[推荐]疯狂英语阅读系列: A Letter From Thailand

weibiran 发表于 2004-9-26 10:39:00 | 只看该作者 [复制链接] 打印
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[size=3][face=隶书][color=blue]谁说俺混贴,俺跟谁急~~~~~~[/color][/face][/size]
[mp=400,100]http://bbs.englishvod.net/down/mp3/cr/cr32/mp3/天涯游子情.mp3[/mp] This isn't the way you're supposed to feel when you travel abroad. You're supposed to be immersed in the exotic, pleasantly 1)buzzed, delightfully lost, happily, if temporarily, in exile. You're supposed to shuck off your old self, lose track of the news back home and try on an utterly foreign way of life. That is how Leslie and I have felt here in Southeast Asia for the last six weeks, two Californians sleeping in primitive beach bungalows in Malaysia, studying Buddhism with Thai monks, exchanging smiles with playful Muslim school kids in Singapore. But that was before yesterday, before terrorists 2)hijacked four American planes, 3)toppled the World Trade Center and attacked the Pentagon. Now, here in southern Thailand, we search for Internet cafes and international phones. We share the horrifying news with fellow travelers. And, more than anything, we long for home. It's late now, nearly midnight, on the island of Koh Samui, a sun-kissed 4)speck of land off Thailand's east coast with coconut palms, 5)turquoise waters and 6)cascading waterfalls. Paradise, some people say. But this isn't feeling much like paradise. I'm sitting on the bed of our hotel room as Leslie drifts in and out of sleep, writing this as the TV 7)flickers with images of burning buildings and terrified New Yorkers. We 8)forked over 1,500 baht for a fancy room on the beach. Not because we want to work on our tans. Because we desperately wanted English-language news. Whatever you may think about globalization and modernization, CNN can still be hard to find in places like Thailand. Where is Jeff Greenfield when I need him? We're settling, oddly, for German news in English. We've got to have news, some way to connect with home. The feeling of helplessness that so many Americans are complaining about now, that urge to help without a 9)means, is only 10)amplified here on Koh Samui. What should we do? Fly home? That won't help. So instead we watch the surreal images, unable to shut them off, even when they just repeat themselves. We sit at the edge of the bed and hold each other silently, fearing that the world has changed in some 11)irrevocable way we cannot yet 12)articulate. And I write, hoping to 13)exorcise some frustration. I've been frustrated for another reason, too. Hours after the attack, we sat in an Internet café as images of the airliner crashing into the World Trade Center and Thai-language news filled the room. I watched, horrified, shocked. The dozen locals in the café—men and women in their twenties and thirties—appeared to have little interest. They buried their heads in e-mail and video games, glancing up at the reports only occasionally. 14)Make-believe explosions held more interest than real ones. I wanted to scream at them: How can you ignore this? As time wore on, it dawned on me that, to them, America is an impossibly faraway place, a place where crazy things happen all the time, a place so far removed from daily life that they can't begin to appreciate the 15)enormity of the events. I realize, watching this from their perspective, how many times I have viewed news reports of terrorist attacks in Israel or Northern Ireland or Africa and shaken my head in 16)disgust but felt, in some way, emotionally disconnected. The world, it seemed, was just too big to wrap my mind around. What is life-changing to one person is, to another, just another headline. Besides, these things always happen somewhere else. This time, for us, somewhere else is home. The world is shrinking in so many ways. Yet at times like this, in the face of such horrible news, when friends and family are so distant and we're surrounded by people who can't begin to imagine how we feel, the world can feel agonizingly, painfully huge. This is a dark side of travel. A side, thankfully, we don't often see.
