翻译天堂  2016-09-30

我拿起那块褴褛的蓝布对着光看，它的边缘因为已经日久磨损而起了毛边。“我们当时已经有了三个女儿,”她嗫嚅着，“我们需要个儿子。我们很穷，我攒了很久的钱才买了这块布，花了一个月的时间给你缝了小衣服和小帽子。生下你50天后，我把你丢在了一座桥边。”她说不出“遗弃”这个词。I held it up to the light and noticed the cotton edges had frayed and tattered over the years. “We already had three girls,” she explained. “We needed a boy. We were too poor. I saved up money for the cloth, and I spent a month hand-sewing you a little baby suit and matching hat. After 50 days, I abandoned you by a bridge.” But she used the Chinese word for “lost” instead of “abandoned.”

“我给你穿上新衣服，希望它能给你带来好运。剩下的这块料子，我保存了20年用来记住你。我的孩子，你肯定见过这块布料! 你一定还保留着那套衣服吧?” 没有。我摇了摇头。我从来没见过这布料做的衣服。她的面容变得悲伤。她开始啜泣。“I dressed you in the new clothes for good luck. I kept this scrap for 20 years to remember you. My little baby, you must have seen this cloth before! You must have the matching clothes?” No, I shook my head. I had never seen it. Her face fell and she began to sob.

这一切发生在2012年夏天，空气沉闷潮湿的工业城市武汉。我在马塞诸塞州长大，当时和我的养母回到武汉寻找我的亲生父母。对于我来说，找到亲生父母是我欠他们的。但更重要的是，那是我欠我自己的。我从没想过我的寻亲之旅会引来媒体的广泛关注，还会引出几十个家庭悲伤的过去——这些家庭都认为我是他们遗失的女儿，我也没想过这会揭开一片已被遗忘许久、但是遍布中国的伤痛，这个国家至今仍在同这段历史和解。This was the summer of 2012, in the oppressively humid, industrial city of Wuhan, China. I grew up in Massachusetts and had returned to Wuhan with my adoptive mother in search of my birth parents. I felt I owed it to my birth family to try to locate them; but most of all, I owed it to myself. I never expected that the search would attract an outpouring of media attention; bring forward dozens of families, all claiming that I was their lost daughter; and uncover a nationwide pain, forged over decades, with which the country is still reckoning.

当年我二十岁，是耶鲁大学的一名大三学生。我是借助大学奖学金才回到中国的，在奖学金申请书中， 我提到“我会记载寻亲的过程，以此为其他8万名生活在美国的中国领养儿童提供有用的帮助.”我本来计划前往中国三个不同的政府机构寻找我的领养记录，还计划在武汉的街头发放寻人启事。我想要寻找我的亲生父母，因为不论结果如何，经历这寻找的过程对于我来说是个解脱。抵达中国以后，我和养母如计划中地那样去了政府机构，在街头发放寻人启事。但一星期后，情况发生了重大转变：一个朋友的朋友有位记者友人在当地的《楚天都市报》工作，她表示愿意帮我们写篇关于寻亲之旅的文章。I was 20 years old then, a rising junior at Yale, and had returned on a grant from my university’s fellowship office. My proposal stated that I would “document the process of searching so that it could serve as a useful guide for the other 80,000-plus Chinese international adoptees living in the U.S.” I had planned to visit three Chinese government offices to look for my adoption records and then hand out missing-person fliers (pictured above) on Wuhan’s busy sidewalks. I wanted to search because I felt that going through the process — regardless of the result — would be a release. As planned, shortly after arriving in China, my adoptive mother and I visited government offices and handed out fliers. It all changed about a week into our trip, when a friend of a friend of another friend who worked as a journalist at a local newspaper, the Chutian Metropolis Daily, offered to write a short article about the search.

第一篇文章于2012年5月25日在《楚天都市报》第5页见报，标题是：“爸爸，妈妈：我多希望拥抱你们，谢谢你们把我带到这个世界.” 几周之内，媒体疯狂报导着我的寻亲之旅。各大媒体都刊登了我的故事，包括《南方周末》、《南方都市报》、《北京青年报》。官方媒体中央电视台的几台节目都播放了我的记录短片，包括“夜线”、“看见”和“等着我.” 湖北、湖南和重庆的地方台，还有“土豆网”和腾迅网等网络媒体 也播了我的故事。我在微博上的好友人数激增到了几十万，《楚天都市报》的热线电话也因此响个不停。The first article appeared on May 25, 2012, on Page 5. The headline: “Dad, Mom: I really hope that I can give you a hug. Thank you for bringing me into this world.” Within weeks, the story of my search had gone viral. There were print articles in major Chinese outlets like Southern Weekly, Southern Metropolis Daily, and Beijing Youth Daily. State broadcaster CCTV made short documentary films for its programs, including Nightline, Insight, and Waiting for Me. Regional television programs from Hubei, Hunan, and Chongqing covered it, as did video sites like Tudou and Internet portals like Tencent QQ. My following on the microblog platform Weibo quickly reached hundreds of thousands. Telephones at the Chutian Metropolis Daily rang nonstop.

