A sorry tale

A migrant worker’s story of her travails is a huge hit in China

一个农民工的遭遇故事在中国大受欢迎

But urban snobbery towards such people will be hard to change
但是对这些人的城市势利将难以改变

范雨素

1. NATIVES of China’s capital find it all too easy to ignore the millions of people who have moved to the city from the countryside. The newcomers live on building sites, or in windowless rooms in the basements of apartment blocks. Many of them rent cramped accommodation in ramshackle “migrant villages” on the city’s edges. Beijing-born residents often treat the outsiders with scorn, blaming them for much of the city’s crime and its pockets of squalor. It is usually only when the “peasant workers” flock back to their home towns to celebrate the lunar new year that Beijingers grudgingly admit the migrants are essential—for a grim few weeks the city is bereft of delivery boys, street vendors and domestic helpers.

cramped: a cramped room, building etc does not have enough space for the people in it
ramshackle: a ramshackle building or vehicle is in bad condition and in need of repair
pocket: a small area or amount of something that is different from what surrounds it
squalor: the condition of being dirty and unpleasant because of a lack of care or money
grudging: A grudging feeling or action is felt or done very unwillingly.
grim: making you feel worried or unhappy
bereft: If a person or thing is bereft of something, they no longer have it.

1）中国首都的当地人感觉从农村搬到城市的数百万人都很容易被忽视。这些新来的人住在建筑工地上，或住在公寓地下室的无窗房间里。他们中的许多人租住在城市边缘摇摇欲坠的“移民村庄”狭窄的居所。北京出生的居民经常轻蔑地对待外地人，谴责他们是这个城市的大部分犯罪行为以及藏污纳垢之地的罪魁祸首。通常只有当“农民工”为庆祝农历新年回到家乡时，北京人才勉强承认移民是不可或缺的——在这难捱的几个星期，城市没有快递员、街头摊贩和家庭钟点工。

2. Recently, however, one such worker has caused a national stir with an autobiographical work circulated online. The 7,000-character essay, titled “I am Fan Yusu”, describes the hardships of Ms Fan (pictured): the deprivations of her rural childhood; her hand-to-mouth urban existence after she left home at the age of 20; and her marriage to an abusive and alcoholic man whom she eventually abandoned. Since then, she has looked after their two daughters alone.

deprivation: the lack of something that you need in order to be healthy, comfortable, or happy
hand-to-mouth: if you have a hand-to-mouth existence, you have only just enough money and food to live

2）然而，最近有一名这样的工人用网上流传的一部自传作品引起了全国的轰动。这篇题为《我是范雨素》的7000字文章描述了范女士（图）的苦难：她农村童年的匮乏;她在二十岁时离开家乡后勉强糊口的城市生活；以及她嫁给一个虐待她和酗酒的男人、最终离异的婚姻。从那时起，她一直独自照顾他们的两个女儿。

3. Few city-born Chinese would be surprised by such a story. What has captured their imagination is Ms Fan’s ambition and determination, as well as her literary passion and flair—migrants from the countryside are often regarded as uncultured bumpkins. Within days, her essay had been viewed millions of times. She has become such a celebrity in China that she appears to have gone into hiding to escape local reporters who have been searching for her.

flair：a natural ability to do something very well = talent
bumpkin:informal someone from the countryside who is considered to be stupid

3）几乎没有城市出生的中国人会惊讶于这样一个故事。引起他们想象的是范女士的野心和决心，以及她的文学热情和天赋——农村的移民往往被认为是没文化的乡巴佬。在几天之内，她的文章已被浏览了数百万次。她在中国已经成为这样一个名人以至于她似乎已经隐藏起来以躲过寻找她的国内记者。

