c*********d
发帖数: 9770 | 1 http://cn.nytimes.com/opinion/20150901/c01iht-edgao29/dual/
New York Times ChinaWhy Parrot Beijing’s Line?
By HELEN GAO September 1, 2015
鹦鹉学舌的中国式教育
高雨莘 BEIJING — In the spring of 1999, when I was in fifth grade, my
teacher at my Beijing elementary school gave me an assignment one day after
class. A week earlier, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization had bombed the
Chinese Embassy in Belgrade during the war in Kosovo, killing three Chinese
reporters. Washington called the attack an accident, while the Chinese
public believed it to be a deliberate provocation. I was to write a speech
for a school meeting the next day, my teacher told me, that “condemns the
hegemonic behavior of Western powers that had suppressed China for centuries
.”
北京——1999年春，我在北京一所小学读五年级。某天放学后，老师给我留了一项作业
。一周前，北约在科索沃战争中轰炸了在贝尔格莱德的中国使馆，导致三名中国记者丧
命。华盛顿将这次袭击称作意外，而中国民众相信这是故意挑衅。我的任务是为第二天
的校会写一篇演讲稿，我的老师告诉我，“来谴责西方列强几世纪以来欺压中国的霸行
”。
That evening I labored amid piles of newspapers, composing the speech by
stringing together phrases lifted from front-page headlines. The efforts
paid off the next day when the teacher nodded approvingly at the draft I
handed her. It was filled with phrases such as the “century of humiliation
” and “anti-imperialist struggles,” whose sounds quickened my heartbeat
but whose meanings I didn’t quite understand.
那天晚上，我埋头于一摞摞报纸之中，将头版标题中的词句串联起来，拼凑出了演讲稿
。第二天，当老师看了我交给她的草稿后赞许地点了点头时，我感到我的努力有了回报
。演讲稿充斥着诸如“百年国耻”和“反帝斗争”这样的短语。它们的发音令我心跳加
速，但它们的含义我却不甚明了。
When I got to high school, these words appeared again in my history
textbooks, now as maxims we were required to memorize. “Building socialism
in China,” I repeated to myself, “is the inevitable outcome of the course
of modern Chinese history.”
上高中时，这些词语再次出现在了我的历史课本里，成了我们需要记住的准则。“中国
建立社会主义，”我对自己重复道，“是现代历史进程的必然结果。”
But by my high school years these statements and many like them no longer
intrigued me and my classmates, nor did their meanings sink into our
consciousness. Chinese history, which seemed to consist of a list of
treaties and campaigns sketched out in ideological jargon, felt elusive and
hollow.
然而到那时，这样的词句已经无法激起我和同学们的兴趣。它们的含义也没有深入人
心。中国历史仿佛是由意识形态的套话勾勒出的一系列条约和运动，既难以琢磨又缺乏
实质。
Yet the simplicity of the lessons was a blessing. Saved from the trouble of
formulating complex arguments and reconciling baffling contradictions, we
scored points in exams by repeating textbooks verbatim and recalling
chronology with exactitude.
但课程的简单又是一件幸事。不用学会阐述艰深复杂的论点或调和令人费解的矛盾，我
们只要能一字不差地重复课本、准确地回忆年表，就可以在考试中得分。
After going to America for college, my understanding began to change.
Western discourse on Chinese history, with its focus on events like the
Great Famine and the Cultural Revolution, provided texture to the national
traumas that are heavily censored in domestic discussion. But it was not
until graduate school, where I delved into Western scholarship on China,
that I began to understand the subtler ways in which Chinese education has
shaped the minds of my generation.
这样的理解在我去美国读大学后开始改变。西方对中国历史的论述多侧重于类似大饥荒
和文化大革命这样的事件上。它让我对这些在国内舆论中被严格审查的国难话题有了更
细腻的认识。然而，直到读了研究生并开始深入了解西方关于中国的学术成果时，我才
逐渐明白中国教育是怎样以更为微妙的方式，塑造了我们这一代人的思想。
In Chinese classrooms, historical narratives are placed in incomplete
context and follow a retrospectively imposed logic that precludes
alternative interpretations. Ancient history, for example, is presented in
China as dynasties uniting under the mystical “Chinese civilization,”
being ruled by the nebulously defined “Chinese people.” Absent are the
perspectives of ruling minorities like the Mongols and the Manchus, which,
as Western studies show, tell a more complex story. The May Fourth movement
— a pivotal event named after a mass protest in 1919 that helped usher
China into the modern era — was described in my high school textbook as an
“anti-feudal and anti-imperialist patriotic movement.” The influence of
Western enlightenment thought, central to the movement, received little
acknowledgement.
