That Day We Had Some Space To Reflect 那一天,我们有了一些反思的空间

By: Sherissa Wu,Class of ’22, Shanghai American School, Pudong Campus

作者：上海美国学校浦东校区九年级学生Sherissa Wu

The invisible people of the nearly invisible city wheel in a birthday cake larger than my head. Surprise! We remember. The first thing I notice is that the cake is undoubtedly American. Everything from its buttercream to the curving serif names written upon its surface carry a distinct quality. Western. The cake is creamy and sweet, a perfect replicate of its Western counterparts. The happy birthday song blasting from the intercoms is of course in English... we’re in China, what else would it be??

不显眼的城市里默默无闻的人们推进来一个比我的头还要大的生日蛋糕。生日快乐！我们没有忘记你的生日。我首先注意到的是这个蛋糕毫无疑问是美式的。从奶油糖霜到上面的弯曲衬线字母，一切都具有鲜明的特点。西式。这个蛋糕散发着甜甜的奶油味，是西式蛋糕的完美复制。广播里播放着英文版的生日快乐歌……我们是在中国，还有什么更西式的呢？

My hotel room has plush purple velvet headboards, gold accents, and upholstered chairs. The combined effect is reminiscent of a regal Victorian era royal bedroom. Western. Two oil paintings sporting engraved wooden frames hang in the bathroom. Western. The souvenir shop that sustains local families sells tacky key chains and the kind of tourist postcards you see in US gas stations. All Western. More Western. Only Western.

我的酒店房间提供了紫罗兰色的天鹅绒床头板、带着金色的点缀以及软垫椅子。整体效果让人联想起维多利亚时代的皇家卧室。西式。卫生间里挂着两幅雕木边框油画。西式。维持当地家庭生活的纪念品商店摆满了美国加油站常见的钥匙链和旅游明信片。全是西式。都是西式。只有西式。

120 ninth graders and 15 teachers are in Wuyuan, a small city in the JiangXi Province. But if you hadn’t known any better, might have thought we were in the West.

上海美国学校120位九年级学生和15位老师来到了江西婺源这座小城。如果你不知道的话，你很可能以为我们是在西方的某座城市。

In September of 2018, the entire freshmen class of Shanghai American School Pudong campus embarked on a five-day long journey to immerse ourselves in culture and a world outside the limitations of our bubbled city. We were the first class experiencing TheNine. We were introduced to things we’d never seen or heard before: The Nuowu opera, the preserved Yu village that for hundreds of years maintained an architectural beauty, and the daily agricultural routines that lives were created around. But we were also met with tiny cultural norms that bore uncanny resemblance to the very culture and city we had just left.

2018年9月，上海美国学校浦东校区全体九年级新生参加了为期五天的校外活动，走出我们的气泡城市，融入到外面的文化和世界中。作为参加TheNine项目的第一届学生，我们体验到了从未见到过或听说过的事情：傩舞戏、几百年来一直保持着建筑美感的俞村以及这里的人们赖以生存的农耕生活。但我们同样见到了与我们刚刚离开的城市中非常相似的文化习俗。

One of the most unique activities we witnessed was the Nuowu opera. As 30 students and teachers sat in an arc around two elderly locals performing their tradition for us, their story of a slow but sure loss of their culture was heartbreaking to hear. The young men and women who usually would have been tasked with carrying on the legacy were in cities searching for work, or working at tourism sites. The old-fashioned crafts that they had grown up with were being forgotten for water raft rides and gaudy attractions. Was this the role we were meant to play, as ambassadors of the popular culture? A small portion of a larger group who come to places like these not to cherish the abundant culture, but to replace it? Through many nights of reflection time, the teachers provided us with many probing questions… should practices like the Nuowu opera even be preserved? Should we continue to care for villages like the Yu? At what point is culture’s own cost of culture too much to pay?

