Politicians step up the fight against Mexico’s Coca-Cola habit

政客們加大了打擊墨西哥人對可口可樂的嗜好的力度

The pandemic has increased worry about the country’s fondness for fizzy drinks

流行病加劇了人們對該國對碳酸飲料的喜愛的擔(dān)憂

詞匯

fizzy drinks/起泡飲料；汽水

Oct 29th 2020 |?

ON A VISIT?in July to Chiapas, a poor southern state, Hugo López-Gatell, Mexico’s covid-19 tsar, condemned an unlikely culprit for deaths from the disease. Fizzy drinks are “bottled poison”. Every year 40,000 Mexicans, the number of recorded covid-19 victims at the time, die from drinking too many, he claimed. The country’s health “would be different had we not been fooled” by a marketing machine that promotes products “as if [they] were happiness”.

今年7月，墨西哥新冠肺炎疫情負(fù)責(zé)人Hugo Lopez-Gatell在訪問南部貧窮的恰帕斯州時，譴責(zé)了一個不太可能導(dǎo)致死亡的罪魁禍?zhǔn)?。碳酸飲料是“瓶裝毒藥”。他聲稱，每年有40000名墨西哥人死于飲入過量的碳酸飲料，這一數(shù)字相當(dāng)于當(dāng)時covid-19的受害者人數(shù)。如果我們沒有被一種推銷產(chǎn)品的營銷機器所愚弄，這個國家的健康狀況“將會有所不同”。這種營銷機器推銷的產(chǎn)品“仿佛【TA們（飲料/喝飲料的人群）】是幸福的”。

詞匯

Tsar/沙皇（大權(quán)獨攬的人物）

The blasé response to the pandemic by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and his administration is a bigger reason why the official death toll now stands at 90,000. But they are correct to point out that sugary drinks contribute to Mexico’s high rates of obesity and diabetes, which make people more vulnerable to the virus. Three-quarters of Mexicans are overweight, up from a fifth in 1996. Although fizzy drinks are a worthier target than some of Mr López Obrador’s nemeses (suppliers of renewable energy, for example), they are also inescapably part of the country’s culture.

總統(tǒng)Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador和他的政府對疫情無動于衷，是官方公布的死亡人數(shù)現(xiàn)已達到9萬人的更重要原因。但他們正確地指出，含糖飲料導(dǎo)致了墨西哥的高肥胖率和糖尿病率，這使人們更容易感染病毒。四分之三的墨西哥人超重，高于1996年的五分之一。盡管碳酸飲料比López Obrador’的一些仇敵(例如可再生能源供應(yīng)商)更有價值，但它們也不可避免地成為該國文化的一部分。

詞匯

?blasé /使膩煩，使厭倦；使麻木不仁，使無動于衷

nemeses/報應(yīng)；仇敵

?

Mr López-Gatell did not single out any brand. He did not need to. Although Coca-Cola is popular across Latin America, it is especially so in Mexico. In 2012, the last time the Coca-Cola Company published data on the popularity of its beverages, Mexicans guzzled 50% more per person than citizens of anywhere else. Drinking Coke “is a ritual, like [drinking] red wine for the French”, says álvaro Aguilar, who owns burger joints in Jalisco, a western state.

?López-Gatel沒有點名任何品牌。他不需要這么做。雖然可口可樂在拉丁美洲很受歡迎，但在墨西哥尤其如此。2012年，可口可樂公司上一次公布其飲料受歡迎程度的數(shù)據(jù)時，墨西哥人的人均可樂飲用量比其他任何國家的公民都多50%。在西部哈利斯科州經(jīng)營漢堡店的álvaro Aguilar表示，喝可樂“是一種儀式，就像法國人喝紅酒一樣”。

詞匯

?Beverage/飲料

?Ritual/儀式；慣例；禮制

Nowhere is the habit, damned by the left as “Coca-colonisation”, more evident than in San Juan Chamula, a town in the hills of Chiapas. There four-month-olds suck Coke from baby bottles. In the town’s church, indigenous Tzotzil medicine men light rows of candles before spilling Coca-Cola onto the flames to vanquish bad spirits.

這種被左派指責(zé)為“可口可樂殖民化”的習(xí)慣在恰帕斯山區(qū)的圣胡安查穆拉最為明顯。四個月大的嬰兒用奶瓶吸可樂。在小鎮(zhèn)的教堂里，當(dāng)?shù)氐腡zotzil藥師點燃了一排排蠟燭，然后將可口可樂灑在火焰上，以消滅壞情緒。

詞匯

Colonisation/殖民化，成為殖民地；殖民

?

Mr López-Gatell has blamed free trade with the United States, which began in 1994, for Mexicans’ poor diets. But Coke mattered a lot before that. Backlashes predate Mr López Obrador’s presidency. Since Mexicans popped open their first bottles in the 1920s, Coke has become the cornerstone of an industry. Bottlers, chiefly Arca and Femsa, get the syrup from Coca-Cola and handle the rest. Bottling and distribution directly employ 100,000 people, says Joan Prats of Coca-Cola Mexico. All told, he claims, the company is responsible for 1m jobs and 1.4% of GDP.

Lopez-Gatell先生將墨西哥人糟糕的飲食習(xí)慣歸咎于始于1994年的與美國的自由貿(mào)易。但在此之前，可口可樂的重要性很大。早在 López Obrador成為總統(tǒng)之前，已經(jīng)有過對于可樂的抵制。自從墨西哥人在20世紀(jì)20年代打開他們的第一瓶可樂，可口可樂已經(jīng)成為一個行業(yè)的基石。瓶裝商，主要是Arca和Femsa，從可口可樂公司獲得糖漿，然后處理其余步驟?？煽诳蓸纺鞲绻镜腏oan Prats說，直接裝瓶和分銷雇傭了10萬人。他聲稱，該公司總共創(chuàng)造了100萬個工作崗位，占GDP的1.4%。

詞匯

Backlash/反沖；強烈抵制

?Predate/在日期上早于（先于）；居先

?

