Unit-2-The-Struggle-to-Be-an-All-American-Girl-課文翻譯資料

1、精品文檔 精品文檔 UNIT 2 THE STRUGGLE TO BE AN ALL-AMERICAN GIRL Elizabeth Wong 1. Its still there, the Chinese school on Yale Street where my brother and I used to go. Despite the new coat of paint and the high wire fence, the school I knew 10 years ago remains remarkably, stoically the same. 2. Every day

2、at 5 p.m., instead of playing with our fourth- and fifth-grade friends or sneaking out to the empty lot to hunt ghosts and animal bones, my brother and I had to go to Chinese school. No amount of kicking, screaming, or pleading could dissuade my mother, who was solidly determined to have us learn th

3、e language of our heritage. 3. Forcibly, she walked us the seven long, hilly blocks from our home to school, depositing our defiant tearful faces before the stern principal. My only memory of him is that he swayed on his heels like a palm tree, and he always clasped his impatient twitching hands beh

4、ind his back. I recognized him as a repressed maniacal child killer, and knew that if we ever saw his hands wed be in big trouble. Detailed Reading 4. We all sat in little chairs in an empty auditorium. The room smelled like Chinese medicine, an imported faraway mustiness. Like ancient mothballs or

5、dirty closets. I hated that smell. I favored crisp new scents, like the soft French perfume that my American teacher wore in public school. 5. Although the emphasis at the school was mainly language speaking, reading, writing the lessons always began with an exercise in politeness. With the entrance

6、 of the teacher, the best student would tap a bell and everyone would get up, kowtow, and chant, Sing san ho, the phonetic for How are you, teacher? Detailed Reading 6. Being ten years old, I had better things to learn than ideographs copied painstakingly in lines that ran right to left from the tip

7、 of a moc but , a real ink pen that had to be held in an awkward way if blotches were to be avoided. After all, I could do the multiplication tables, name the satellites of Mars, and write reports on Little Women and Black Beauty. Nancy Drew, my favorite book heroine, never spoke Chinese. Detailed R

8、eading 7. The language was a source of embarrassment. More times than not, I had tried to disassociate myself from the nagging loud voice that followed me wherever I wandered in the nearby American supermarket outside Chinatown. The voice belonged to my grandmother, a fragile woman in her seventies

9、who could outshout the best of the street vendors. Her humor was raunchy, her Chinese 精品文檔 精品文檔 rhythmless and patternless. It was quick, it was loud, it was unbeautiful. It was not like the quiet, lilting romance of French or the gentle refinement of the American South. Chinese sounded pedestrian.

10、Public. 8. In Chinatown, the comings and goings of hundreds of Chinese on their daily tasks sounded chaotic and frenzied. I did not want to be thought of as mad, as talking gibberish. When I spoke English, people nodded at me, smiled sweetly, said encouraging words. Even the people in my culture wou

11、ld cluck and say that Id do well in life. My, doesnt she move her lips fast, they would say, meaning that Id be able to keep up with the world outside Chinatown. 9. My brother was even more fanatical than I about speaking English. He was especially hard on my mother, criticizing her, often cruelly,

12、for her pidgin speech smatterings of Chinese scattered like chop suey in her conversation. Its not What it is, Mom, he would say in exasperation. Its What is it, what is it, what is it! Sometimes Mom might leave out an occasional the or a, or perhaps a verb of being. He would stop her in mid-sentenc

13、e, Say it again, Mom. Say it right. When he tripped over his own tongue, hed blame it on her, See, Mom, its all your fault. You set a bad example. 10. What infuriated my mother most was when my brother cornered her on her consonants, especially r. My father had played a cruel joke on Mom by assignin

14、g her an American name that her tongue wouldnt allow her to say. No matter how hard she tried, Ruth always ended up Luth or Roof. 11. After two years of writing with a moc but and reciting words with multiples of meanings, I finally was granted a cultural divorce. I was permitted to stop Chinese sch

15、ool. 12. I thought of myself as multicultural. I preferred tacos to egg rolls; I enjoyed Cinco de Mayo more than Chinese New Year. 13. At last, I was one of you; I wasnt one of them. 14. Sadly, I still am.精品文檔 精品文檔 為成為一個(gè)完全徹底的美國(guó)女孩而努力 1. 我和弟弟小時(shí)候上的那所耶魯大街上的中文學(xué)校還在那兒。 除了新刷的油漆和高高的電 網(wǎng)，我 10 年前就認(rèn)識(shí)的這所學(xué)校依然一切如故。

