双语散文:我非时尚中人

【英文译文】

摘要：我时常收到好心的编辑寄来的电脑报刊，面对那些每个字都认识、就是看不懂的天书，心想，这不是给文盲寄报刊吗？

My attitude toward the personal computer

From time to time I receive PC magazines from well-meaning editors. Reading them, I recognize the individual characters, but the whole thing is Greek to me. When faced with such publications, I think to myself, "They might as well send newspapers or magazines to an illiterate." I hate to say it, but I have to confess I don't even know how to type, much less how to surf the Internet. Several times I've tried to learn to use a computer and each time I gave up in the end, for it is not really very user-friendly. I was afraid of all mechanical devices, afraid of the keyboard and the mouse with its jumpy cursor. I was consoled by the fact that my colleague, Bai Yansong, another prime time TV host, also wrote his scripts by hand. He told me that feeling the point of the pen touching the surface of the paper gave him a kind of pleasure. I had the same feeling and found it a good excuse not to use a computer. By 1999, however, I no longer felt this attitude was justified. One day I went to my supervisor's home to hand in an article which was hand-written and a little sloppily done. Hearing my apology, the wife of my supervisor said, "It doesn't matter. I can type it out on my computer."

"You can use a computer?"

"Sure. I learned to use it when I was 70."

I was so surprised that I wasn't able to utter a single word. Once out of their flat, I made up my mind for the one-hundredth time to start learning to use a computer. I still had Bai Yansong to keep me company, but once he started learning to use the computer, he would pick it up very fast and then I would be really isolated, wouldn't I?

My English

This is a heart-breaking topic for me. When I graduated from university, I knew only the first seven letters of the English alphabet -A to G-which I used as ordinal numbers like 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, or I, II, III, IV.... Like many of the university students from factories, communes and the PLA, I had not been taught any foreign language. While I was working I was preparing to take the exam for post-graduate studies. For this purpose I asked my elder sister to teach me English. Being a professional English translator, she was extremely dissatisfied with me, a highly motivated pupil. "You are the slowest student I've ever taught," she once remarked. Later, I attended night school, the Open University, and crash courses, spending nearly all my spare time on English. After failing twice, my name finally appeared on the list of successful candidates. However, it was quite a pity that in my later days, as I seldom had the opportunity to use my English, it began to fade away bit by bit. Today I've almost completely forgotten it. I feel as if I should apologize to my former self for not living up to expectations.

My attitude toward the cell phone

For those in my trade, pagers and cell phones are a must, and are issued by the work unit. The first cell phone issued to me seemed only capable of local calls. It was a heavy black thing that took up almost one third of the space of my handbag. At that time I would always feel a little embarrassed when using it because once I heard "a high-class person" say: "A woman fishing out a beeper or a cell phone gives you the feeling that she is a spy." I particularly hated the Chinese slang term for cell phone, dagedaig brother*. Fortunately, people later began to call it by its proper name, shouji and phone*.

Nowadays cell phones are getting smaller and smaller while the area they cover is getting larger and larger. Each time there is a big story, my boss at the TV station will issue the order: all reporters and presenters, make sure your cell phones and pagers are on all the time! Return immediately when called or paged! Beep! Beep! Beep! Ring! Ring! Ring! Can you imagine how we could possibly do our job without them?

【中文原文】

关于电脑

我时常收到好心的编辑寄来的电脑报刊，面对那些每个字都认识、就是看不懂的天书，心想，这不是给文盲寄报刊吗？说来惭愧，别说上网，我连打字都不会，几次走近电脑，几次又离开它，它一点儿也不让我感到亲近。我怕一切机器，怕那些键子，那个蹦来蹦去的鼠标。让我感到安慰的是，白岩松写稿子也是手写。他说，笔尖触着纸的感觉是种享受。我有同感，也找到了一个说法儿。可到了1999年，我不能心安理得了。那天给师母送稿子，手写的，又有点儿乱。师母说："没关系，我在电脑上打出来。""您？"师母说："是啊，我70岁学的。"惊得我一下子没了话。出了门，第100次下决心，该学电脑了。白岩松一旦学来一定进步飞快，那我不就真的"孤立"起来了吗?

关于外语

这是我的伤心话题。大学毕业，我只认识英语的前7个字母， 从A到G，是当1、2、3、4，甲、乙、丙、丁用的。那时工农兵学员有很多没有上过外语课。我一边工作，一边准备考研，就拜我姐为师学英语，可她作为专业英语翻译，却对我这个虔诚的学生很不满意。"在我教过的学生里，你最笨。"后来，上夜校，上电大，上补习班，几乎把所有的业余时间都用在英语上了，经过两次名落孙山，终于榜上有名。可惜的是，后来的日子，用不着英语，就一点点忘掉，如今快忘光了。今天的我，真对不起当年的我。

关于手机

干我们这一行的，BP机、手机是必备的工具，由"组织"上发。第一次发给我的手机好像只能打市内电话，沉甸甸、黑乎乎的，包里的空间被它占了三分之一。我那时打手机总有点儿不好意思，因为曾听一位很有品位的人说，看女人掏出BP机、大哥大，像个女特务似的。我特别不喜欢"大哥大"这个名字，幸好它后来老老实实叫手机了。

现在，手机越来越小，能通达的地方越来越远。电视台每逢大事报道，头儿就会命令：全体记者主持人，必须时刻打开手机、呼机，召之即来！嘀嘀嘀，铃铃铃，真难想象，没有它们，我们怎么干活儿?