我收到了来自中国各个省份的来信，包括西部的新疆和西藏，来信中还有生活在加拿大、澳大利亚、菲律宾、德国和英国的华人。有些祝我好运、鼓励我要“永不放弃,”还有一些认为我应该感激我的美国养母, 建议我放弃寻找，别浪费时间。Then there were the emails I received from Chinese people in every province, including the western regions of Xinjiang and Tibet, as well as overseas Chinese living in Canada, Australia, the Philippines, Germany, and the U.K. Some wrote to wish me good luck or to encourage me to “never give up,” while others wrote that I should be thankful to my American mother and stop wasting my time.

其中一些来信饱含着遗弃孩子所带来的深切悲怆。一个大学生来信说他在街上捡到了一个弃婴，但是他的父母不许他把婴儿带回家。一个三十多岁的妇女写信回忆道她的父母90年代遗弃她妹妹的经历，但是她从来不敢问及此事。还有一位朋友为我写了一首歌，名叫《风中的蒲公英》，他把歌曲的MP3, 歌词和乐谱寄给了我。Some messages hinted at the deep pain surrounding the relinquishment of children. A college student wrote to tell me about finding an abandoned infant on a street, but his parents wouldn’t let him take her home. A woman in her 30s wrote that she remembered her parents abandoning a sister in the 1990s but was afraid to ask them about it. One person composed a song called “Dandelion in the Wind” and sent me an MP3 recording, lyrics, and sheet music.

中国媒体对于我的故事大肆报导。我很快被贴上了标签：我是一个“去了发达国家,” “上了耶鲁”的“弃婴.” 一个中国记者对此表示赞叹：“你是如何从如此不幸变得如此幸运？在一分钟内，你的命运完全被改变了.” 他们执拗地关注着我的“幸运”和常青藤名校，但却完全无视我们这些中国领养儿童的不幸。虽然我们有了新的家庭，但是我们失去了原本的文化、语言和国籍。因为在这些白人社区里很少有其他种族的人，我们中很多人在成长的过程中遭受到种族歧视。每年都有从中国领养来的孩子自杀，他们的经历深深地撼动着我们这些人的灵魂。The Chinese press sensationalized my story to attract readers. I was quickly labeled an “abandoned female infant” who “went to a developed country” and “became a Yale student.” One Chinese reporter marveled in passing, “How is it that you could go from being so unlucky to so lucky? In one moment your fate changed.” This fixation with “luck” and Ivy League schools obscured the fact that Chinese adoptees, as a population, are also quite unlucky. Although we gained new families, we lost our original culture, language, and citizenship rights. Many of us confronted racism in home communities where there were few other people of color. Every year there are cases of suicide that shake our community.

我相信我的故事之所以震撼了中国公众，是因为在他们之中的很多人或多或少的听闻或经历过遗弃孩子的故事。在寻亲的过程中，我见到了50多个家庭，他们每一个都在1992年3月在武汉的同一条街上遗弃过他们的孩子。这隐含的意义迫人心扉。那个月中在其他街道上又有多少被遗弃的孩子？那一年的其它月份中又有多少孩子被遗弃？其它的年份又有多少被遗弃的孩子？还有多少家庭选择沉默，没有出来同我见面？I believe my story resonated with the Chinese public because so many have relinquished children. During my search, I met with over 50 birth families – each of which had left a baby on one single street in Wuhan in March 1992. The implications of this are quite vast. What about other streets in the same month? What about other months? What about other years? What about the families who chose not to come forward?

他们遗弃孩子的原因繁复各异，有的是因为计划生育政策，有的是为了要个儿子，有的因为太贫困，有的则是因为未成年怀孕，还有的是因为孩子或家庭成员有残疾。虽然想要确定弃婴的数量是不可能的，但这数目可想而知非常庞大。在1992年到2013年间，有统计表明中国共计有139,696起国际父母收养中国儿童的案例。根据中国政府的数据，在2000年到2013年间，中国还发生了494,616起国内收养，而这些只是通过正规渠道的国内收养，非正式的国内收养并不包含在内。They have done so for varied and tangled reasons, from the one-child policy to the desire to have a son; from poverty to teen pregnancy; or from a child’s or family member’s disability. Although it is impossible to pin down the number of relinquished children, it is safe to assume that it is considerable. From 1992 to 2013, according to one estimate, 139,696 Chinese children were sent abroad for international adoption. The Chinese government reports 494,616 total registered domestic adoptions within China from 2000 to 2013 alone, excluding informal domestic adoptions.

