DPS 周刊 161 - Other Rivers, Another Narrative
刚刚读完了何伟最新的 Other Rivers，这是他最好的一部作品。
这部书的好主要有两方面，一方面是他过去近三十年写作的集大成者，另一方面这本书凸显了他作为观察者和记录者的细致。
尽管这本书从他2019年到2021年在川大教书的教书经历展开，但其实穿插着他在中国生活的三段生活经历，通过他的记录和书信来比较 — 90年代参加中美志愿者 (Peace Corps 的第三批志愿者) 到涪陵教书，2000年代成为 The New Yorker 的驻京记者，2019年到川大教书。
何伟之所以被分配到涪陵教书，是因为当时受改革开放政策影响，需要提高边远地区的英语教学水平，恰好四川又是邓小平的老家，所以他就被分配去了那。当他初到涪陵时，几乎是半个多世纪以来，第一位在涪陵常驻的外国人。再往前，就是解放前。出生在涪陵的 Robert Hilliard 是因为他的父亲和叔叔曾经在涪陵的医院执业，而那早已是1943年。自从他们全家于1944年搬离涪陵之后，半个多世纪里，几乎没有人常驻在这个小城里。
至于2017年他申请再次回到涪陵师范学院任教，却被无限拖延。据说愿意是因为薄被打倒，而涪陵被划归到重庆下面，重庆不想找来不必要的麻烦，所以就一直拖着不回复。后来他申请成都的川大，立马就获批了。
既然谈教育，何伟不仅比较了在涪陵教书和在川大教书两个地区和时代的异同，还通过他在涪陵教的的师范生，通过他们的观察来比较：
His students typically followed lessons on mobile phones, which seemed common in smaller cities, where households rarely had a spare computer.
Nowadays, education was another form of competition, a way for children to strive for class rank and gaokao scores. Emily’s perspective was broader: she believed that an ideal school also teaches values, empathy, and self-awareness.
He often surveyed his students, and recently he had given a questionnaire to a large first-year class. Of the 229 respondents, only 18 percent had had a sexual relationship.
从更长的维度而言，这本书跨越了一个多世纪，记录了中美两国教育的交织：何伟妻子张彤禾的爷爷张莘夫于1920年抵达美国留学，在密歇根矿业学院接受教育之后，他先在美国工作了几年，然后于1927年回到中国，成为中国矿业的先驱之一。而在差不多的时间，何伟的外公 Frank Dietz 在罗马的 Sant’Anselmo all’Aventino 学成之后，曾经计划到北京的辅仁大学（今天台湾辅仁大学的前身）传道授业，但最终没有成行。所以当何伟与张彤禾将他们的双胞胎女儿 Ariel 和 Natasha 送入成都实验小学就读，似乎是一个多世纪的中美轮回 – 祖父辈从中国到美国留学，他在中国任教，他的子女从美国跑到中国留学。
Leslie and I had had previous experience with almost everything else: in the past, both of us had lived and worked in China for more than a decade. But we had never had children in a Chinese public school, and the adjustment had been nearly as hard as what I remembered from the Peace Corps.
The Chinese way could be frustrating, but it could also be wonderfully straightforward. As long as our daughters did their work, and as long as they came to class prepared to learn, they were treated the same as every other child. The school was one of the few parts of my Chengdu life that had never been complicated by politics.
另一方面，从中国前往美国留学的趋势也有很大的变化：最早从容闳的中美幼童留学计划的四年120名留学生（包括詹天佑等人），到八十年代重开国门后的奖学金留学，再到21世纪的自费留学首选地，直到近几年的大幅萎缩。这些变化也从另一个侧面反映了中美两国的关系 – 时好时坏，又永远无法彻底剥离。
In those days, Chinese students who made it to the United States tended to be from elite institutions, and the numbers were relatively small: in 1996, 42,503 Chinese were enrolled at American universities. Many of them were talented graduate students who had been attracted by scholarship offers, and they usually decided to settle in the United States.
The United States was the favorite destination for students: in 2019, there were more than 372,000 Chinese at American institutions. The vast majority of these students paid full tuition, which was a prime motivation for the hybrid programs.
According to the Ministry of Education, more than 80 percent of Chinese students returned after completing their studies abroad, which, in historical terms, was unprecedented. There had never been another authoritarian nation in which so many prosperous and educated young people left to study in democratic societies and then willingly came back.
I thought of this as the last bulwark of U.S.–China friendship. The Peace Corps was gone; the Fulbright program had ended; the consulate was closed; most American journalists had been expelled; there were essentially no more functioning exchange programs in China. But at least some Chinese artists were painting dead Americans and their dead dogs.
有意思的是，早在上个世纪，中国就早已是美国人眼中的焦点，在何伟外祖父 Frank 的日记中，他于1931年3月23日写道：
All small talk among Americans is now about China.
反而到了全球化的今天，似乎有一种反过来的趋势：何伟说他的《江城》在中国卖得比美国好，很大程度上是因为中国的读者希望看到这样的历史切片。反倒是不少美国读者对此有误解，从 Goodread 中的不少评论中有所体现。
I think no one would like Fuling city after reading your story. But I can’t complain as everything you write about is the fact. I wish the city would be more attractive with time.
Among educated Chinese, there was a new curiosity about how outsiders viewed the country, and readers seemed more confident than in the past.
类似的趋势在中国也有所体现，比如对比90年代涪陵（改革一代）和21世纪川大的学生（习近平一代），前者崇尚竞争，而后者对改革不抱希望，衣着和取英文名都日趋保守。
For my online sections of freshman composition, most students had selected old-school white middle-class standards: Agnes, Florence, David, Andy, Charles, Steve, Peter, Brian.
