英语演讲稿Yang Lan The generation thats remaking China.docx

1、英语演讲稿Yang Lan The generation thats remaking China英语演讲稿Yang Lan The generation thats remaking China The night before I was heading for Scotland, I was invited to host the final of “Chinas Got Talent” show in Shanghai with the 80,000 live audience in the stadium. Guess who was the performing guest? Su

2、san Boyle. And I told her, “Im going to Scotland the next day.” She sang beautifully, and she even managed to say a few words in Chinese. Chinese So its not like “hello” or “thank you,” that ordinary stuff. It means “green onion for free.” Why did she say that? Because it was a line from our Chinese

3、 parallel Susan Boyle - a 50-some year-old woman, a vegetable vendor in Shanghai, who loves singing Western opera, but she didnt understand any English or French or Italian, so she managed to fill in the lyrics with vegetable names in Chinese. (Laughter) And the last sentence of Nessun Dorma that sh

4、e was singing in the stadium was “green onion for free.” So as Susan Boyle was saying that, 80,000 live audience sang together. That was hilarious.来苏格兰（做TED讲演）的前夜，我被邀请去上海做”中国达人秀“决赛的评委。在装有八万现场观众的演播厅里，在台上的表演嘉宾居然是（来自苏格兰的，因参加英国达人秀走红的）苏珊大妈（Susan Boyle)。我告诉她，“我明天就要启程去苏格兰。” 她唱得很动听，还对观众说了几句中文，她并没有说简单的”你好“或者

5、”谢谢“，她说的是“送你葱”。为什么？这句话其实来源于中国版的“苏珊大妈”一位五十岁的以卖菜为生，却对西方歌剧有出奇爱好的上海中年妇女（蔡洪平）。这位中国的苏珊大妈并不懂英文，法语或意大利文，所以她将歌剧中的词汇都换做中文中的蔬菜名，并且演唱出来。在她口中，歌剧图兰朵的最后一句便是“Song Ni Cong”。当真正的英国苏珊大妈唱出这一句“中文的”图兰朵时，全场的八万观众也一起高声歌唱，场面的确有些滑稽。So I guess both Susan Boyle and this vegetable vendor in Shanghai belonged to otherness. They w

6、ere the least expected to be successful in the business called entertainment, yet their courage and talent brought them through. And a show and a platform gave them the stage to realize their dreams. Well, being different is not that difficult. We are all different from different perspectives. But I

7、 think being different is good, because you present a different point of view. You may have the chance to make a difference.我想Susan Boyle和这位上海的买菜农妇的确属于人群中的少数。她们是最不可能在演艺界成功的，而她们的勇气和才华让她们成功了，这个节目和舞台给予了她们一个实现个人梦想的机会。这样看来，与众不同好像没有那么难。从不同的方面审视，我们每个人都是不同的。但是我想，与众不同是一件好事，因为你代表了不一样的观点，你拥有了做改变的机会。My generati

8、on has been very fortunate to witness and participate in the historic transformation of China that has made so many changes in the past 20, 30 years. I remember that in the year of 1990, when I was graduating from college, I was applying for a job in the sales department of the first five-star hotel

9、 in Beijing, Great Wall Sheraton - its still there. So after being interrogated by this Japanese manager for a half an hour, he finally said, “So, Miss Yang, do you have any questions to ask me?” I summoned my courage and poise and said, “Yes, but could you let me know, what actually do you sell?” I

10、 didnt have a clue what a sales department was about in a five-star hotel. That was the first day I set my foot in a five-star hotel.我这一代中国人很幸运的目睹并且参与了中国在过去二三十年中经历的巨变。我记得1990年，当我刚大学毕业时，我申请了当时北京的第一家五星级酒店长城喜来登酒店的销售部门的工作。这家酒店现在仍在北京。当我被一位日本籍经理面试了一个半小时之后，他问到，“杨小姐，你有什么想问我的吗？”，我屏住呼吸，问道“是的，你能告诉我，具体我需要销售些什么吗

