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"No! I won't!" I screamed.
“不練！就不練!”我尖聲高叫。
She yanked me by the arm, pulled me off the floor, snapped off the TV. She was frighteningly strong, half pulling, half carrying me towards the piano as I kicked the throw rugs under my feet. She lifted me up and onto the hard bench. I was sobbing by now, looking at her bitterly. Her chest was heaving even more and her mouth was open, smiling crazily as if she were pleased I was crying.
她拽住我的胳膊，把我拖到地上，啪地關掉電視。她力氣大得嚇人，盡管我蹬踢著腳下的地毯，她還是把我半拖半推到鋼琴旁。隨后，她把我拽起來弄到硬邦邦的琴凳上。我已泣不成聲，恨恨地看著她。她的胸脯起伏得更劇烈，張著嘴，瘋了般地咧著嘴笑，好像因為我哭而感到滿足。
"You want me to be someone that I'm not!" I sobbed. "I'll never be the kind of daughter you want me to be!"
“你想把我培養成我做不到的人!”我抽泣著，“我絕不會成為你想要的那種女兒!”
"Only two kinds of daughters," she shouted in Chinese. "Those who are obedient and those who follow their own mind! Only one kind of daughter can live in this house. Obedient daughter!"
“只有兩種女兒，”她用漢語大喊，“聽話的和不聽話的！這個家只容得下一種女兒，那就是聽話的!”
"Then I wish I wasn't your daughter, I wish you weren't my mother," I shouted. As I said these things I got scared. It felt like worms and toads and slimy things crawling out of my chest, but it also felt good, as if this awful side of me had surfaced, at last.
“希望我不是你的女兒。希望你也不是我的母親!”我喊著。同時我有些害怕，好像有蠕蟲、蟾蜍或別的滑溜溜的東西爬出我的胸膛。可我又感到暢快，好像我那可怕的一面最終顯露出來了。
"Too late to change this,"said my mother shrilly.
“來不及了！變不了了！”母親尖聲說道。
And I could sense her anger rising to its breaking point. I wanted to see it spill over. And that's when I remembered the babies she had lost in China, the ones we never talked about. "Then I wish I'd never been born!" I shouted. "I wish I were dead! Like them."
我能感覺到她氣憤到極點，即將爆發。我真想讓她的憤怒頃刻迸發。突然，我想到了她在中國那對失去的、我們從不談論的孿生女嬰?！拔蚁Ｍ銢]有生我!”我扯著嗓子喊，“我希望我死了！就像她們一樣。”
It was as if I had said magic words. Alakazam!-and her face went blank, her mouth closed, her arms went slack, and she backed out of the room, stunned, as if she were blowing away like a small brown leaf, thin, brittle, lifeless.
我好像是說出神奇的咒語。阿拉卡扎姆！她的臉部失去了表情，嘴巴緊閉，雙臂無力地垂下。她退出了房間，神色驚異，好像一小片枯黃的樹葉被風吹走了，那樣的單薄、脆弱、毫無生氣。
It was not the only disappointment my mother felt in me. In the years that followed, I failed her many times, each time asserting my own will, my right to fall short of expectations. I didn't get straight As. I didn't become class president. I didn't get into Stanford. I dropped out of college.
我母親不止一次對我失望。在隨后的幾年里，我多次令她失望，每次都是我堅持自己的意愿，堅持表達自己不能滿足她期望的權力。我沒有得到全A的成績，沒有當上班長，沒能進斯坦福大學。我中途放棄了大學學業。
For unlike my mother, I did not believe I could be anything I wanted to be, I could only be me.
因為跟母親不一樣，我不相信心想事成。我只能做我自己。