Mr López Obrador often expresses dismay that Coke reaches every village while medicines do not. Vicente Fox, who in 2000 became the first President of Mexico’s democratic era, was Coca-Cola Mexico’s boss in the 1970s. In his memoirs he writes that his early years criss-crossing the country in a delivery lorry were “l(fā)ike those a US?Presidential candidate spends barnstorming from Iowa to New Hampshire”. He gained a feel for Mexico that his predecessors had lacked.

López Obrador 經(jīng)常對可口可樂能到達每個村莊而藥品卻不能到達表示失望。2000年成為墨西哥民主時代首任總統(tǒng)的Vicente Fox是上世紀(jì)70年代可口可樂墨西哥公司的老板。他在回憶錄中寫道，他早年駕著貨車在全國各地穿梭，“就像美國總統(tǒng)候選人從愛荷華州到新罕布什爾州巡回演講一樣”。他獲得了他的前任所缺乏的對墨西哥的感覺。

詞匯

criss-crossing /十字交叉型

?Barnstorming/ 在鄉(xiāng)間（最初常在谷倉里）作巡回演出；（尤指為政治活動而）在某地巡回

?

Only in the 1960s and 1970s, as the dangers of too much sugar became widely known, did Mexicans begin to view Coca-Cola as a foreign brand. “The Secret Formula”, a black-and-white film made in 1965, opens with a shot of Coca-Cola being injected into the veins of a hospital patient from a hanging bottle. That produces “a series of nightmares” about his Mexican identity, in the words of Juan Rulfo, who wrote poetry for the film.

直到20世紀(jì)60年代和70年代，隨著過量糖分的危害廣為人知，墨西哥人才開始將可口可樂視為一個外國品牌?！睹孛芘浞健肥且徊颗臄z于1965年的黑白電影，影片的開頭是一個鏡頭:一瓶可口可樂被從一個懸掛著的瓶子里注射到一個醫(yī)院病人的靜脈里。為該部影片作詩的?Juan Rulfo說道：這為該墨西哥人帶來了“一系列噩夢”

詞匯

?Vein/血管；血脈

?

Those who would curb the habit are now motivated more by concern for public health than by anti-yanqui?ideology. Mr López Obrador’s market-friendly predecessor, Enrique Pe?a Nieto—a Diet Coke drinker—imposed a fizzy-drinks tax of one peso (eight cents) per litre in 2013. It seems to have curbed the growth of consumption. In October this year Mr López Obrador’s administration thwacked big black warning labels on Coca-Cola and other foods deemed unhealthy. Oaxaca, a southern state, has banned the sale of packaged junk food to minors. Other states are following.

那些想要抑制喝可樂習(xí)慣的人現(xiàn)在更多的是出于對公眾健康的關(guān)注，而不是出于反美國人的意識形態(tài)。López Obrador的前任Enrique Pe?a Nieto是一名健怡可樂飲料商，他對市場友好，在2013年對每升汽水征收了一比索(8美分)的稅。這似乎抑制了消費的增長。今年10月，López Obrador的管理部門在可口可樂和其他被認(rèn)為不健康的食品上打上了巨大的黑色警告標(biāo)簽。南部的瓦哈卡州已經(jīng)禁止向未成年人出售包裝垃圾食品。其他州也紛紛效仿。

詞匯

Yanqui/揚基人。用于國外，它泛指一切美國人。用于國內(nèi)，它指的是新英格蘭和北部一些州的美國人。

Diet Coke/健怡可樂（可口可樂旗下的低卡/無糖可樂）

Thwack/打；重?fù)?/span>

?

?

Coca-Cola is adaptable. According to Mr Fox, the company fended off nationalisation in the 1970s with a promise (never kept) to build a desalination plant. In 2018 it cut a third of the sugar out of its Coke recipe for Mexican consumers. At a meeting with Mr López Obrador in October the company promised to buy more Mexican goods for its other drinks—juicing apples from Chihuahua rather than from Chile, for example—and to support the country’s 1.2m pandemic-ravaged Coca-Cola-sellers. The quintessentially American brand is determined to remain Mexico’s national drink. With a shove from politicians, it may succeed at a lower cost to Mexicans’ health.

可口可樂有很強的適應(yīng)性。根據(jù) Fox先生的說法，該公司在20世紀(jì)70年代曾承諾(從未兌現(xiàn))建造一個海水淡化廠，從而避免了國有化。2018年，可口可樂為墨西哥消費者減少了三分之一的糖分。在10月份與Lopez Obrador先生的一次會議上，可口可樂公司承諾為其其他飲料購買更多的墨西哥產(chǎn)品，比如從奇瓦瓦州而不是智利的蘋果來榨汁，并支持該國120萬飽受傳染病肆虐的可口可樂銷售商。這個典型的美國品牌決定繼續(xù)作為墨西哥的國飲。在政客們的大力推動下，這項計劃可能會以更低的墨西哥人健康成本取得成功。

詞匯

fend off/避開，擋開

desalination / （海水的）脫鹽，淡化

?Recipe/食譜；[臨床] 處方；秘訣

?quintessentially / 典型地；標(biāo)準(zhǔn)地

Shove/ 推；擠