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adj. 歪曲的；受到曲解的 v. 扭曲（distort
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Victims or opportunists?
受害者還是投機者？
Marriage between girls from poor countries and older men from rich ones are controversial. As Sang-lim Lee of the International Organisation of Migration centre in Goyang says, when men pay the brides’ family “they tend to think they have bought a good. If it has a defect, they think they can send it back.”
但是，發(fā)生于貧窮地區(qū)的年輕女孩和富裕地區(qū)的大齡男子之間的婚姻卻是飽受爭議的了。正如Sang-lim Lee of the International Organisation of Migration centre in Goyang說，當給新娘家付了錢后，他們就會認為自己買了一個商品，要是有什么瑕疵或是意圖逃走，還可以將他們退回。
It is certainly true that the men tend to be older, often much older. Doo-Sub Kim finds that Korean husbands are on average 17 years older than their Vietnamese-born brides. They usually have around three years’ more education as well. One fifth of Korean husbands have been married before. All this is very different from the typical pattern in native Korean marriages.
的確，丈夫的年齡太大了，比新娘年長許多。Doo-Sub Kim發(fā)現(xiàn)韓國丈夫平均比越南新娘大17歲。他們通常受過三年左右的教育，其中五分之一結過婚，完全有別于韓國本土的婚姻形式。
It is also true that some young women are victims of cruelty, neglect, physical abuse and trafficking. Women in strange countries are almost always vulnerable. A Vietnamese interpreter married to a Korean man complains that “if I run away here, my parents will be embarrassed in Vietnam.” That, she explains, would leave her unable to return home, but with “no place to go here”. The media in Vietnam tend to portray migrant brides either as victims of trafficking or people driven by desperate poverty to migrate. Children of international marriages in South Korea have more health problems than average. In Taiwan, they do less well at school—something that occurs in European countries, too.
事實確實是一些年輕女孩成為了家庭暴力的受害者，承受身體上的虐待，處于社會忽視的邊緣，加上交通上的不便，處境悲慘。偏遠地區(qū)的婦女幾乎毫無反抗之力。一個越南女人充滿怨恨地親口對我們“我要是逃跑，會讓我在越南的父母蒙羞的。”她的回答解釋了她不能回家的原因，當然也沒有別的容身之所。越南當?shù)氐拿襟w更愿意把她們描述為落后交通的犧牲品或是為了擺脫可怕的貧困而走上移民之路的新娘。相對于平均水平，跨國組合的婚姻結晶的身體問題更多一些。在臺灣或是歐洲，在學校這樣的孩子都表現(xiàn)欠佳。
Yet this is not the dominant pattern, still less the sole one. International marriages often seem to work for the couple involved—at least if the longevity of their union is any guide. And they seem to have social benefits, as well as costs, for both receiving and sending countries.
這仍然不是主要類型，更不是唯一類型。跨國婚姻似乎對于婚姻雙方來說是行得通的，至少從維持的時間上就可以得出些端倪。無論是新娘“輸出國”還是“輸入國”，都在嘗到甜頭的同時，付出了代價。
Though the gap in background, age and education between spouses in international marriages is greater than in those between compatriots, it does not seem to affect these unions’ durability. Doo-Sub Kim plotted the time that cross-border marriages have lasted in South Korea against the couples’ ages and educational backgrounds. Amazingly, the bigger the difference, the longer the marriage. It is hard to know why this should be. Maybe those who marry foreigners invest more in their marriages. Or maybe younger, poorer wives find it harder to leave.