4. As a girl, Ms Fan devoured Chinese literature as well as novels in translation such as “Oliver Twist” and “Robinson Crusoe”. For the past few years she has lived in Picun, a migrant settlement on the outskirts of Beijing. There she has used the little time off she has from her job as a nanny to write essays and poetry. The widely held stereotype has it that China’s migrants leave their rural lives behind for one reason only: to earn more money than they could in their villages. Readers of Ms Fan’s account discovered that some have a bigger dream—of intellectual improvement. “I couldn’t bear to stay in the countryside viewing the sky from the bottom of a well, so I went to Beijing,” wrote Ms Fan, who is 44.

devour: to read something quickly and eagerly, or watch something with great interest
stereotype: a belief or idea of what a particular type of person or thing is like. Stereotypes are often unfair or untrue

4）当她还是小时，范女士如饥似渴地读过中国文学以及像《雾都孤儿》和《鲁宾逊漂流记》这样的翻译小说。过去几年，她住在北京郊区的移民定居点皮村。在那里，她利用做保姆的很少的空余时间写作散文和诗歌。在被广泛认同的刻板印象中，中国的移民只因为一个原因而放弃农村生活：他们比待在村庄能赚更多的钱。范女士的读者发现有些人则有更大的梦想——知识的进步。 “我不能忍受留在乡下，坐井观天，所以我去了北京，”44岁的范女士说。

5. That this could be a surprise is a sign of pervasive urban snobbery. Tens of thousands of people have posted comments on Ms Fan’s essay, many expressing sympathy with her travails and praising her writing. Many others, however, have not been able to resist nitpicking over her style, as if trying to prove that someone from the countryside who did not complete high school could ever write truly polished prose. One blogger called the essay “a bowl of coarse rice”.

snobbery: behaviour or attitudes which show that you think you are better than other people, because you belong to a higher social class or know much more than they do - used to show disapproval
travail: a difficult or unpleasant situation, or very tiring work
nitpick: To be concerned with or find fault with insignificant details.

5）这种出人意料正是普遍的城市势利的标志。数以万计的人对范小姐的文章发表了评论，许多人表示同情她的遭遇，并赞扬她的写作。然而，其他很多人却忍不住对她的风格吹毛求疵，好像要试图证明来自没有读完高中的农村人并不能写出真正精致的文章。一位博主称这篇文章为“一碗糙米”。

6. Urbanites’ usual disregard for rural migrants is evident in Picun, which is home not only to Ms Fan and more than 20,000 other people from the countryside, but also to the capital’s only museum that pays tribute to the migrants’ contributions to city life. The privately run institution is small and receives very few visitors—a pity, given how it reinforces Ms Fan’s story (she has taken part in a writers’ workshop there). The exhibits make clear that the migrants routinely suffer from dangerous work conditions, the withholding of wages and state-imposed barriers in their access to housing, education and health care.

tribute: something that you say, do, or give in order to express your respect or admiration for someone

6）城镇居民对农民的普遍漠视在皮村中是显而易见的，这里不仅是范女士以及来自农村的其他20,000多人的家，还有首都唯一一家颂扬移民对城市生活贡献的博物馆。这家私人经营的机构很小而且来访者稀少——很可惜，鉴于它给了范女士的故事以支持（她曾在那儿参加了作家的工作坊）。这些展览清楚地展示出移民经常遭遇危险的工作条件、工资的克扣，以及在住房、教育和医疗方面国家施加的障碍。

7. Migrants from the countryside numbered 282m at the end of last year, 4m more than in 2015 (an increase in just one year equivalent to the population of Los Angeles). The hardships portrayed in the museum and in Ms Fan’s writings are shared by nearly all of them.
   7）去年底，农村移民人数达到2.82亿人，比2015年增加了4百万人（一年的人口增长相当于洛杉矶的总人口）。在博物馆和范女士的作品中描绘的艰辛几乎是他们所共有的。

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原文出处：经济学人

翻译：七呵夫

本译文仅供个人研习、欣赏语言之用，谢绝任何转载及用于任何商业用途。本译文所涉法律后果均由本人承担。本人同意简书平台在接获有关著作权人的通知后，删除文章。