。 Having known me for a couple of days, she began calling me ‘sifu’, the same way an apprentice addresses his most revered Kung Fu master. I enjoy the feeling of being held in such high esteem, I must admit, and being looked admiringly at gives me, an otherwise unobtrusive nonentity, more satisfaction than nearly anything else. At this point, all the labels I had previously applied to her as a result of stereotypes were beginning to fade. I no longer thought of her as another inveterately lazy vocational school student. My opinion of her changed even more as she regularly impressed me with the great effort she put into her studies. 認識我?guī)滋旌?，她開始叫我“師父”，就像學徒稱呼他最尊敬的功夫大師一樣。我必須承認，我享受被人如此尊重的感覺，而他人欽佩的眼神，比其他幾乎一切事物更能給我這個原本無足輕重的人帶來滿足感。此時，我之前給她貼上的所有刻板印象標簽都開始褪色。我不再把她當成又一個懶惰到無可救藥的職校生了。我對她的看法有了轉(zhuǎn)變，因為她在學習上付出的巨大努力經(jīng)常給我留下深刻的印象。 And now, we do sometimes talk about our respective lives, childhood memories, ambitions, and everything else— just like friends. Earlier today, she told me how she’d used to be an exasperatingly unmanageable child, making all kinds of trouble and resisting any attempt at disciplining her. She would throw herself into a river just to catch fish, and get bitten by her dog multiple times without learning her lesson. I never had any rural experience as a child, but I suppose her childhood must be one filled with picture-perfect moments. Still echoing in her soul is a pastoral symphony with cicadas, fireflies and frogs; still backdropping her dreams is a midsummer starry sky; still coursing in her veins is the desire to quit the bustle of urban life and return to rural tranquility. It was in the country she grew, like a weed voraciously taking in nourishments from the most fertile of soil. 而現(xiàn)在，我們確實有時會談?wù)撐覀兏髯缘纳?、童年記憶、雄心壯志和其他一?-就像朋友一樣。今天早些時候，她告訴我她曾經(jīng)是一個令人氣憤的、難以管理的孩子，會制造各種麻煩，同時抵抗任何試圖管教她的行為。她會為了抓魚而跳進河里，并多次被她的狗咬傷而從來沒有吸取教訓。我小時候沒有任何農(nóng)村生活的經(jīng)歷，但我想她的童年一定是充滿了如畫的美好時光。在她的靈魂深處仍然回蕩著一首有蟬、螢火蟲和青蛙的田園交響曲；在她的夢中仍然有仲夏的星空作為背景；在她的血管中仍然流淌著放棄城市生活的喧囂，回到農(nóng)村寧靜的愿望。她是在鄉(xiāng)村長大的，在那里她就像一株野草，貪婪地從最肥沃的土壤中汲取營養(yǎng)。 But now, in the big city which she shall never call home, feeling disoriented and insecure, she is lost among everybody else. I lament the gradual erasure of her identity as she adapts to her new environment, and this loss of her uniqueness seems inexorable. She buries her juvenile dreams in the depths of her subconscious, keeps the disobedient side of hers well-hidden, runs as everyone does toward a finish line so distant, behaves as she is expected to, replaces her mannerisms with the more refined comportment acquired later in life… She is becoming unlike herself. 但現(xiàn)在，在這個她永遠不會稱之為家的大城市里，她感到迷失方向，沒有安全感，她在其他人中被淹沒了。我為她在適應新環(huán)境的過程中逐漸抹去了自己的身份扼腕嘆息，而這種自己獨特性的喪失似乎是不可阻擋的。她把少年時的夢想埋在潛意識的深處，把她桀驁不馴的一面隱藏得很好，像所有人一樣奔向遙遠的終點，按照人們的期望行事，用后來習得的更優(yōu)雅的行為取代她原先的舉止......她正在變得不像自己。 It saddens me more to think that each of us must’ve also gone through the same transformation from distinctive children to members of a homogeneous adult world. We each have a distinct past that shapes our present selves, and it is our different upbringings and experiences, which distinguish us from others that makes us who we are, but the sharp edges of our individuality have worn away as we jostled against each other in the long march through the same narrow tunnel leading not to fulfilment but to disillusionment. The adult world in which we now find ourselves is a terrible place, we’ve finally realised, and there’s no way back. 想到我們每個人一定也經(jīng)歷了同樣的轉(zhuǎn)變，從與眾不同的孩子成為一個同質(zhì)化的成人世界的成員，我就更難過了。我們每個人都有一個獨特的過去，塑造了現(xiàn)在的自己，而正是我們不同的成長和經(jīng)歷使我們成為我們自己，但我們的個性的棱角已經(jīng)被磨掉了。我們在這漫長的行進過程中相互推搡，通過同一個狹窄的隧道，迎接我們的卻不是滿足，而是幻滅。我們終于意識到，我們現(xiàn)在所處的成人世界是一個可怕的地方，而且沒有退路。 We had diverse dreams. The unkempt repairman fixing your air-conditioner might’ve dreamed of becoming an architect that turns fancies into concrete structures; the obscure security guy in your company might’ve envisioned a career as an illustrious musician playing in the greatest music hall; the senile public toilet cleaner in your community might’ve aspired to become a poet able to cure the world with beautiful verses. Yet they bent under the burden of subsistence, letting the flowers of dreams wither before they could bloom. Dreams, just as our memories, are nothing compared with the more urgent need of survival. 我們有不同的夢想。修理你的空調(diào)的不修邊幅的修理工可能在小時候就夢想成為一名建筑師；你公司里默默無聞的保安可能設(shè)想過成為一名杰出的音樂家；你社區(qū)里年老的公廁清潔工可能渴望成為一名詩人，能夠用美麗的詩句治愈世界。然而，他們在生計的重壓下屈服了，讓夢想之花在綻放之前就凋謝了。夢想，就像我們的回憶一樣，與更迫切的生存需求相比，微不足道。 Like flat characters in fiction who exist merely to advance the plot, we too lack dimension, our purpose being to fuel the advancement of society. We take pride in contributing to the propelling force behind social progress, but when we pause and introspect, we feel insignificant, for we have lived, not for our own sake, but for some lofty goals that are always somewhere before our eyes but forever unattainable— just like a mirage. 就像小說中的扁平人物，他們的存在只是為了推動情節(jié)，我們也缺乏作為人的維度，我們的目的是為社會的進步提供動力。我們?yōu)槟転樯鐣M步貢獻一點推動力而感到自豪，但一旦我們停下來內(nèi)省，我們會感到自己渺小到無意義的程度，因為我們并非為自己而活，而是為某種海市蜃樓般，看似近在眼前卻不可企及的目標而活。 The same feeling of insignificance is shared by many in this era, when almost everyone’s identity is erased. We are evaluated like products; some of us are worth more than others, but in the end we are all reduced to bricks for building the grand edifice of this society. This is a universal tragedy. When your identity is erased, your self-esteem too falls into pieces, and you live just to live. 在這個時代，許多人都有這種無足輕重的感覺，幾乎每個人的身份都被抹去了。我們像產(chǎn)品一樣被評估；我們中的一些人比其他人更有價值，但最終我們都淪為建造這個社會的宏偉大廈的磚頭。這是一個普遍的悲劇。當你的身份被抹去時，你的自尊心也會摔成碎片，你就會為了生活而生活。