盡管婚姻雙方在背景、年齡、受教育水平上都有巨大的區(qū)別，非同胞可比，但這似乎并沒有影響到婚姻的長長久久。Doo-Sub Kim繪制出了關于跨國婚姻的持續(xù)年限與夫妻雙方的年齡、教育背景之間的關系的圖。令人吃驚的是，雙方差異越大，婚姻越是維持長久。原因我們不知，也許是投入婚姻的精力更多吧，又或是那些年輕又貧窮的妻子們覺得離開不易吧。
Vietnamese girls are seen in much of Asia as the paradigm of the submissive foreign bride. But a study of their role in Taiwan by Ms Bélanger shows that many are married to men whose companies trade with Vietnam—and they are vital to the companies’ future. As one man told her, revealingly: “I have six trusted subordinates. One is my wife. One is her younger sister. They will not betray me.” Remittances to their families help keep the practice alive in Vietnam, even though many young men there dislike it and say they have been driven out of their villages by the shortage of brides and forced to migrate to Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. Similarly, marriage abroad is seen as so desirable by the Punjabi diaspora that the press in Punjab is full of advertisements offering to arrange marriages abroad.
亞洲大部分地區(qū)都把越南女孩視為恭順的外籍新娘。但是Bélanger先生關于臺灣地區(qū)的越南媳婦的研究表明，那些娶了越南媳婦的男人們多數(shù)都在越南做生意，聯(lián)姻對公司的未來至關重要。一個男士向其透露，“我有六個值得信賴的下屬，其中我老婆和她的妹妹就不會背叛我。”把生意交給家里人對生意的持續(xù)興隆有好處，就算很多當?shù)剡m婚男子不喜歡這種狀況，聲稱新娘的短缺將他們去趕出了家園，被迫移居到Hanoi或胡志明市。同樣，聚居在旁遮普省(印度、巴基斯坦的)的猶太人迫切希望和外國人結婚，以至于媒體上充斥著跨國婚姻的廣告，安排提供相外國親的機會。
Not all international marriages in Asia are those of poor brides in rich lands. In a “reverse migration” Japanese women from rich Tokyo have married into poor peasant families in South-East Asia—especially in Bali and Thailand—and settled down to live a more “authentic” rural life, perhaps as a way of escaping the strictness of Japanese family life. That same impulse may well be behind the surprising growth in the numbers of Japanese women married to Africans in Japan (probably as many as 3,300 in all). As one wife told Djamila Schans of Maastricht University, “I had doubts marrying a foreigner but he waited for me at the station every day. Sometimes even with flowers! A Japanese man would never do such a thing.”
在亞洲并不是所有的跨國婚姻都意味著生活在富饒土地上的貧窮新娘。在“反移民潮”中，來自日本的女人，離開東京，遠嫁東南亞的小鄉(xiāng)村，尤以巴里島和泰國為甚，定居當?shù)兀^著“真正”的鄉(xiāng)村生活，這也許是就是逃離日本嚴厲緊張的家長式生活的方法。同樣的沖動也可見于數(shù)量驚人攀升的“日非”婚姻（大約總數(shù)為3300）。一個和非洲人成婚的日本新娘向Maastricht大學的Djamila Schans講述，“我本對嫁給一個外國人持懷疑態(tài)度，但是當看到他每天都在車站等我，甚至有時拿著鮮花，我不再懷疑了！日本男人永遠不會如此。”
Most demographic trends are irresistible forces. It is rare that government policy can make a big difference. But international marriage is sensitive to public policy. In the mid-2000s, Taiwan’s government, for example, took alarm at the number of foreign brides coming into the country. It did not slam the gates but started to wrap the marriage process in licensing and permits, insisting on better treatment of immigrant women. This reduced the number of foreign brides by more than half between 2003 and 2010. Malaysia also maintains an array of secular and religious permits which foreigners must get not only for marriage, but also for residence and work. It seems effective: less than 2% of all Malaysian marriages involve a foreigner, against almost 40% in neighbouring Singapore.