2012年，我去了一个长途汽车站，距离我被遗弃的那条街很近。我问那里一个年长的工人她是否曾记得在1992年3月捡到一个婴儿，她叹息着回忆道：“在那个年代”她和她的同事经常在长途汽车站捡到婴儿。附近派出所的一个退休警察表示同意：弃婴那时候如此普遍，以至于政府都不再浪费时间进行信息登录。In 2012, when I visited a long-distance bus station close to the street where I had been abandoned, I asked one of the older workers if she remembered finding a baby nearby in March 1992. She sighed and recalled that, “back in the day,” she and her coworkers found abandoned babies in the station all the time. A retired policeman from the nearby police station agreed, saying abandonment was so common in that era that authorities would not even bother recording them.

即便大部分中国人没有遗弃过他们的孩子，很多人也都听说过类似的故事。实际上，我发现几乎所有人——从餐馆服务员到出租车司机——都有熟人遗弃、弃养或者收养过孩子，再或是他们本人就是领养来的。但是他们很多人从来都不知道这些孩子有可能被外国人领养。有一个男人以为他是我的亲生父亲，他说：“我们从农村来到城里（遗弃你），就是希望一个富裕的城市户口家庭能收养你。我们从来没想过你最后会被送到国外.”Even if most Chinese hadn’t lost children themselves, many had at least heard the stories. I discovered that almost everyone — from waiters to taxi drivers — seemed to have a personal connection to someone who had lost a child to abandonment or adoption, or had adopted a child, or had been adopted themselves. But many were unaware that those children could end up abroad. As one man who had mistakenly assumed he was my birth father told me in 2012: “We came to the city from the countryside because we hoped a wealthy, urban family would adopt you. We never thought you would end up overseas.”

作为富布赖特访问学者，我花了一年时间研究中国的国内领养制度，这才发现美国人关于领养和家庭的看法同传统的中国观念是如此大相径庭。在2012年，我记得自己完全不能够理解中国记者的问题。他们会问：“你什么时候发现自己是领养来的?”（在当代美国社会，被领养的子女从一开始就知道自己不是亲生的，尤其是像我这种同养母种族不同的孩子。）他们会问：“你的养母怎么可能支持你寻亲呢?”（在美国，领养中国儿童的家庭非常注重子女寻亲，以至于有很多讨论会、活动和书籍专门指导养父母如何寻找孩子的亲生父母。）他们会问：“如果你找到你的亲生父母，将来你怎么为两边的父母养老呢?”（美国父母通常会为退休生活攒钱，而不会指望儿女给予经济上的支持。）After an additional year of researching Chinese domestic adoption as a Fulbright scholar, I see how profoundly American views of adoption and family differ from traditional Chinese conceptions. In 2012, I found myself baffled by Chinese journalists’ questions. They’d ask, “When did you find out you were adopted?” (In contemporary American society, people are usually told from the beginning that they are adopted, particularly in mixed-race families like mine.) They’d ask, “How could your adoptive mother possibly support your search?” (In the Chinese adoption community in the U.S., families are so eager to search that there are panels and talks and books for adoptive parents on how to search for birth parents.) They’d also ask, “If you find your Chinese birth parents, how are you going to rear two sets of parents into old age?” (American parents usually save for retirement and don’t expect to rely on their children for financial support.)

我现在可以理解，当时中国公众为什么对养母支持我寻亲的决定感到震惊不已。在后续研究中，很多大陆养父母私下表示他们觉得让养子女永远不知道自己的身世对孩子是最好的。中国大陆的养子女在成年后如果发现了自己的身世，找到了自己的亲生父母，他们通常会被两个家庭撕裂，因为两个家庭可能都会要求养子女给予他们关心、爱护和忠诚。这也是为什么武汉街头会有陌生人停下来称赞我养母的无私而谴责我的“忘恩负义.”中国人通常认为我的寻亲之举会伤害我的美国养母。在后来我采访过在国内收养儿童的中国父母，他们普遍担心养子/女在发现自己的身世后会不再认养父母。I now understand why my adoptive mother’s decision to join my 2012 search shocked the Chinese public. During my follow-up research, many mainland adoptive parents confided that they felt it was best if their children never found out they had been adopted. Chinese adult domestic adoptees who had discovered their adoptions and had reunited with their birth families often described being pulled between their two families in a competition for attention, love, and loyalty. That explains why strangers would stop us on Wuhan streets to commend my mother’s selflessness while scolding me for “turning my back” on my adoptive mother. Chinese people often assumed that by searching for my first family, I was hurting my American mom. In my later interviews with Chinese parents who adopted Chinese children, I found it common for adoptive parents in China to worry that if their child discovered the adoption he or she would no longer accept the adoptive parents.

