中英对照：我为什么听“中国病毒”不生气？

在新冠病毒被正式命名为COVID-19之前，川普曾将其称之为“中国病毒”，并引发了华裔美国人社区的抗议。 当时我写过一篇英文博客文章，标题就叫《我不对川普说“中国病毒”感到生气》。为什么我要这样写呢？我先给大家讲一讲写文章当天我经历了什么。

Trump once called the novel coronavirus the “Chinese virus” before it was officially named COVID-19, and in doing so, he sparked protest from the Chinese American community. In the heat of the debate, I wrote a blog post entitled, “I Don’t Take Offense to Trump Saying ‘Chinese virus’.” To explain why I wrote what I wrote, I’d like to revisit what happened to me personally around that time.

今天你也许关心的话题：

“模范维族公民”离奇失踪数年 在美国当律师的姐姐为其奔走喊冤
疫情过后 大公司会舍弃在市中心高层写字楼办公吗？
专家：托儿服务滞后将会影响女性就业率 拖累疫情过后经济恢复

想要阅读与本文有关的话题？请点击本文末的链接！



3月12日早晨，我女儿打电话问我她能不能搬回家住。我女儿两年前上了大学。她离开家后，我就把房子卖了，搬到公寓去住。新冠流行，学校改成网络授课。女儿想搬回家住，我当然说可以。我去了公寓的租赁中心看有没有更大的房型。参观样板间的时候，我收到了儿子学校发来的电子邮件。从下周起，我儿子也没有学校可去了。我需要一个更更大的单位。我花了整整一天的时间参观样板间，计算费用，考虑各种解决方案，最后做出了我自以为性价比最高的决定。

On the morning of March 12th, my daughter called and asked if she could come back home. My daughter had gone off to college two years ago and I had since downsized to an apartment. Her school started holding classes online, so she wanted to move back in. I went to my complex’s leasing office to see if they had any larger units available. As I was taking tours of available units, I received an email from my son’s school. It turned out that starting the next day, my son wouldn’t have a school to go to either. Now I needed an even bigger unit. I spent the whole day shuffling between apartments, examining my budget, debating various solutions, and finally, applying for the largest unit I could afford.

忙了一天，也没有心情做晚饭，于是我就开车去了附近的超市。到了超市后，我被眼前的景象惊呆了。每个收款台前都排着长龙，每辆购物车都装得满满的，每个人脸上都带着疲惫和困惑。我感觉到空气中的紧张气氛，仿佛置身于拥挤的车流之中，一个小小的失误都可能触发路怒事件。这时我想到了川普的“中国病毒”，我对自己的亚洲脸突然有了强烈的自觉意识。我问自己：如果有人朝我大声骂“中国病毒”，甚至朝我脸上打一拳，我该怎么办？

Dinnertime came. I was in no mood to cook, so I drove to a nearby supermarket. I was stunned by the long lines leading to the checkstands. Each one stretched back into the maze of aisles and out of sight. Every cart was loaded to capacity. There were staples like meat, milk, eggs, frozen food, and toilet paper. Everyone in line looked tired and bewildered. Everyone was anxiously staring at their phones, moving slowly and mechanically forward. I sensed tension in the air. I felt as if I was in rush hour traffic and a road rage incident could occur any minute. I suddenly remembered that Trump had called the coronavirus the “Chinese virus” and I instantly became very self-conscious about my Asian face. I asked myself: What if a person came out of the line and punched me in the face and screamed at me for launching the “Chinese virus”? What would I do?



我的答案是：我会对他（她）说“对不起”。这是我的真实想法，无论你信与不信。我发自内心地觉得抱歉：我的母国给这些无辜的人带来这么大的麻烦。尽管我的存款账户上尚有余额，当我浪费了宝贵的一天去租房之后，我尚且感到心烦意乱。如果我在旅游、会展、娱乐或交通领域工作，我如何应付突然的失业？股市熔断导致退休基金蒸发，你还指望我心平气和？看了一天孩子焦头烂额，晚上还得排队买卫生纸？

I would say, “I’m sorry.” That’s what I would do. I really felt sorry that I was from the country that caused this. As a person with no money issues, I felt defeated enough after a long day wasted. Then I had to wait for half an hour in line just to buy dinner. Imagine if I worked in tourism, entertainment, or transportation. How could you expect me to calmly deal with sudden unemployment, extra childcare costs, and the evaporation of my stock portfolio? Their lives had been disrupted for no reason.