中国课堂将对历史的叙述放置于不完整的背景中，以后世强加的逻辑贯穿，剥夺其它阐
释方式的存在空间。在中国，古代史被展示为朝代之间由奥妙玄虚的“中华文明”所连
接，被含义模糊的“中华民族”所统治。而如蒙古族和满族等处于统治地位的少数民族
的视角则无处可寻。西方研究显示，这些信息往往揭露更加复杂的史实。以1919年的群
众示威命名的“五四运动”是开启中国现代史的一个关键事件。我的高中课本将它被描
述成一场“反帝反封建的爱国运动”，而对在运动中起至关重要作用的西方启蒙思想却
少有论及。
Another failure of the system is the Chinese method of rote learning, which
ill prepares Chinese students for the task of critical inquiry. Despite
their awareness of the biases in Chinese history lessons, students
accustomed to parroting authoritative accounts possess neither the mental
habits nor the analytical skills to investigate them.
这套体系的另一个弊端是死记硬背的学习方法。身处其中，中国学生难以学会批判性质
疑。就算他们意识到中国历史课中的偏见，鹦鹉学舌复述权威的习惯致使他们既没有思
想动力也缺乏分析技巧来对这些偏见进行探究。因此，尽管很多学生承认中国历史教育
背后的政治动机，在遭到不熟悉的观点挑战时，他们会本能地依赖于自童年起就熟记于
心的老生常谈。而当挑战来自外国人时，民族自豪感可能会强化这种倾向。
As a result, while many students would readily admit the political
motivations behind Chinese history education, when challenged by unfamiliar
viewpoints, they instinctively fall back onto the statements we chanted as
mantras since childhood. The tendency can be heightened by a sense of
national pride when the perceived challenge comes from foreigners.
最近，我与一位刚从香港和台湾求学归来的朋友吃午餐。他解释说他外出求学是为了获
取“对中国的全新认识”，然而他承认求学经历反而固化了他对香港和台湾社会的态度
。他认为香港民主运动中的抗议者多是受到了“外国势力”的煽动。否则，他问道，他
们“怎么可能自己看不到中国稳定高效的政治体制所带来的好处呢？”
Recently, over lunch with a friend who has chosen to study in Hong Kong and
Taiwan in order to get, as he explained, “a fresh understanding of China,”
he confessed that the experience only hardened his attitude toward these
societies. The protesters in the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong were
likely instigated by “foreign forces,” he argued. Otherwise, how could
they “not see for themselves the benefit of China’s stable and efficient
political system?”
此外，当学生们为了考试而努力记忆教科书上那些自己也不相信的字句时，学习在他们
眼中便成为了实现个人目的的一种手段。以追求真理为目标的西方教育理念在中国无法
带来好处。在一个轻视诚信观和原创性的环境中，学生们顶着取得成功的压力，学会了
使用不反映他们真实想法或脑力劳动的作品，并将其视为正当行径。
In other cases, students who diligently memorized for exams the textbook
statements they did not believe in continued to see learning as primarily a
means to a personal end. The Western ideal of the pursuit of the truth
affords little benefit in China. In a cutthroat environment that places a
low premium on originality and integrity, students learn to justify, under
the pressure to succeed, the using of work that represents neither their
honest opinions nor products of their intellectual labor.
我在美国念大学时，校方突然取消了一个和中国顶尖高校北京大学的学术交流项目。在
各种争议声中，一名在北京的美国生物教授曾抱怨北京大学的学生中普遍的抄袭现象。
我在北大读书的朋友们对这种情况的存在直言不讳，但声称这只不过是学生的务实之举
。“对于马克思主义政治哲学之类的课，我们交换试题答案并分享论文，是为了有更多
时间来学习那些真正重要的科目，”其中一人告诉我。
While I was in college in America, my school abruptly canceled a joint
academic program with Peking University, one of China’s top education
institutions. Among other controversies, an American biology professor in
Beijing complained of the rampant plagiarism among students at the
university. My friends who went there readily admitted that the cheating
existed, but argued that the students were simply being practical. “We swap
test answers and share papers for classes like Marxist political philosophy
, so we can have more time to focus on the subjects that actually matter,”
one told me.
上个冬天，我在北京的家中打开电视，收看由国家电视台组织的一场颇受欢迎的演讲比
赛。我高中时代的一个朋友站在台上。他表情严肃，在演讲中控诉西方媒体通过向中国
发动“文化战争”来“攻击中国人的自信和自尊”。下一轮比赛中，他身披一件蒙古袍
，表达了对中国领土永远完整的衷心祝愿。
Last winter, when I turned on the television in Beijing to watch a popular
speech contest organized by a state channel, I saw a high school friend
standing on stage. With a solemn expression, he delivered a speech accusing
Western media of waging a “cultural war” against China that “attacks the
confidence and dignity of the Chinese people.” In the next round, he donned
a Mongolian robe and declared his heartfelt wish for the long lasting of
China’s territorial unity.