一位中国老奶奶最近给了我一个解释：“你好奇怪。在中国，只有生活悲惨的孩子才会寻找他们的亲生父母。你的养母对你那么好，你上了好学校，身体健康，生活快乐，你找亲生父母干什么?” 在中国媒体报道的评论区和我收到的短信、邮件中，这种观点异常普遍。但是，在美国，领养专家和专业人士认为寻找亲生父母是被领养人群的正常发展阶段——所有人都想要知道自己的身世。As one Chinese grandmother explained to me recently, “You are very strange. Over here, only kids who are not doing well will want to search for their birth parents. Your adoptive mom treats you well. You went to a good school. You are healthy and happy. Why do you need to search for your birth family?” It’s a typical view, reflected widely in the comments section of Chinese articles about my search and in the private messages and emails I’ve received. Yet, in the United States, adoption experts and professionals characterize birth search as a normal developmental step for an adopted person — a universal desire to know one’s origins.

中国公众对于我的寻亲决定争议如此巨大，也源于他们对我亲生父母有种种不同的看法。那些支持我寻亲的人认为我的亲生父母是善良的，只不过除了遗弃女儿别无他路。那些反对我寻亲的人将我的亲生父母视为残忍贪婪之辈。有人在信中说道：“你的亲生父母如此残忍、毫无心肝才会干出遗弃你这样的事。你根本就不该找他们，你什么都不欠他们.” 还有人警告我说我的亲生父母可能会要占我便宜：“你不应该找他们，当你找到他们后他们可能会对你不怀好意，比如向你要钱，或者要求去美国等.”The Chinese public’s polarizing views on my decision to search also hinged on how they imagined my birth parents. Those who supported the search portrayed my birth parents as kind people who faced hard times and had no other course but to abandon their daughter. Those who disapproved tended to envision birth parents as cruel and greedy. One person wrote, “Your birth parents were callous and heartless to abandon you. You shouldn’t search for them because you don’t owe them anything.” Some people warned that my birth parents would try to take advantage of me: “You shouldn’t look for your birth parents because when you find them they will want things from you, like money, or to go to America.”

迄今为止，我仍然没有找到我的亲生父母。关于他们为什么在1992年3月将我遗弃在武汉的那个街头，我仍然一无所知。但是我可以证明，我所见过的50多个家庭都生活在深切且真实的悲怆中。他们拥抱我、他们痛哭流涕、他们对我鞠躬、他们祈求我的原谅。To date, I haven’t found my birth parents, so I don’t know what drove them to leave me on that Wuhan street in 1992. But I can attest that the 50 or so birth families I did meet felt deep and tangible pain. They threw their arms around me and wept. They bowed and begged to be forgiven.

见到这些家庭让我质疑这些父母是否真的在传统意义上“遗弃”了他们的孩子。他们所有人都强调他们选择了安全的地点，好让他们的孩子能够很快被发现并得到照顾。很多人在孩子身边留下字条或者特别的衣物，希望有一天这些信物能够帮助他们再找到她。一个家庭在一张卷烟纸上写下了女儿的出生日期，说“这是我们的全部.”另一个家庭为女儿起的名字结合了父母的老家城市名称，希望有一天她长大后知道到去哪里找他们。一些母亲选择了特别的衣物作为记号，比如前文中那位拿着红蓝格子布条的母亲。The encounters made me question to what extent birth parents “abandoned” their daughters in the traditional sense of the word. All of the families emphasized choosing a safe location where their daughter would be discovered quickly and taken to safety, and many parents left her with notes and special clothes in the hope that these tokens would help them find her later. One family wrote the daughter’s birth date on a piece of unrolled cigarette paper, saying, “It’s all we had.” Another family named their child after the parents’ two hometowns in the hope she would grow up knowing where to find them. Some mothers sewed clothes with distinctive patterns, like the one with blue and red checkers that the hopeful mom showed me.