16、 。 2. 每天下午 5 點(diǎn)鐘， 我和弟弟不能和四年級(jí)、 五年級(jí)的伙伴們玩耍， 空地去尋找鬼魂和動(dòng)物骨頭，而非得去中文學(xué)校上課。無(wú)論怎么跺腳踢腿、 苦苦哀求，媽媽都無(wú)動(dòng)于衷。她下定決心要讓我們學(xué)會(huì)祖?zhèn)鞯恼Z(yǔ)言。 3. 連拖帶拽， 她帶著我們走過(guò)那長(zhǎng)長(zhǎng)的七個(gè)街區(qū)的陡坡路來(lái)到學(xué)校， 把我們?nèi)釉谀菬o(wú)比嚴(yán) 酷的校長(zhǎng)面前， 我們滿臉都是倔強(qiáng)的淚水。我頭腦里只記得， 那個(gè)校長(zhǎng)像一棵棕櫚樹(shù)， 雙腳 站立， 身體左右搖晃，雙手手指交叉放在背后總不耐煩地抽動(dòng)著。 在我眼里，他是個(gè)心情壓 抑、行為狂躁的謀殺小孩的兇手，而且還知道，如果一旦看見(jiàn)他的手，我們就有大麻煩了。 4. 我們都坐在空空蕩蕩禮堂里的小椅子上。 屋

17、內(nèi)散發(fā)著像中藥似的氣味， 一種來(lái)自遠(yuǎn)方的 陳年霉味， 像年代久遠(yuǎn)的樟腦丸或骯臟的小房間里的味道。 我對(duì)那種味道深?lèi)和唇^。 我喜愛(ài) 清新的香味，比如我的那位公立學(xué)校美國(guó)老師身上的那種溫馨的法國(guó)香水味。 5. 雖然在那所學(xué)校里主要是學(xué)習(xí)語(yǔ)言 說(shuō)話、閱讀、寫(xiě)字，但是每堂課總是以操練禮貌 開(kāi)始。 老師一走進(jìn)教室， 最好的那個(gè)學(xué)生就打鈴， 于是大家全體起立、 磕頭、并齊聲說(shuō)， “先 生好 ”，即“老師您好 ”的中文發(fā)音。 6. 那年我十歲， 比起用毛筆從右至左一橫一豎、 煞費(fèi)苦心地寫(xiě)方塊字， 我有更好的東西去 學(xué)習(xí)。 毛筆是一支真正的墨水筆，要避免弄出墨點(diǎn)兒來(lái)， 就得別別扭扭地握住筆。 我畢竟背 得出乘

18、法口訣，說(shuō)得出火星的衛(wèi)星名字，還寫(xiě)過(guò)小婦人和黑美人的讀書(shū)報(bào)告。南希德 魯是我最喜歡的書(shū)籍里的女主人翁，她可從來(lái)不說(shuō)中文。 7. 語(yǔ)言真給人帶來(lái)尷尬。 很多次我去逛唐人街附近的美國(guó)超市時(shí)， 就會(huì)從身后傳來(lái)喋喋不 休的大聲喧嘩。 我經(jīng)常要想方設(shè)法擺脫這個(gè)聲音。 那是我奶奶的聲音， 她已年逾七旬， 身體 脆弱， 但是她的喉嚨超過(guò)街上最棒的小販。她有一種低俗的幽默， 說(shuō)的中文既缺乏節(jié)奏，又 沒(méi)有句型。那聲音說(shuō)得很快、很響、很不美；不像那細(xì)聲細(xì)氣、抑揚(yáng)頓挫的浪漫法語(yǔ)，也不 像溫柔上乘的美國(guó)南部的聲音。中文聽(tīng)上去就是有市井氣，不登大雅之堂。 也不能偷偷溜進(jìn)那片 大喊大鬧、 或者 精品文檔 精品文檔 8. 在唐人街，數(shù)以千計(jì)的華人為了生計(jì)來(lái)往忙碌，他們說(shuō)起話的聲音雜亂無(wú)章。我可不想 被人以為瘋了，以為在胡言亂語(yǔ)。我開(kāi)口說(shuō)英語(yǔ)時(shí)，人們對(duì)我點(diǎn)頭