最终我的朋友赢得了比赛。在社交媒体上，同学们纷纷向他表示祝贺。我回想起高中时
代，我们课后一同抱怨课程单调乏味，嘲笑试题毫无意义的时光。那些记忆和他在电视
上的表演实在格格不入。
Eventually, my friend won the contest, prompting a chorus of congratulation
from our classmates on social media. I recalled the time we had spent
together in high school after class, griping about the monotony of the
curriculum and mocking the irrelevance of the test questions. It was hard to
settle those memories with his performance on television.
几周前，我在一次同学聚会上遇到了他。我走近他，想提起那次比赛，问问他关于政治
的真实想法：他真的相信自己在电视上所说的话吗？我停住了。不知为何，我突然想起
五年级时，北约轰炸贝尔格莱德的中国使馆后我写的那篇演讲稿。我咽下了要说的话。
A few weeks ago, I ran into him at a class reunion. I approached him, hoping
to bring up the contest and ask for his true thoughts about politics: Did
he really believe what he said on television? I paused. Out of nowhere, the
speech I had written in fifth grade, after the NATO bombing of the Chinese
Embassy in Belgrade, entered my mind. I swallowed my words.
高雨莘生于北京，是哈佛大学东亚研究系硕士研究生。
翻译：Vera Chen（实习）、张欣（实习）
© The New York Times Company | b******3
发帖数: 4385 | | c*********d
发帖数: 9770 | 3 这样的智商，也配评论本文？
【在 b******3 的大作中提到】
: 这样的智商上哈佛，替哈佛着急
| s**s
发帖数: 3374 | 4 这些东西不入脑的人，是小将。
因为他们无法理解在过分理论化政治术语代表的实际内容。
上学那时候背三个代表，我问政治老师什么是先进生产力发展要求，她回答我是文化优
越和制度优越，我说你说的这些三个代表后两个代表都涵盖了，她又说政策和措施，我
说任何一个政府都有的行为不属于中国共产党特有，最后当着全班同学的面，老师严厉
告诫我们，只许背诵不许理解！
可当你试图理解的时候你就会发现，洗脑理论根本不禁推敲。自然而然就成了老将。 | b******3
发帖数: 4385 | 5 洋大人拉泡屎，迟得津津有味。还特地翻译成中文，生怕军版众将不知道被采访者思想
幼稚。
【在 c*********d 的大作中提到】
: 这样的智商，也配评论本文？
| m****w
发帖数: 1304 | 6 哈佛的中国文科生里，很多都是这样的熊色（sai3）。 | o*********e
发帖数: 3093 | 7 小学中学高中这些教科书上的历史从来都不是学校要求的必须掌握的知识，老师从来都
是讲数理化。
倒是考研的时候才有门政治课程是必考科目。 | w*********i
发帖数: 1969 | 8 美国打伊拉克肯定是为了民主自由吧？
[在 chinabbsdad (张果老他爹) 的大作中提到：]
：这样的智商，也配评论本文？
：
：........... | a**********u
发帖数: 28450 | 9 自恨老将很不得把鸡巴也换了
after
the
Chinese
【在 c*********d 的大作中提到】
: http://cn.nytimes.com/opinion/20150901/c01iht-edgao29/dual/
: New York Times ChinaWhy Parrot Beijing’s Line?
: By HELEN GAO September 1, 2015
: 鹦鹉学舌的中国式教育
: 高雨莘 BEIJING — In the spring of 1999, when I was in fifth grade, my
: teacher at my Beijing elementary school gave me an assignment one day after
: class. A week earlier, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization had bombed the
: Chinese Embassy in Belgrade during the war in Kosovo, killing three Chinese
: reporters. Washington called the attack an accident, while the Chinese
: public believed it to be a deliberate provocation. I was to write a speech
| a**********u
发帖数: 28450 | 10 我操，原来是这个骚货
after
the
Chinese
【在 c*********d 的大作中提到】
: http://cn.nytimes.com/opinion/20150901/c01iht-edgao29/dual/
: New York Times ChinaWhy Parrot Beijing’s Line?
: By HELEN GAO September 1, 2015
: 鹦鹉学舌的中国式教育
: 高雨莘 BEIJING — In the spring of 1999, when I was in fifth grade, my
: teacher at my Beijing elementary school gave me an assignment one day after
: class. A week earlier, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization had bombed the
: Chinese Embassy in Belgrade during the war in Kosovo, killing three Chinese
: reporters. Washington called the attack an accident, while the Chinese
: public believed it to be a deliberate provocation. I was to write a speech
| z*****8
发帖数: 262 | 11 同感，作者要么是真的很蠢，要么像他自述的那样为了实现个人目的写了一篇他自己都
不相信的文章。 |
|
