評論
打印
“Will a caterpillar ever be able to reach the other side of the sea?”
“毛毛蟲怎樣才能到達大海另一頭？”
“Yes, if metamorphosis turns it into a butterfly.”
“變成蝴蝶飛過去。”
But from the moment the iron bird landed in the roaring noise of Logan Airport with its wings proudly spread, my wings withered quietly in this unfamiliar country.
然而，當我乘坐的那只鐵鳥驕傲地展著雙翼，在轟鳴聲中降落在洛根機場時，我的翅膀卻在這陌生的國家悄然萎縮了。
“I think...I don’t know...I just want to say...” My voice trailed off into the clamor of the grand dining hall of Deerfield Academy, my face paralyzed from smiling, nobody listening.
“我覺得......我不知道......我只想說......”在Deerfield Academy華麗的食堂的喧囂聲中，我的聲音被淹沒了；我的臉因強笑而僵硬。沒人在聽。
“Time is up!” Soft as it was, the firm voice of my English teacher exploded in my head. My hands trembling, sweaty and cold fingers could hardly hold the pen in position, under which lay an unfinished in essay about the significance of a passage from James Joyce’s Ulysses.
“時間到了！”英語老師輕聲卻不容置疑地說道。我的腦子嗡地一響，濕冷的手指險些握不住筆。筆下是一篇尚未完成的作文，題目是《尤利西斯》的段落分析。
Bewildered and frustrated, I found myself able to raise my head, like most of the Asian students, only in math class.
在迷惑與沮喪之中，我如同許多亞裔學生一樣，只能在數學課時尋找安慰。
“Helen, what is your name in Chinese?” Rosie, a girl with pink cheeks, asked me one morning as I dropped my back pack onto the seat next to her.
“Helen，你的中文名字是什么？”坐在我旁邊有著粉色臉頰的Rosie在我放下書包時問道。
“Gao Yuxin”, I pronounced clearly in standard Chinese, slightly startled by the spontaneity of the question. “Why?”
"Gao Yuxin."我用清晰的中文回答，對問題感到有些意外。“怎么了?”
“Just interested. Can you write it there?” She pointed at the board.
“好奇而已。你能寫在這里嗎？”她指了指白板。
I printed my name in Chinese characters “高雨莘” in the center of the board.
我在白板中央一筆一畫地用漢字寫下“高雨莘”。
The class fell into silence. I turned and faced the questioning eyes, which reminded me of an American idiom I had learned in English class in China: “It’s all Dutch to me.”
課堂陷入安靜。我轉過身，面對著詢問的眼神，想起了一個我在中國時學過的英文習語:"It’s all Dutch to me."
“Yuxin (雨莘) is my first name. Yu (雨) means ‘to rain’ or ‘to give rain’ and ‘xin’ means ‘many’. ‘To give rain to the many’ stands for my parents’ hope that I can nourish and...and bring joy to the many people around me.”
“‘雨莘’是我的名字，‘雨’的意思是‘下雨’或‘使下雨’，‘莘’的意思是‘許多’，我父母希望我能‘為許多人帶來雨’——為我周圍的人帶來快樂和幫助。”
Mild laughter, even one or two whistles rose from the silence. “Wow.” “Cool!”
安靜中響起幾聲輕笑和口哨聲。“Wow!”“Cool!”
“But I am new.” I murmured, “I think I need your help more than you need mine...” intimidated by the stillness in the air and the amusement in my classmates’ eyes.
“不過我是新來的，”我小聲說，在教室的一片寂靜中和同學饒有興趣的眼神下感到有些緊張。“比起你們，我可能更需要幫助......”
“So, what are the four little dots in the character ‘rain’?” Rosie asked.
“那么，雨字中間的四個點是什么意思？”Rosie問道。
“They are rain drops.”
“是雨點。”
“What if I put eight dots in it?”
“如果我點八個點呢？”
“Hmm...Big rain, then.” I answered, suppressing the laugh jumping into my throat.
“那就是大雨的意思，”我回答道，抑制住喉嚨中想笑的沖動。
“Really! That’s funny!”
“真的？太逗了。”
“Just kidding!” escaped my lips.
“開玩笑的，”脫口而出。
A slight trace of puzzlement clouded Rosie’s face.
一絲困惑劃過Rosie的臉龐。
“Hahahaha!” No longer could I restrain the laughter. Three seconds later the whole class joined in.
“哈哈哈！”我忍不住大笑起來。幾秒鐘后整個課堂跟著笑起來。
Now, Rosie, reddened with embarrassment, indeed resembled a peony in full bloom.
Rosie的臉因尷尬而變得通紅，如同一朵盛開的牡丹。
For the first time since my arrival to the school, I laughed with such abandon, and my old ease, as Grandma said, with which fish swims in water. The Deerfield river, not the Yangtze River, but the same fish.
那是我來到這所學校后第一次笑得如此自在。如同我奶奶說的：如魚得水。由長江來到Deerfield河，還是同一條魚。
Helen Keller, after whom I named myself in English—a privilege reserved for most Asian students coming West—miraculously managed to communicate with the world and “nourished the many” despite her loss of vision and hearing. From the moment she learned her first word—“water”— by feeling the flow of the cold stream running from a tap across her fingers, she had taken her first step into the human river.
我和其他來西方留學的亞洲學生一樣，有幸能夠為自己選擇英文名。我的英文名來自于海倫·凱勒(Helen Keller)。盡管她又聾又瞎，卻仍能與世界交流，奇跡般地為他人帶來幫助。她用手指去感覺自來水管中流出的冷水，學會了她的第一個單詞——“水”。從那一刻起，她踏進了人類的長河。
More than a century later, a little golden fish, who used to imagine herself as a butterfly that had flown across the ocean, is just starting her journey across the real Pacific Ocean.
一個多世紀后，一條小金魚明白了自己不是一夜之間能夠化繭成蝶飛過海洋的毛毛蟲。它游過太平洋的漫漫旅程才剛剛開始。