川普说“中国病毒”是错误的。一系列专家已经指出：不应该以地理位置或者种族来命名一种疾病。但如果你听到“中国病毒”，第一反应是你自己会受到的伤害，那你就是自私的人。你对于这种病毒拖累了全世界无辜的人民全无歉意。

I knew it was wrong for Trump to say “Chinese virus” because experts had pointed out that naming viruses after geographic locations or groups of people was problematic for a host of reasons. But as a Chinese immigrant, if you feel angry at Trump for calling it the “Chinese virus,” it means you only consider yourself. You don’t feel one ounce of apology for burdening people.



出于各方压力，川普收回了他的命名。如今病毒有了正式的名称COVID-19。但不管名字叫什么，全世界（也许除了中国）的人们都清楚一个事实：要是没有产品和人员的自由流动，也就没有病毒在全世界的传播。人们很可能会想：全球化是个错误。这是川普说“中国病毒”的深层原因。这与他反全球化的立场是一致的。

Trump took it back due to pressure from every direction. Now we have an official name for this novel coronavirus which is COVID-19. But whatever the virus is named, it is no denying that globalization enabled the virus to spread globally. People might think that globalization is a mistake. That’s the deep reason for Trump saying “Chinese virus.” It is consistent with his anti-globalization stance.

当我说“我不生气”的时候，我是出于第一代移民的立场。全球化使我获得了移居的自由，如今我需要为此付出代价，这没有什么不公平。但对于土生土长的ABC和CBC们，他们已经世世代代居住在北美，与目前中国发生的事情没有关系，他们可以理直气壮地抗议川普。

I need to point out now that I was only speaking as a Chinese immigrant when I said that I didn’t take offense to Trump saying “Chinese virus.” I was able to leave China because globalization gave me the opportunity. As an immigrant, I don’t think I should take the advantage of globalization but reject the blame. But for ABCs and CBCs whose families have been here for generations, they have the right to be angry at Trump for calling it “the Chinese virus,” because they have nothing to do with what’s going on in China.



我们这一代移民离开中国是为了追求自己和家庭的幸福。我们离开了中国，也就意味着我们放弃了改变中国。所以就这一点来说，现在中国发生的一切，我们都是有责任的。如果你对川普感到愤怒，你就会止于愤怒。指责川普煽动种族仇恨和排外情绪是一件容易的事，但是我不想选择容易的路去走，因为复杂的问题是不可能通过简单的方法来解决的。

Many of my generation chose to leave China to pursue our own happiness. But the more people leave China, the less hope remains that China can ever change. It’s easy to criticize Trump for fanning racism and xenophobia, but I don’t want to go in that direction.

有很多有意义的事情值得我们去做。比如说，我们可以呼吁川普向中国施压，推倒长城防火墙。如果人员和病毒能自由流动，但是信息却不可以，这显然不公平。

There are lots of meaningful things for us to do. For example, we could start a petition calling for Trump to pressure China into tearing down the Great Firewall. It is not fair that virus could get out of China, but information could not. President Ronald Reagan made a famous speech in 1987 calling on Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall. Two years after that speech, the world finally saw the fall of the Berlin Wall. Trump could do the same thing. He could tweet, “If you seek prosperity for China… If you seek liberalization… Mr. Xi, tear down this wall.”

作为华裔加拿大人（华裔美国人），我们都不希望看到中加（中美）冲突。推倒防火墙，是不多的（也许是唯一的）有利双方的大好事。它既有利于我们母国的同胞，又不损害我们的入籍国。是一个真正的双赢选择。

As a Chinese Canadian/Chinese American, we hate to see conflicts between the country we were born in and the country we have pledged an oath of allegiance to. To encourage China to tear down the Great Firewall is one of the few things, if not the only thing, that could benefit Chinese people at absolutely no cost to Canada/the United States. It will be a true win-win.

*王芫，生于北京，毕业于北京大学中文系，曾任北京作协签约作家，2006年移民加拿大。出版有长篇小说《什么都有代价》、《幸存者》，中短篇小说集《路线图》、《口红》，散文集《你自己的真理》等。翻译爱丽丝•门罗作品《岩石堡风景》。《财新周刊》文化专栏作者。

* Anna Wang was born and raised in Beijing, China, she received her BA from Peking University and is a full-time writer. She has published nine books in Chinese. These include two short story collections, one essay collection, four novels, and two translations. An English translation of her short stories, Beijing Women: Stories, was published in 2014. Inconvenient Memories is her debut book written in English.