Leveling Criticism at China's Elite, Some Borrow Words From the Past
"赵家人"：中共红色权贵阶层的新称号
BEIJING — Once again, the early-20th-century writer Lu Xun, whose scathing critiques of the pre-revolutionary Chinese social order won him a place in the Chinese Communist pantheon, even though he himself was not a Marxist, has provided a popular phrase for much that is amiss in China today.
北京——又一次，鲁迅作品为中国的时弊贡献了一个流行语。鲁迅是20世纪早期的作家，曾对革命前的中国社会秩序进行过尖锐批判，因此即便他本人不是马克思主义者，还是在共产党支持的名流俊士中赢得了一席之地。
In recent weeks, "Zhao jia ren," or "Zhao family," from Lu Xun's novella "The True Story of Ah Q," has resurfaced as a disparaging term for China's rich and politically well-connected.
"赵家人"出自鲁迅的中篇小说《阿Q正传》。最近几周，它再次流传，成为用来讽刺中国权贵的蔑称。
The phrase attracted broad attention after an article titled "Barbarians at the Gate, Zhao Family Inside" began circulating online. The article, published anonymously, describes the recent attempts by China Vanke Company, a real estate developer, to fend off a hostile takeover bid by Baoneng, a property and insurance conglomerate and Vanke's largest shareholder.
当一篇题为《门口的野蛮人，背后的赵家人》的文章开始在网上流传开来时，这个词也引起了人们的广泛关注。文章没有署名，讲述的是中国房地产开发商万科公司最近试图抗击其第一大股东——地产与保险集团宝能——发出的恶意收购邀约的事情。
Vanke suspended trading in its shares on Dec. 18, saying it wanted to restructure its assets. The move was widely seen as an effort to reduce Baoneng's shares and thwart a takeover. Wang Shi, Vanke's chairman, referred to Baoneng as "barbarians," and Vanke welcomed moves by another shareholder, Anbang Insurance, to increase its shares.
While the "barbarians" in the article's title refers to Baoneng, "Zhao family" refers to Anbang, as a signal that the company has backing from Communist Party elites. Anbang's chairman, Wu Xiaohui, married the granddaughter of the Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping. The company lists Chen Xiaolu, a son of the revolutionary military commander Chen Yi, on its board.
这篇文章的标题中的"野蛮人"指宝能，"赵家人"指安邦。这是一个信号，表明安邦的背后有共产党权贵阶层撑腰。安邦董事长吴小晖娶了中国领导人邓小平的外孙女。在安邦的董事会名单中，还有革命军事指挥官陈毅之子陈小鲁的名字。
The use of "Zhao family" to refer to powerful figures has since gone viral.
从那以后，用"赵家人"指代权贵家族就形成了一股风气。
"It is a rebellious deconstruction of official language in the Internet age," Qiao Mu, an associate professor of communications at Beijing Foreign Studies University, said in an interview. "In the past we called officials public servants, but in fact, it's still a case of crony capitalism. In China, rich and powerful families are often the offspring of the Communist leaders. But it's politically sensitive to say this out loud, so people are using 'Zhao family' instead, as a form of ridicule."
"这是互联网时代对官方话语的一个颠覆性解构，"北京外国语大学国际传播副教授乔木在接受采访时说。"过去我们都叫人民公仆，实际上还是权贵资本。中国就是红二代，但你直接讲这个东西比较敏感，所以用类似于'赵家人'的说法作为一种调侃。"
Mr. Qiao published three articles on a WeChat account he managed discussing the "Zhao family" and its members' dominance in what some mockingly call "their country," or China. The account has since been deleted, but the articles have been reposted elsewhere.
乔木在他管理的一个微信账号发表了三篇文章来讨论"赵家人"，以及他们在被戏称为"你国"的中国占据的举足轻重的地位。该帐号已被删除，但文章转贴到了其他地方。
" 'Zhao family' refers to rich and powerful families in China," he wrote. "Their fathers seized political power, so their children are called 'second-generation red,' people who have used their connections to retain power or amass enormous wealth in business."
"赵家特指中国的权贵家族，"他写道。"父辈打江山位居高位，第二代俗称'红二代'，要么继续掌权，要么做生意发财。"
"Zhao family," as Mr. Qiao pointed out, derives from Lu Xun's celebrated novella. Ah Q, who is from a poor rural family, bullies those weaker than himself while currying favor with the powerful, who despise him. When Ah Q cheers with the Zhaos, a rich landlord family whose son has just passed the imperial examination, the Zhao patriarch slaps him and asks: "Do you think you are worthy of the name Zhao?"
