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主题:杰克伦敦的短文《黄祸》和小说《空前入侵》 -- CaoMeng

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家园 杰克伦敦的短文《黄祸》和小说《空前入侵》

杰克伦敦写过一篇短文《黄祸》和一本小说《空前入侵》。

《Yellow Peril》 或《黄祸》是在1904年日俄战争时期写的一篇散文。我读过《黄祸》。他对中国人的评价颇高,对高丽人倒是鄙视。

但在日本战胜俄罗斯帝国的大背景下,他担心一旦中国人被日本人组织起来会对西方列强产生巨大的威胁。他同时认为日本不可能长时期的控制中国,等到中国学习并吸收了日本传授的现代化意识和技术以后,中国肯定会推翻日本的统治成为一个强大到可怕的国家。

所以他对他看到的中国的未来崛起感到忧心忡忡,因为他觉得中国的崛起将对西方的白人文明产生空前的巨大威胁。 所以在他的1910年的穿越小说《空前入侵》(The Unparalleled Invasion)里他干脆把中国人给灭了种。 《空前入侵》发生在1975年,中国人灭种以后,由西方白人移民中国。

这其实具体体现了西方白人知识分子对丧失白人世界的相对优势感到的恐惧。

在1904年至1905年期间的日俄战争中杰克伦敦在高丽与日本军官交涉通道

点看全图

外链图片需谨慎,可能会被源头改

通宝推:闻弦歌,玉垒关2,

本帖一共被 2 帖 引用 (帖内工具实现)
家园 杰克伦敦在日俄战争后1909年写的关于中国的预言般的评论

The Chinese and Japanese are thrifty and industrious.

中日两国人是节俭和勤劳的。

China possesses great natural resources of coal and iron—and coal and iron constitute the backbone of machine civilization.

中国拥有煤和铁的巨大自然资源,煤和铁构成了机械文明的支柱。

When four hundred and fifty million of the best workers in the world go into manufacturing, a new competitor, and a most ominous and formidable one, will enter the arena where the races struggle for the world-market.

当四亿五千万世界最优秀的工人进入制造业,一个新的竞争对手,一个极可怕和厉害的竞争对手,将进入各种族为世界市场的斗争。

Here is the race-adventure—the first clashing of the Asiatic dream with ours. It is true, it is only an economic clash, but economic clashes always precede clashes at arms. And what then? Oh, only that will-o’-wisp, the Yellow peril. But to the Russian, Japan was only a will-o’-wisp until one day, with fire and steel, she smashed the great adventure of the Russian and punctured the bubble-dream he was dreaming. Of this be sure: if ever the day comes that our dreams clash with that of the Yellow and the Brown, and our particular bubble-dream is punctured, there will be one country at least unsurprised, and that country will be Russia. She was awakened from her dream. We are still dreaming.

家园 这他倒不算先知

之前修贯通美国的西部铁路时候,主要的劳动力都是华工,完成了几乎所有美国劳工都没法完成的路段,他们的能吃苦,学习能力和创造性对白人的饭碗构成了严重威胁,因此之后不久就爆发了美国民众普遍的反华思潮,杰克伦敦对中华的这段评论应该是本于斯。

家园 他没有看到韩国民族的忍耐后面隐藏着什么

对日本和中国人倒是很恐惧,因为发现他们之间可以用一种文字交流。

最后,认为东方人不行,没有希望,因为他们不信基督...

我曾经想过翻译一下这两篇文章。

家园 先花一个,杰克伦敦作为Hearst亚洲记者去过中国

特别在日俄战争中。 看看杰克伦敦对在中国的中国人的描写吧:

Excerpt from "Yellow Peril":

I rode to the shore, into the village of Kuelian-Ching. There were

no lounging men smoking long pipes and chattering. The previous day

the Russians had been there, a bloody battle had been fought, and to-

day the Japanese were there--but what was that to talk about?

Everybody was busy. Men were offering eggs and chickens and fruit

for sale upon the street, and bread, as I live, bread in small round

loaves or buns. I rode on into the country. Everywhere a toiling

population was in evidence. The houses and walls were strong and

substantial. Stone and brick replaced the mud walls of the Korean

dwellings. Twilight fell and deepened, and still the ploughs went up

and down the fields, the sowers following after. Trains of

wheelbarrows, heavily loaded, squeaked by, and Pekin carts, drawn by

from four to six cows, horses, mules, ponies, or jackasses--cows even

with their newborn calves tottering along on puny legs outside the

traces. Everybody worked. Everything worked. I saw a man mending

the road. I was in China.

