Caged Song

我会被各式各样的文字打动，比如下面的一则读者来信:

2023-06-01

I found Schulz’s account of containerized cargo lost at sea fascinating. A friend from Liverpool once recounted a story about a banana ship arriving in England after the Second World War. The news spread among the local children, who raced to the docks to witness the first bananas they’d ever seen ferried from ship to shore. Nowadays, with container shipping, those bananas would be hidden from view. I wonder what we have gained and lost with the transition to containerization. Certainly, the oceans themselves have lost, and it’s not clear to me that economic analyses have accounted for things like the reduction in labor security for dockworkers. Then, there is the loss of innocent wonder: I can’t help but think of those children, so many years ago, excited at their first glimpse of a banana.

Margaret H. Freeman

Heath, Mass

我大概能想起来，当时有一票小黄鸭的货在海上遗失了，于是它们得以漂洋过海，拜访全球的港口。

Heath 的这位玛格丽特，写的温婉动人。人们固然关心经济发展方方面面的影响，但也要有人记得，那些失落的奇观，比如漂洋过海来看你的香蕉。