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发帖数: 22064 | 1 Why 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 prodemocracy
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 | l*y
发帖数: 21010 | | L***s
发帖数: 2944 | 3 中国的教育如此落后不堪，现在都能世界第二。
如果提高的话，超过米帝指日可待。
earlier,
【在 z**********e 的大作中提到】
: Why 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
|
|
