大学跨文化英语-综合教程I-Unit-6-Making-Sense-of-China课文翻译.docxVIP

Making Sense of China Romain Vuattoux 1 For many foreigners, China is a mystical faraway land with a strange difficult language, an ancient complex culture and an inexplicable economic miracle, sometimes praised and sometimes demonized by Western media. Much of these perceptions are stereotyped and biased, and it is not until these foreigners come to China that their mind begins to change and their preconceived ideas shatter to pieces. Yet more confusion and strong feelings, such as surprise, frustration and loneliness, usually arise from the experience of living in China. One can only wonder: How can such a foreign place feel so much like home yet be so different? How can such a place generate so many contradictory feelings?2 From the first day I arrived in China, it has been an explosion of the senses. The first sense stimulated was the sense of smell. China has a specific smell, which you recognize when you land at the airport and when you walk on the streets. In the warm humid summer air of southern cities such as Shanghai, it is a mixture of food, sweat, pollution, exhausts, garbage and sewer. The fragrances that many a foreigner may associate with China is that of street food and especially the odor of “choudoufu” (stinky tofu) and that of “baijiu” (rice wine). Every foreigner who has lived in China remembers the first time they wondered what animal had died nearby, and many have great tales of their first trial at eating “choudoufu,” or drinking “baijiu.”3 Hearing is probably the sense that is excited in the most unpleasant manner. From people yelling on the phone in a congested metro or bus, to the constant honking of motorbikes, e-bikes, cars and even bicycles, or the bells of street seller and collectors, the noises made by construction sites, the ears are never left alone and silence is often hard to find. My personal funniest story about sound was the first morning I woke up in China. It was early in the morning, I was jet-lagged and a rooster wa