中国股民如赌徒 Gamblers on Chinese stocks abandon their fortune to fate
Any gambler who has spent time in the casinos of Macau knows more or less exactly what is going on with the wild volatility in the Chinese stock markets, which has wiped out millions of dollars worth of shares in a few weeks.
任何一名在澳门赌场玩过的赌客，或多或少都了解中国股市的大涨大跌到底是怎么回事。几周之内，中国股市就蒸发掉了数万亿美元的市值。
The sudden panic reminded me of the way a table of baccarat players at the city’s Lisboa casino will — with irrational violence of mood — suddenly abandon a table and rush towards another, where the i ching or “winds of fortune” have mysteriously alighted according to supernatural laws that no one understands or wants to understand.
这波突如其来的恐慌让我想起了，澳门葡京娱乐场(Lisboa Casino)里的一桌百家乐(baccarat)玩家是怎样带着强烈的非理性情绪，突然离开一桌、奔向另一桌——因为“运气”已依据某些无人明白、也无人想明白的超自然法则神秘地降临在另一桌上。
I know that feeling well. In darker days, I used to hole up at the old Lisboa (Macau’s most venerable old-style casino, owned by Stanley Ho, the redoubtable property developer and champion ballroom dancer) and while away my nights descending through the vertically stacked casinos, one by one, with ever-diminishing handfuls of chips. When I embarked on these self-defeating ventures (as any casino executive will tell you, the punter always loses to the house), I had no idea how the Chinese approached matters of luck, fortune and sudden wealth gained not by hard work or cunning but by the act of throwing yourself into the flow of the i ching. For the favourite Chinese game at the tables is baccarat punto blanco, virtually the only card game played in commercial casinos that involves no skill or intelligence whatsoever.
我非常了解那种感觉。在比较阴郁的日子里，我曾躲进老葡京娱乐场（澳门最令人仰慕的老式赌场，所有者是令人敬畏的地产开发商兼交谊舞高手何鸿燊(Stanley Ho)），在那里消磨夜间时光，逛完这一层的赌场再逛下一层，手里的筹码不断减少。当我展开这些自我挫败性质的冒险时（任何一位赌场高管都会告诉你，赌客总是会输给赌场），我真不知道中国人是如何对待运气、机会的，也不知道他们如何对待不是通过勤奋或动脑子、而是通过听任运气摆布而获得的意外之财。赌桌上最受中国人欢迎的游戏是北美百家乐(Punto Banco)，它几乎是商业赌场里唯一一种不需丝毫技巧或智慧的纸牌游戏。
To play this form of baccarat requires nothing but passivity and resignation. The punter — less a player than a participant in forces outside his or her control — is handed a trio of cards and turns them willy-nilly. There is a strange pleasure in accepting this way of relating to money. Win or lose, it is not your fault but the fault of cosmic “winds.”
玩这种百家乐游戏，玩家只需要做到被动和顺从。赌客——与其说是玩家，不如说是参与了自身无法控制的力量的人——会收到三张牌，然后不管愿意不愿意都要把这三张牌翻开。接受这种与钱建立联系的方式，让人有一种奇怪的喜悦感。不管输赢，都不是你个人的责任，而是宇宙之“势”的责任。
This superstition is cemented into the casino’s physical structure — both in the gigantic jade statues of the goddess of luck and in the vertical boards of numbers by each baccarat table, which show every player the direction in which each “wind” is blowing at that moment. Winning or losing trends for that table are tabulated as lines of numbers thought to show where the momentum lies.
这种迷信被牢牢嵌入了赌场的物理结构中，比如巨大的玉质幸运女神雕像，以及每张百家乐赌桌旁边的数字立板。立板向每名玩家展示，此时此刻每种“气”正吹向哪个方向。赌桌的输赢趋势被标记为成行的数字，这些数字据信展示了运势所在。
Around the tables there is a mood of collective hysteria and suspension of disbelief. The gamblers seem at times to go into trances, mesmerised by what they think is the movement of luck swinging in their direction (or indeed away from it). When a table’s numbers shift, the players hare off to a more propitious one. Yet they have no control whatsoever over their outcomes at any table. It is mystifying but, when you are a participant, exhilarating precisely because you have surrendered control.
赌桌周围，赌客们全都陷入了歇斯底里，弥漫着怀疑情绪。他们似乎时不时地进入恍惚状态，痴迷地关注着那些他们认为代表运气正朝自己摆过来（或摆离自己）的变化。当桌旁的数字发生变化时，玩家们就朝着一个更幸运的赌桌飞奔过去。但他们其实控制不了自己在任何一桌的结局。这令人困惑不解，但当你参与其中时，反而恰恰会因为交出了控制权而兴奋不已。
Investing on the Shanghai stock exchange, though, is surely different. There, one would think, skill, shrewdness and prudence would pay better dividends than trusting to the impersonal forces of luck. Yet the Chinese refer to playing the stock markets as chao gupiao — “stir frying” stocks. They do not see it as long-term investing but as a kind of gambling in order to grow rich as quickly and effortlessly as possible. Like a fling at the baccarat table, a stir fry is fast and tasty; it needs little thought. The “player” is entering a collective state of hope and superstition.
不过，在上海证交所投资股票肯定是不同的。人们会认为，在那里，相对于听凭客观运势摆布，技巧、机智和审慎能给你带来更大的红利。然而，中国人却把投资股市叫作“炒股”。他们不把这当作长期投资，而是当作一种赌博，目标是尽可能快、尽可能不费力地致富。正如在百家乐赌桌上恣意行乐一样，“炒”又快又好玩，基本不需要思考。“玩家”正在进入一种集体的希冀和迷信状态。
Most Chinese investors are private citizens of relatively modest means, many of whom have borrowed to make their purchases. They have not necessarily devoted painstaking analysis to their trades, and when the market tumbles they stampede. The stock market problem is mainly one of confidence.
大多数中国投资者是财富相对不多的散户，其中许多人借钱买股票。他们未必潜心分析了他们的交易，当股市大跌时，他们会竞相出逃。股市的问题主要是信心问题。
But confidence is what a casino runs on, and what a gambler in that casino also runs on. An American executive who runs a big Macau casino once told me that, although the house could finely calculate the mathematical odds for or against the player at any given game, it could never calculate how the Chinese would react to good or bad luck. “That,” he said wearily, “is pure psychology.”
但信心是赌场运行的基础，也是赌场中赌客下注的基础。一名在澳门经营一家大型赌场的美国高管曾告诉我，尽管赌场能精确计算出某一给定游戏中玩家输赢的数学概率，但说到中国人对好运气或坏运气会作何反应，赌场却永远也算不出来。“那个，”他疲倦地说，“纯粹是个心理问题。”
