THE FLIGHT FROM MARRIAGE 全文翻译.docVIP

THE FLIGHT FROM MARRIAGE 全文翻译 The flight from marriage 逃避婚姻(2011-08-21 10:05:43)转载标签： 杂谈 分类： 转载 Asians are marrying later, and less, than in the past. This has profound implications for women, traditional family life and Asian politics 亚洲人比过去结婚更晚、更少。这对女性、传统家庭生活以及亚洲政治产生了深刻影响。 WITH her filmy polka-dot dress, huge sunglasses and career as a psychologist, Yi Zoe Hou of Taiwan might seem likely to be besieged by suitors. Yet, at 35, she is well past Taiwan’s unspoken marriage deadline. “It’s a global village,” she shrugs. “If I can’t find a Taiwanese guy that accepts my age, I can find another man somewhere else.” Maybe—but since she still wants children, Ms Hou is also wondering whether to use a sperm bank or ask a male friend to be a sperm donor. She represents a new world of family life for Asians. 穿着薄而透明的短上衣，戴着大大的太阳镜，以心理医生为职业，台湾人侯宜如（音译）看上去似乎不乏追求者。但是35岁的她早过了约定俗成的台湾社会结婚年龄上限。“这是个全球村，”她耸耸肩。“如果我找不到接受我年龄的台湾男人，我可以找其他地方的男人。”或许这可能。但由于侯小姐仍然想要孩子，她也在想是否要使用精子库或者向男性朋友求助捐献精子。 Conservatives in the West are fond of saying that the traditional family is the bedrock of society. That view is held even more widely in Asia. The family is the focus of Confucian ethics, which holds that a basic moral principle, xiushen (self-improvement), can be pursued only within the confines of the family. In an interview in 1994 Lee Kuan Yew, a former prime minister of Singapore, argued that after thousands of years of dynastic upheaval, the family is the only institution left to sustain Chinese culture. It embodies a set of virtues—“learning and scholarship and hard work and thrift and deferment of present enjoyment for future gain”—which, he said, underpins Asia’s economic success. He feared that the collapse of the family, if it ever happened, would be the main threat to Singapore’s success. 西方的保守者喜欢说传统的家庭是社会的基石。这一观点在亚洲更为普遍。家庭是儒家道德的中心，儒家认为基本的道德准则“修身”只有在家庭范围内才可以进行。在1994年的一次采访中，新加坡前总理李光耀说，经过几千年的王朝更迭，家庭成为唯一留存下来的传承中华文化的组织。他认为，中华文化蕴含的一系列美德——“学习，学问，勤奋，节俭，吃苦在前，享乐在后”——支撑了亚洲的经济成功。他担忧如果发生家庭解体，那将构成新加坡的成功的主要威胁