When was the last time any American named his kid Brian? But nowadays the Chinese were making Brians in Sichuan and Chongqing.
关于疫情的几篇报道，何伟认为要放在文章写作时的语境和时间上看。他写的第一篇文章是在疫情初期，中国政府的部分措施确实有效，这和后期的清零政策完全不一样。但大量外媒记者被迫离开，使得关于中国的报道非常有限，也就是没有球员，只剩裁判。
But the same bureaucracy played a positive role in the next stage of the pandemic. Government structures served as a kind of scaffolding, the way contact tracing was attached to existing networks of neighborhood committees.
My own experience made me inclined to believe that the Wuhan Institute of Virology would have had trouble maintaining a strict silence about a lab accident that sparked the pandemic.
It seemed unlikely that highly educated people at the Institute of Virology would have known about the escape of a deadly new virus and then said nothing, either intentionally or accidentally, while the disease killed thousands in their hometown over a period of weeks. Even a quiet warning to friends probably would have blown up, as it did with Li Wenliang.
作为一个观察者和记录者，这本书无处不体现着何伟的细致：
On his desk, a small gay-pride flag sat next to one featuring the face of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan.
He handed me a silver tray with a sprig of flowers, a bowl of glutinous rice, and a red Valentine’s-style card. “It’s March eighth!” he said. I had forgotten—International Women’s Day. He pointed at the rice and the card. “It’s free,” he said. “Write a message to your wife!”
Ariel and Natasha reported that their classmates had found a use for discarded masks during lunch: they turned them upside down, like little pouches, and filled them with bones and other food to be thrown away.
The music teacher is wearing a striped jacket, gray shirt, and black dress pants, plus latex gloves and a blue mask as well as a fake Rolex watch. I told Ariel that the fake Rolex was a good touch—details matter.
The work phone rang incessantly, with a ringtone that featured a woman’s voice. “Jia you! Jia you! Jia you!” she said. “Go! Go! Go!”
I came to think of my Sichuan University students as belonging to Generation Xi, because they had grown up entirely under the leader’s authority. But I noticed that they almost never mentioned his name.
On the third floor, we passed a map of China with red strings attached to the various places where volunteers once served: Fuling, Leshan, Mianyang, Guiyang, Lanzhou—dozens of towns across the southwest. The strings used to connect to the names of current volunteers; now they hung slack from the wall.
当然，何伟的幽默也无处不在：
There are many types of loneliness in this world, but it’s a special isolation to feel that you are the only individual in a forty-three-story building who is drinking his way through a lockdown.
Our Chinese Honda had been manufactured in Wuhan, and we called it the COVID car.
When I drove to campus, I parked the COVID car in the basement of the College of Marxism.
如果问这本书最大的意义是什么？七十年前美国国务院在国民党撤离大陆之后发布一部白皮书，其中的一段正好回答了这一问题：
“This is a frank record of an extremely complicated and most unhappy period in the life of a great country to which the United States has long been attached by ties of closest friendship.”
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Recap
可持续的习惯有多重要？Nick Maggiulli 结合自己的饮食，锻炼和投资，分享了他的看法：
- 可持续性要求我们采取长期的方式，而不是短期的临时措施，以确保在饮食，锻炼和投资中维持持续的进步和成功；
- 特别是在投资中，只有当投资方式可持续时，才能在市场波动中保持信心，坚持投资，而不是在恐慌时选择退出；
- 简化决策可以减少思考负担，使我们能够将更多精力集中在更重要和复杂的问题上，从而提高效率和专注度。
如何创作文案写作？Harry Dry 分享了他的经验：
- 好句子是简洁的好句子。
- 在 Figma 中写作，而非 Google Docs，以便同时进行设计。
- 任何不起作用的词都是在反作用。
- 文案的三大法则：具体、可见、可验证。
- 具体化，避免抽象表达。
- 让内容可视化，使读者更容易理解。
- 用删除键写作，减少词汇以增强影响力。
- 文案应具备差异化，避免竞争对手能够写的句子。
Herbert Lui 是一位非常高产的写作者，但他坦言自己有时候也无法定期发布电子报：
- 他的生活占据了大部分大脑带宽，所以每周日定期发布电子报不太现实；
- 当他把更新频率从每周降为每几周之后，他的负担立马小了很多；
- 他决定以后尝试新事物时，不要给自己太具体的时间限制，变得灵活更容易坚持下去。
去年我们将 AwesomeVisa 的更新频率从每两周一次到每周一次，这也让我觉得压力巨大，今年降到每十天一次，确实感觉轻松了很多。
一份躺平的工作有哪些好处？KayDee 列举了这些：
- 你可以有剩余的精力来做其他事，比如发展自己的爱好，做自己的项目，等等；
- 你可以更好地掌控工作与生活的平衡，有固定的假日和收入；
- 最重要的是，个人成长并不一定要发生在工作中，而是可以发生在工作以外。
为什么 Tinder 是对社会非常有意义的 app？Evan Armstrong 认为它可以促进生育率，从而让经济变得更可持续：
- Tinder 通过帮助人们建立恋爱关系，间接促进生育率，从而支持经济的持续发展；
- 年轻人感到疲惫是因为约会应用没有满足他们的真实社交需求，导致社交活动减少和婚姻率下降，而 Tinder 提供了更多的约会可能性，从而修复这一问题；
- 目前 Tinder 最大的问题在于它的盈利点需要用户长久地留在 app 上，而这与前面说探讨的点相矛盾。如果能有更好的 dating app 可以解决这一问题，那么生育率也就有可能可以提高。
Archive
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