11、？” 当时的我，对五星级酒店的销售部门没有任何概念，事实上，那是我第一次进到一家五星级酒店。Around the same time, I was going through an audition - the first ever open audition by national television in China - with another thousand college girls. The producer told us they were looking for some sweet, innocent and beautiful fresh face. So when

12、it was my turn, I stood up and said, “Why do womens personalities on television always have to be beautiful, sweet, innocent and, you know, supportive? Why cant they have their own ideas and their own voice?” I thought I kind of offended them. But actually, they were impressed by my words. And so I

13、was in the second round of competition, and then the third and the fourth. After seven rounds of competition, I was the last one to survive it. So I was on a national television prime-time show. And believe it or not, that was the first show on Chinese television that allowed its hosts to speak out

14、of their own minds without reading an approved script. (Applause) And my weekly audience at that time was between 200 to 300 million people.我当时也在参加另一场“面试”，中国国家电视台的首次公开试镜，与我一起参与选拔的还有另外1000名大学女毕业生。节目制作人说，他们希望找到一位甜美，无辜（LOL），漂亮的新鲜面孔。轮到我的时候，我问道“为什么在电视屏幕上，女性总应该表现出甜美漂亮，甚至是服从性的一面？为什么她们不能有她们自己的想法和声音？“我觉得我的问题

15、甚至有点冒犯到了他。但实际上，他们对我的表现印象深刻。我进入了第二轮选拔，第三轮，第四轮，直至最后的第七场选拔，我是唯一一个走到最后的试镜者。我从此走上了国家电视台黄金时段的荧幕。你可能不相信，但在当时，我所主持的电视节目是中国第一个，不让主持人念已经审核过的稿件的节目（掌声）。我每周需要面对两亿到三亿左右的电视观众。Well after a few years, I decided to go to the U.S. and Columbia University to pursue my postgraduate studies, and then started my own media

16、 company, which was unthought of during the years that I started my career. So we do a lot of things. Ive interviewed more than a thousand people in the past. And sometimes I have young people approaching me say, “Lan, you changed my life,” and I feel proud of that. But then we are also so fortunate

17、 to witness the transformation of the whole country. I was in Beijings bidding for the Olympic Games. I was representing the Shanghai Expo. I saw China embracing the world and vice versa. But then sometimes Im thinking, what are todays young generation up to? How are they different, and what are the

18、 differences they are going to make to shape the future of China, or at large, the world?几年以后，我决定来美国哥伦比亚大学继续深造，之后也开始运营自己的媒体公司，这也是我在职业生涯初始时所没有预料到的。我的公司做很多不同的业务，在过去这些年里，我访谈过一千多人。经常有年轻人对我说，“杨澜，你改变了我的人生”，我对此感到非常自豪。我也幸运的目睹了整个国家的转变：我参与了北京申奥和上海世博会。我看到中国在拥抱这个世界，而世界也进一步的接受中国。但有时我也在想，今天的年轻人的生活是什么样的？他们（与我们相比）有

19、什么不同？他们将带给中国，甚至整个世界的未来一些怎样的变化？So today I want to talk about young people through the platform of social media. First of all, who are they? What do they look like? Well this is a girl called Guo Meimei - 20 years old, beautiful. She showed off her expensive bags, clothes and car on her microblog, whi

20、ch is the Chinese version of Twitter. And she claimed to be the general manager of Red Cross at the Chamber of Commerce. She didnt realize that she stepped on a sensitive nerve and aroused national questioning, almost a turmoil, against the credibility of Red Cross. The controversy was so heated tha

21、t the Red Cross had to open a press conference to clarify it, and the investigation is going on.我想通过社交媒体来谈一谈中国的年轻人们。首先，他们是谁，他们是什么样子？这是一位叫郭美美的女孩儿，20岁，年轻漂亮。她在中国版的Twitter上新浪微博上，炫耀她所拥有的奢侈品，衣服，包和车。她甚至宣称她是中国红十字会的工作人员。她没有意识到她的行为触及了中国民众极为敏感的神经，这引发了一场全民大讨论，民众开始质疑红十字会的公信力。中国红十字会为了平息这场争议甚至举办了一场记者会来澄清，直至今日，对于”郭