...

The Korean is the perfect type of inefficiency--of utter

worthlessness. The Chinese is the perfect type of industry. For

sheer work no worker in the world can compare with him. Work is the

breath of his nostrils. It is his solution of existence. It is to

him what wandering and fighting in far lands and spiritual adventure

have been to other peoples. Liberty to him epitomizes itself in

access to the means of toil. To till the soil and labour

interminably with rude implements and utensils is all he asks of life

and of the powers that be. Work is what he desires above all things,

and he will work at anything for anybody.

During the taking of the Taku forts he carried scaling ladders at the

heads of the storming columns and planted them against the walls. He

did this, not from a sense of patriotism, but for the invading

foreign devils because they paid him a daily wage of fifty cents. He

is not frightened by war. He accepts it as he does rain and

sunshine, the changing of the seasons, and other natural phenomena.

He prepares for it, endures it, and survives it, and when the tide of

battle sweeps by, the thunder of the guns still reverberating in the

distant canyons, he is seen calmly bending to his usual tasks. Nay,

war itself bears fruits whereof he may pick. Before the dead are

cold or the burial squads have arrived he is out on the field,

stripping the mangled bodies, collecting the shrapnel, and ferreting

in the shell holes for slivers and fragments of iron.

The Chinese is no coward. He does not carry away his doors amid

windows to the mountains, but remains to guard them when alien

soldiers occupy his town. He does not hide away his chickens and his

eggs, nor any other commodity he possesses. He proceeds at once to

offer them for sale. Nor is he to be bullied into lowering his

price. What if the purchaser be a soldier and an alien made cocky by

victory and confident by overwhelming force? He has two large pears

saved over from last year which he will sell for five sen, or for the

same price three small pears. What if one soldier persist in taking

away with him three large pears? What if there be twenty other

soldiers jostling about him? He turns over his sack of fruit to

another Chinese and races down the street after his pears and the

soldier responsible for their flight, and he does not return till he

has wrenched away one large pear from that soldier's grasp.

家园 花一个,我觉得关于最后的信仰那一段应该是自我安慰,看看

他后来写的可以对照一下。5年后在1909年,他写道:

“The point that I have striven to make is that much of the reasoning of the white race about the Japanese is erroneous, because is it based on fancied knowledge of the stuff and fiber of the Japanese mind. An American lady of my acquaintance, after residing for months in Japan, in response to a query as to how she liked the Japanese, said: “They have no souls.”

In this she was wrong. The Japanese are just as much possessed of a soul as she and the rest of her race. And far be it from me to infer that the Japanese soul is in the smallest way inferior to the Western soul. It may even be superior. You see, we do not know the Japanese soul, and what its value may be in the scheme of things. And yet that American lady’s remark but emphasizes the point. So different was the Japanese soul from hers, so unutterably alien, so absolutely without any kinship or means of communication, that to her there was no slightest sign of its existence.”

不是东方人没有灵魂,只是西方人无法了解东方人的灵魂。

家园 这种强大的自我意识和灵魂的看法

确实是中国历史上少见的,中国传统是在自然中的世界观和价值观,在接受西方文化之前很少见到对强烈的灵魂挣扎和自我冲突的描述,甚至在爱情方面也很少见到如呼啸山庄这样的作品。

但我觉得,反过来说,有问题的也可以说是西方人,但此后一百年,在西方的带动下,中国也开始出疯子了。

家园 你有兴趣,可以翻译下

我上次翻到这里

飞天鸭:天真时代笔记之杰克伦敦的东亚考察(一)

家园 花!说实话,你翻译得比我好多了。请继续!
家园 最近我在看《房龙地理》,

中国卷最后的一句话倒是可以作个注解。

“我们欠中国人太多了。一旦中国崛起的那一天到来——请上帝保佑我们。”

家园 欠你一朵花,现下奉上。
家园 也许在西方思潮依然占据优势的情况下

中国不得不以西方规则中规中矩的崛起,什么是西方规则中的标准崛起?就是英美式帝国主义。只是这个崛起不知道会给人类带来什么。

家园 先花,不一定,荷兰崛起的方式有别与西班牙

德日苏既别与英法,美帝还是不同于英帝。国与国的竞争不可避免,竞争方式倒是会改变

家园 还花

但是德国日本和苏联的下场都不好,所以我没提。。。

还花
家园 再花。是滴,没有帝国是永恒的,包括美帝国。
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