我们体验到的最独特的活动之一就是傩舞戏。三十位师生围着当地两位老人坐下，老人给我们表演了他们的传统。文化传统的缓慢流逝被娓娓道来，让人心碎。本应接过传承重任的年轻人纷纷进城打工或前往旅游景点工作。伴随他们长大的传统手艺逐渐被遗忘，取而代之的是水上漂流项目和花哨的景点。这是我们应当扮演的角色吗，作为流行文化的大使？一小部分人来到这些地方，不去欣赏当地深厚的文化，而是试图去取代它？在很多个晚上进行了自我反思之后，老师向我们提出了很多引人深思的问题……傩舞戏等传统是否应当保留？我们是否应当继续关注像俞村这样的村落？什么时候文化自身的文化成本会被认为太高而难以维系？

Culture and progression cannot be defined easily. However, they can be represented in the abstract. A hike we went on in Wuyuan was scenic, and the views were pretty, but it can be used to illustrate a deeper truth. The weeds, the dirt, the stone, the ground, can all be tied back to this idea of culture, or more accurately, the loss of it -

很难轻松地对文化和发展下定义。但它们可以被抽象概括。我们在婺源进行了一次远足，途中的风景优美、怡人，但它可以用来揭示更深层次的真相。杂草、泥土、石头、地面，所有这些都可以与这种文化观念或者说是文化的流失联系起来-

The mountain hike was beautiful. Surrounding rice paddies, plump for harvest, were organized in tiers - a ripe green vastness that was only interrupted by the darker forests. The terrain was paved, but with unevenly cut stones and tiny flowers growing along them. Planted in neat rows, their vibrant succulence stood in stark contrast to the worn path. We came to see the flowers because we wanted to see a different world. We were met with weeds, a natural mirror, that showed us the truth. The weeds, much like the invading common culture, snake out of the common earth. They siphon resources from the soil, choke the traditional, and creep along the local carefully set stone path. The new culture weeds on, eroding the structural integrity of a story passed through generations.

登山远足是一次美好的体验。周围的稻田错落有致，稻粒饱满，等待收割——一望无垠的绿色稻田被更加郁郁葱葱的森林隔断。小道上铺上了形状各异的石头，道路两旁长满了小花。这些小花排列整齐，富有生机，与磨损的路面形成了鲜明对比。我们是来看这些花的，因为我们希望看到一个不同的世界。迎接我们的却是杂草，这是自然的明镜，向我们展示了真相。就像入侵的大众文化一样，杂草从同一片土地上钻出。它们从土壤中汲取养分，扼杀传统，蔓延到当地精心铺设的石头路面上。新文化杂草丛生，侵蚀着世代相传的故事结构的完整性。

These are the stories that make up our world. These are the narratives that really tell us how much we’re losing. It’s the story of the western birthday cake, it’s the story of the Victorian velvet headboards, and it’s the story of the weeds underfoot. These are the stories that tell of worlds of lost culture.

这些故事构成了我们的世界。这些叙述让我们真正认识到自己正在失去什么。这是西式生日蛋糕的故事，是维多利亚时代天鹅绒床头板的故事，是脚下杂草的故事。这些故事讲述了失去文化的世界。

At the end of the Nuowu opera performance, we asked the locals what their hopes were. They said that they were happy to see us, because their goals were simple. Go back to Shanghai, they said. Spread the news of our tradition. Don’t let it die with us.

傩舞戏表演结束后，我们问当地人他们的愿望是什么。他们说很高兴见到我们，因为他们的目标很简单。他们希望我们回到上海后能够将他们的传统传播出去，不要让这个传统在他们手上消失。

These lines particularly resonated with me, because that was what our teachers were trying to get at all along. From the moment we got on the train to see all this culture, the reason why we came was clear. The two elderly men asked us to spread the word. I know that with our stories and voices we will. We will spread the word, because the goal of TheNine is just that- to celebrate, to pass on, and to remember.

这些话特别能够引起我的共鸣，因为这是老师们一直向我们传达的。从我们登上火车前来体验这一文化的那一刻起，我们就很清楚来到这里的原因。两位老人希望我们帮他们宣传这一文化。我知道，我们一定会的，通过我们的故事和我们的声音。我们将帮助他们进行宣传，因为这正是TheNine的目的——庆祝、传承、铭记。

STORIES.EVERY DAY AT SAS.

故事。就在上海美国学校的每一天。

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Founded in 1912, Shanghai American School (SAS) is the largest and most established international school in China. In short, it's the kind of school you wish you would've attended when you were a kid.

创建于1912年，上海美国学校是中国最大的也是历史最悠久的国际学校。简而言之，如果你能回到小的时候，这会是一所你想要去的学校。

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