22、美美事件“的调查仍在继续。So far, as of today, we know that she herself made up that title - probably because she feels proud to be associated with charity. All those expensive items were given to her as gifts by her boyfriend, who used to be a board member in a subdivision of Red Cross at Chamber of Commerce. I

23、ts very complicated to explain. But anyway, the public still doesnt buy it. It is still boiling. It shows us a general mistrust of government or government-backed institutions, which lacked transparency in the past. And also it showed us the power and the impact of social media as microblog.时至今日，我们所

24、知道的事实是，她谎报了她的头衔，可能是因为她的虚荣心，希望把自己和慈善机构联系起来。所有那些奢侈品都是她的男朋友给她买的，而那位”男朋友 “的确曾经是红十字会的工作人员。这解释起来很复杂，总之，公众对他们的解释仍然不满意，这仍然是在风口浪尖的一件事。这件事体现出（中国社会）对长期不 透明的政府机关的不信任，同时也表现出社交媒体（微博）巨大的社会影响力。Microblog boomed in the year of 2010, with visitors doubled and time spent on it tripled. S, a major news portal, alone has

25、 more than 140 million microbloggers. On Tencent, 200 million. The most popular blogger - its not me - its a movie star, and she has more than 9.5 million followers, or fans. About 80 percent of those microbloggers are young people, under 30 years old. And because, as you know, the traditional media

26、 is still heavily controlled by the government, social media offers an opening to let the steam out a little bit. But because you dont have many other openings, the heat coming out of this opening is sometimes very strong, active and even violent.微博在2010年得到了爆炸性的增长，微博的访问用户增长了一倍，用户的访问时间是09年的三倍。新浪（S)，一

27、个最主要的微博平台，拥有 1.4亿的微博用户，而腾讯拥有两亿用户。（在中国）最有名的微博主不是我是一位电影明星，她拥有近九百五十万”粉丝“。接近80的微博用户是 年轻人，三十岁以下。因为传统媒体还在政府的强力控制之下，社交媒体提供了一个开放的平台进行了一些（民众观点的）分流。因为这样分流的渠道并不多，从这 个平台上爆发出的能量往往非常强烈，有时候甚至过于强烈。So through microblogging, we are able to understand Chinese youth even better. So how are they different? First of all,

28、 most of them were born in the 80s and 90s, under the one-child policy. And because of selected abortion by families who favored boys to girls, now we have ended up with 30 million more young men than women. That could pose a potential danger to the society, but who knows; were in a globalized world

29、, so they can look for girlfriends from other countries. Most of them have fairly good education. The illiteracy rate in China among this generation is under one percent. In cities, 80 percent of kids go to college. But they are facing an aging China with a population above 65 years old coming up wi

30、th seven-point-some percent this year, and about to be 15 percent by the year of 2030. And you know we have the tradition that younger generations support the elders financially, and taking care of them when theyre sick. So it means young couples will have to support four parents who have a life exp

31、ectancy of 73 years old.通过微博，我们可以更好的了解到中国的年轻一代。首先，他们中的大多数都出生在八零九零年代，在独生子女的生育政策的大背景下长大。因为偏好男孩的家庭会选择性的堕胎，现在（中国）的年轻男性的数量多过年轻女性三千万，这可能带来社会的不稳定（危险），但是我们知道，在这个全球化的社会中，他们可能可以去其他国家找女朋友。大多数人都拥有良好的教育。这一代中国人中的文盲率已经低于1。在城市中，80的孩子可以上大学，但他们将要面对的是一个，有接近7的人口都是老年人的社会，这个数字在2030年会增长到15%。在这个国家，传统是让年轻人来从经济上和医疗上来支持老年人，这意

32、味着，一对年轻的夫妻将需要支持四个平均年龄是73岁的老人。So making a living is not that easy for young people. College graduates are not in short supply. In urban areas, college graduates find the starting salary is about 400 U.S. dollars a month, while the average rent is above $500. So what do they do? They have to share space - squeezed in very limited space to save money - and they call themselves “tribe of ants.” And for those who are ready to get married and buy their apartment, they figured out they have to work for 30 to 40 years to afford their first apartment. That ratio in America would only