正如乔木指出的那样，"赵家人"出自鲁迅的著名中篇小说。阿Q来自贫困的农村家庭，他欺负那些比自己弱小的人，同时又讨好那些轻视他的权贵。在富裕的地主家庭赵家，少爷中了秀才。阿Q跟着欢庆时，赵老爷却一个嘴巴抽去："呸！你也配姓赵？"
Even before this article appeared, "Zhao family" was occasionally used online to describe China's Communist elite. Discussions on Zhihu, a Chinese website similar to Quora, in which questions and answers are posted, suggest that one earlier application of the term might have been a Weibo post in May 2013 by a user calling himself Muhaogu. In it, he wrote, "Over the weekend, while dining with a friend who works in the provincial propaganda department, I asked, 'What do you guys, actual cadres working in ideology, think of those volunteer 50-centers?'
甚至在这篇文章出现之前，网上就偶尔有人用"赵家人"来指代中共权贵阶层。知乎是一个类似Quora的中国网站，供用户提出和解答问题。知乎上的讨论显示，一个网名为"穆好古"的用户在2013年5月发布的一条微博帖子，可能是这个词的一个早期使用案例。他写道："周末和一个在省团委宣传部的朋友吃饭，我问他：你们这些正牌意识形态干部是怎么看网上那些自干五的？"
"50-centers" are commenters that the government has hired to steer online discussion in favor of state policies. Those who praise the party even without being paid are sometimes called "volunteer 50-centers."
"五毛党"指政府花钱聘请的网上评论员，作用是将网上舆论朝有利于国家政策的方向引导。而那些即使没有收钱也歌颂党的人，有时就被称为"自干五"。
Muhaogu quoted the propaganda official as responding: "It's like what Master Zhao said to Ah Q: 'Do you think you are worthy of the name Zhao?' "
穆好古援引宣传官员的回答说："就像赵太爷对阿Q那样——'你哪里配姓赵！'"
The use of "Zhao family" represents "resistance to false patriotic propaganda, and dissatisfaction with the current situation," the columnist Zhao Hui wrote in Oriental Daily, a publication in Hong Kong. (Neither Mr. Zhao nor the author of this post is a member of a rich and powerful clan.)
香港刊物《东方日报》的专栏作者赵晖发表文章称，"赵家人"的说法"既是对爱国主义虚假宣传的抗拒，也是现实不满的体现"。（赵晖和本文作者均不属于有钱有势的阶层。）
"'The world is ours, the world is theirs, but ultimately it belongs to the 'Zhao family,' " he wrote. "This saying might seem simple and crude, but in a nation where rights are suppressed, it is spot on."
"世界是我们的，也是他们的，但归根结底是'赵家人'的，"他写到。"这样的说法看上去简单粗暴，但放在一个权利被普遍剥夺的国度，恰到好处。"
China's tightly controlled state news media cannot publish exposés on the country's leaders, and websites of The New York Times and Bloomberg were blocked after they ran investigative reports on the vast holdings of the families of former Premier Wen Jiabao and President Xi Jinping.
在中国，官方新闻媒体被严格控制，不能刊发揭露领导人的报道。在分别登出了有关前总理温家宝和现任国家主席习近平的家人持有巨额财产的调查性报道后，《纽约时报》(The New York Times)和彭博社(Bloomberg)的网站遭到了封锁。
"The spirit of Lu Xun's writings is so, so, so strong," a user wrote on Zhihu.
"鲁迅先生文章的生命力，真是太太太太强大了，"一名用户在知乎上写道。
This is not the first time a phrase by Lu Xun, who died in 1936, has been revived to comment on contemporary events. After the 1989 military crackdown on student-led protests around Tiananmen Square, which left hundreds, possibly thousands, dead, many reached for the writer's remarks on the 1926 shooting of student protesters by Beijing security forces: "Lies written in ink can never disguise facts written in blood."
这不是第一次有人采用早在1936年便已去世的鲁迅的话来评论时事。1989年，军队出动镇压了天安门广场周围学生牵头的抗议活动，导致数百甚至可能上千人死亡。事件发生后，很多人引用鲁迅对1926年北京安全部队朝学生抗议者开枪一事的评论："墨写的谎言，决掩不住血写的事实。"
In 1990, the Chinese writer Zha Jianying commented on Lu Xun: "The fact that he's so relevant is very sad."
1990年，中国作家查建英这样评价鲁迅："他现在还能引发如此强烈的共鸣，这个事实非常令人难过。"
欢迎关注Kiki Zhao的Twitter账户 @kikizhao。
翻译：纽约时报中文网
© The New York Times Company
No comments:
Post a Comment