当我问这些家庭为什么想和失去的女儿重聚，他们的理由是：他们想念她，想要知道她是不是活了下来。一位父亲眼含泪水的告诉我：“在我妻子心里，她非常想要找到我们的女儿。不论我们去哪儿，她都觉得街上的女孩儿’也许就是我的女儿!'”另一位父亲告诉我：“我只想看她一眼，知道她现在过得好不好。我什么都不要，我不想打扰她的生活。”来自另一个家庭的母亲说：“如果她过得好，我就不会再自责了.”When I asked the birth families why they wanted to reunite with this missing daughter, they told me that they missed her and wanted to know if she had survived. One father’s eyes began to water as he told me: “In my wife’s heart she really wants to find our daughter. Everywhere we go, she’s always thinking, ‘Maybe that’s her!’” Another father told me: “I just want to have a look and know if she has a good life now. I don’t need anything else. I don’t want to disturb her new life.” And a mother from a different family said, “I won’t feel guilty anymore as long as she is doing well.”

在见到这些家庭的时候，我们——失去孩子的父母和我——是相互人生中残缺的那个部分。他们会哭泣，会说：“我真的对不起你，你能原谅我吗?” 而我则答，“我原谅你，我原谅你.” 在那个时刻，我就是他们今生也许再也不会谋面的亲生女儿。In meetings like these, we each — the birth parents of missing children and I — came to represent the other’s absent part. Parents would sob, “I’m so sorry. Do you forgive me?” and I would reply, “I forgive you. I forgive you,” as if on behalf of the birth daughter they might never again see.

我问：“如果我没有那么爱哭，如果我长得更好看，你们会留下我吗?” 他们会说：“你是最漂亮的孩子，我们是如此想你.”我也发现自己会对着这些家庭发泄我的情绪。我终于有机会问：“20年来，我从来没有忘记过你们。你们记得我吗?” 他们会说：“我们当然记得你.” 我问：“如果我没有那么爱哭，如果我长得更好看，你们会留下我吗?” 他们会说：“你是最漂亮的孩子，我们是如此想你.” 我们互相拥抱，我们彼此安慰。我们没有同样的血脉，但是我们体会彼此相同的伤痛。I asked, “If I had cried less, if I had been more beautiful, would you have kept me?” They said, “You were the most beautiful baby. How we have missed you.”I also found myself projecting my feelings onto these families. I finally had the chance to say, “For 20 years, I’ve never forgotten you. Do you remember me?” I heard them reply, “Of course we remember you.” I asked, “If I had cried less, if I had been more beautiful, would you have kept me?” They said, “You were the most beautiful baby. How we have missed you.” The way we held and soothed each other — we did not share the same blood, but we understood two sides of the same pain.

在那之后过了四年，这些场景依然萦绕在我的心头。我和其中一些家庭仍通过短信和微信保持着联系，但是通常只是在春节时简单地祝福彼此“春节快乐.”Nearly four years later, these encounters still haunt me. I keep in touch with some of the families via text message and the mobile app WeChat, but we usually simply wish each other “Happy Chinese New Year” when the time comes around.

2015年夏天，我和2012年時见到的第一个家庭见面吃了午饭。他们仍然未找到他们的女儿。拥抱告别后，那位妈妈抓住我的胳膊，哭着说：“答应我你永远不会放弃，答应我你会一直寻找你的亲生父母，答应我你会尽一切努力找到他们.” 我本想说我已经把寻亲一事搁置一阵子了。现在我的故事仍然登在网上，如果我的亲生父母和我此生注定有缘再见，我们会再见。In the summer of 2015, I met up for lunch with a birth family I’d first met in 2012. They still had not found their lost daughter. After hugging me goodbye, the mom gripped my arm. “Promise me you’ll never give up,” she cried. “Promise me you’ll always keep looking for your family. Promise me you’ll do everything you can to find them.” I wanted to say that I was ready to put searching aside for a while. My story is on the Internet. If my birth parents and I are destined to meet again in this life, then we will.

但是在那时刻，这些话我一个字也说不出来。我看了一眼站在她身旁的男人——那个本来可能会是我父亲的男人——他眼中饱含着同样的绝望。他们需要听到我说他们的女儿不会放弃寻找，正如他们不会放弃找寻。在那个时刻，站在他们面前的我，就是他们的女儿。But in that moment, I couldn’t bring myself to say any of this. I glanced at the man standing next to her — the man who could have been my father — and I saw the same desperation in his eyes. They needed to hear that their own daughter would keep searching, just as they were. Standing in front of them, for that one moment, I spoke for her.

“是的,” 我点头说，“我永远不会放弃.”“Yes,” I nodded. “I will never give up.”