Born a Crime by Trevor Noah

PART 1 Summary

At Sandringham, Trevor made friends with a black boy named Teddy who was no less naughty than him. They were as thick as thieves. On Friday and Saturday nights, they would hang out at Balfour Park shopping mall, which was a few blocks from Trevor's house. One night, they succeeded in stealing alcohol-filled chocolates from a closed stationary shop. They kept going back to steal more until they pushed their luck too far. They were caught red-handed by a mall cop and thus started a chasing race. Trevor escaped and contrived to avoid being recognized. However, Teddy got caught and was expelled from school. Faithful to his friend, Teddy did not turn Trevor in. The police came to the principal with a video footage of the whole process. Ludicrously, the principal and their homeroom teacher mistook Trevor for some white kid as the camera couldn't expose dark and light at the same time and thus picked Trevor as white.

PART 2 Expressions

1. In Highlands North the white never took flight.

take flight/ take to flight: leave a place in order to try and escape from a person or a dangerous situation

Donald Wood's hasty flight from South Africa early in 1978

When the alarm sounded, the whole gang took flight.

put sb to flight: make sb run away especially by fighting or threatening them

2. But a handful of families would let their domestics keep their children with them, living in little maids’ quarters or flatlets in the backyard.

domestic: old-fashioned, a servant who works in a large house

3. The teachers, the pupils, the principal, everyone at school knew: Teddy and Trevor, thick as thieves.

be (as) thick as thieves: be very friendly with each other and seem to share a lot of secrets, making other people think they are hiding or planning sth

Lately Nick and Lou have been as thick as thieves.

4. We reached in, grabbed a few, drank the liquor inside, and then gobbled down the chocolates.

gobble sth/ gobble sth down/ gobble sth up: to eat sth very quickly, especially in an impolite or greedy way  SYN wolf

Don't gobble your food.

She gobbled down her lunch.

5. We’d hit the jackpot.

jackpot: 是赌博中的头奖

hit the jackpot:

1. to win a lot of money

2. to have a big success

Owens hit the jackpot in his first professional game with the Cowboys.

6. We cleared the exit.

I went back to my room, thinking I was in the clear.

第一句中的 clear: (v.) = go over, past, to go over a fence, wall etc without touching it, or to go past or through sth and no longer be in it

The plane barely cleared the fence at the end of the runaway.

The plane cleared Chinese airspace.

第二句中的 clear: （n.） in the clear: not guilty of sth

The Audit Commission said that the Ministry was in the clear.

7. My heart was pounding.

pound (v.): if your heart or blood is pounding, your heart is beating very hard and quickly

pound with  eg. Patrick rushed to the door, his heart pounding with excitement.

She ran, her heart pounding in her chest.

8. It was grainy, black-and-white security-camera footage, but you could see what was happening plain as day.

plain: clear, obvious

It is plain that Giles was not going to agree.

Let me make it plain. We do not want you here.

IF you do that again you will be severely punished. Do I make myself plain?

as plain as day/ as plain as the nose on your face: very clear

PART 3 Thoughts

They chased and chased and we ran and ran, and it was awesome. The risk of getting caught was half the fun of being naughty, and now the chase was on. I was loving it. I was shitting myself, but also loving it. This was my turf. This was my neighborhood. You couldn't catch me in my neighborhood. I knew every alley and every street, every back wall to climb over, every fence with a gap big enough to slip through. I knew every shortcut you could possibly imagine. As a kid, wherever I went, whatever building I was in, I was always plotting my escape. You know, in case shit went down. In reality I was a nerdy kid with almost no friends, but in my mind I was an important and dangerous man who needed to know where every camera was and where all the exit points were.

今天坐顺风车的时候和车主聊起了他的小孩，他感慨说，现在的小孩子身体都太金贵了，如果把他的儿子放在他小时候的环境里，他肯定活不下去。读着Trevor Noah的故事，在觉得有趣的同时，也觉得他能在南非那样压抑的环境下成长为那么一个优秀而坚韧的人与他小时候的调皮捣蛋也不无关系。小时候闯过小祸、打过架的人其实长大后可能反而会更懂得如何理性去处理与他人的矛盾，也更懂得如何与人修复破裂的关系。Trevor说自己小时候有多动症，其实我认识的很多男生包括我的表弟也都被说有多动症，但是他们顽皮捣蛋的时候总被父母训斥甚至责打，慢慢地他们天性里的顽皮被抑制了。他们成了家中眼中变懂事的孩子，但是在他们内心深处的某一角说不定仍保留着叛逆和捣蛋的冲动。就像《麦田里的守望者》里的主人公霍尔顿，有一天腻透了平淡无奇的生活，放弃父母铺设好的安稳道路而去闯荡一个陌生的世界。