[size=3][face=隶书][color=blue]谁说俺混贴,俺跟谁急~~~~~~[/color][/face][/size]
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发表于 2004-9-26 10:39:00 | 只看该作者
中文翻译参考如下: 天涯游子情 这根本不是你在外国旅游时应该感受到的,你应该体验到的是另外一种美妙的感觉——悠闲地漫步在异国天空下,享受幸福而短暂的自我放逐;可以彻底地放松自己,抛开在家乡发生的所有的事情,尝试全新的、异国的生活方式。 这正是我和雷斯里在过去六个月里的东南亚之行的切身体会。我们两个加州游客酣睡在马来西亚的原始沙滩别墅里,在泰国和僧侣一道学习佛法,还在新加坡与穆斯林学校的一群顽童们微笑致意。 但那些都是昨天以前的事情,昨天恐怖分子劫持了四架美国客机,撞毁了世贸双塔,并同时袭击了五角大楼。现在,身处泰国南部的我们忙乱地搜寻着网吧和可以打国际长途的电话机,与周围的游客们一道忍受恐怖消息的煎熬。此时此刻,我们比任何时候都想家。 几近午夜,万籁俱寂的苏梅岛是泰国东海岸的一个小岛。这里终年阳光和煦,棕榈丛立,绿水如玉,瀑流飞泻,人们把它形容成人间仙境。但现在我却没有半点置身仙境的感觉。我现在坐在酒店房间的床榻上写着这篇文章,而雷斯里辗转反侧地试图入睡,而电视屏幕上正闪现着烈火熊熊的高楼和惊恐万分的纽约市市民。我们不惜花费1500泰铢在沙滩上租了一间豪华的房间,不是为了要把自己的皮肤晒成古铜色,而是为了看英语新闻而不得已为之。无论你怎么看待全球化和现代化进程,可在泰国这样的地方你却很难看到CNN电视台的节目。在我最需要CNN政治事务分析员杰夫·格林菲尔德的时候,那家伙到底在哪儿呢?最后我们没有办法,只好收看德国电视台的英语新闻。 我们必须要想办法,我们要知道发生在我们国家的事情。 那种无助的感觉,那种被很多美国人抱怨的着急却使不上劲的感觉,在苏梅岛显得更加强烈。我们该怎样做呢?飞回去吗?根本于事无补。我们只好呆在电视机前看着那些令人难以置信的画面,一遍又一遍地重复,根本没有办法把电视机关掉。我们坐在床沿边无声地拥抱在一起,我们害怕局势会不受控制,害怕这个世界因此变得面目全非。我只有写点东西,希望可以帮助驱散心中的烦闷。 让我觉得烦闷的还有另外一个原因。在美国遭遇袭击之后的几个小时里,我们一直呆在网吧里,电脑屏幕上放着客机撞向世贸大厦的情景,伴随着耳边叽里呱啦的泰语新闻。我紧紧地盯着那些屏幕画面,感觉自己很恐慌,也很震惊。网吧里还有十几个当地人,男男女女都有,二、三十岁左右,可他们却显得无动于衷。他们专心致志地埋首于电子邮件和视频游戏中,只偶尔抬头听一下最新的报道,他们更感兴趣的是游戏里的爆炸场面。我当时真想朝他们大声疾呼:“你们怎能如此麻木呢?” 随着时间的流逝,我渐渐明白过来:对他们来说,美国是一个非常遥远的国度,在那里整天都在发生着疯狂的事情,那里发生的事情和他们柴米油盐的百姓生活没有关联,所以他们也无法为之动容,也意识不到事件的严重性。 我意识过来,是因为我看到了他们思考问题的角度。我自己又何尝不是如此呢?多少次当我看到恐怖分子在以色列、北爱尔兰、或者在非洲发动恐怖袭击的时候,我都会憎恶地摇摇头,可多少是以一种事不关己的旁观者心态。我当时认为,世界实在太大了,我根本无法心忧天下。改变某个人命运的大事仅仅是另一个人眼中的新闻标题罢了。而且,这些事总会在其他地方发生。 可这次却不同,恐怖事件发生在我们自己的国家。 这个世界通过许多方式变得越来越小。但在这样的时刻,面对这样的噩耗,亲朋好友远在天边,而我们又置身于一群对我们的感受无动于衷的陌生人中,我们也痛苦地发现,世界也会由此变得广袤与荒凉。 这只是旅途中不幸的一面。欣慰的是,这一面我们并非常常遭遇到。
[size=3][face=隶书][color=blue]谁说俺混贴,俺跟谁急~~~~~~[/color][/face][/size]
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