人口的大潮無法阻擋，政府政策總是收效甚微。但跨國婚姻卻對政策敏感。例如，21世紀的第一個十年的中期，臺灣政府向境外新娘的數(shù)量發(fā)出警告。這項政策并沒有直接“砰”的一聲關上跨國婚姻的門，但是開始將此類婚姻“保護”在發(fā)放證件環(huán)節(jié)，并堅持用更體貼的方式對待移民婦女。這樣，2003至2010年間的境外新娘數(shù)量降低了一半。馬來西亞也設置了一連串的宗教的和非宗教的許可，不僅包括婚姻，更針對居住權和就業(yè)工作。結果似乎有效：相較鄰國新加坡幾近40%的數(shù)字，馬來西亞僅有不到2%的婚姻屬于跨國婚姻。
Governments impose restrictions in the belief that cross-border marriages can destabilise their societies. Sometimes, their fears are understandable. In Taiwan, the share of international marriages doubled in five years. But such rapid change is highly unusual. By and large, marriage between people of different nationalities has grown more slowly than immigration. In the past few years, the increase in marriage has slowed further, probably reflecting global economic problems.
政府強行管制，是因為堅信跨國婚姻不利于社會穩(wěn)定。有時候看，這種擔憂是可以理解的。臺灣地區(qū)這類婚姻所占比重五年內翻番，引起的變化是極不簡單的。總的來說，其增速慢于移民增速。近幾年，其增幅減速，大概也反映了全球經(jīng)濟問題。
International marriages are often attacked as exploitative, because they typically take place between an older richer man and a younger, less well-educated woman from a poor country. Terrible examples of abuse do exist. Yet the evidence suggests that international marriages often last longer than average and that migrant wives come to play important roles in their husband’s host country.
跨國婚姻總是背著剝削的罵名，之所以這樣的原因就是它總發(fā)生在一個年邁的富人和一個生于貧國的缺乏良好教育的女人之間。極端的虐待的例子的確存在，但證據(jù)卻表明此類婚姻歷時更久，也表明了移民了的女人在其丈夫所在國漸漸扮演著重要角色。
Marriage remains, for the most part, an institution that promotes economic improvement and personal happiness. It also tends to boost social assimilation—the main exception being when a second-generation immigrant weds a girl from a village his parents had left long before. Over the next few years, international marriage is likely to continue its quiet upward crawl. Governments should protect its victims—but not prevent the process.
大多數(shù)國家中，婚姻始終是促進經(jīng)濟發(fā)展、提升個人幸福的一種制度。現(xiàn)在也趨于促進社會同化，唯一的逆勢的例外就表現(xiàn)在移民的第二代和一個來自其父母遠離已久之處的女孩結婚。以后的幾年內，可能跨國婚姻的步伐依舊平緩而向上，政府要做的不是阻礙其進程，而是想辦法保護這過程中的受害者。
| 重點單詞 | 查看全部解釋 | |||
| distorted | [dis'tɔ:tid] |
想一想再看 |
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| institution | [.insti'tju:ʃən] |
想一想再看 n. 機構，制度，創(chuàng)立 |
聯(lián)想記憶 | |
| evidence | ['evidəns] |
想一想再看 n. 根據(jù)，證據(jù) |
聯(lián)想記憶 | |
| residence | ['rezidəns] |
想一想再看 n. 住處，住宅，居住 |
聯(lián)想記憶 | |
| offspring | ['ɔ:fspriŋ] |
想一想再看 n. 子孫，后代，產(chǎn)物 |
||
| disappointing | [.disə'pɔintiŋ] |
想一想再看 adj. 令人失望的 動詞disappoint的現(xiàn)在分詞 |
||
| global | ['gləubəl] |
想一想再看 adj. 全球性的，全世界的，球狀的，全局的 |
聯(lián)想記憶 | |
| homogeneity | [.hɔməudʒe'ni:iti] |
想一想再看 n. 同種，同質，同次性 |
||
| strike | [straik] |
想一想再看 n. 罷工，打擊，毆打 |
||
| tend | [tend] |
想一想再看 v. 趨向，易于，照料，護理 |
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