英国卫报：中国,我想回来!(4)（在线收听）

I landed in Shanghai and took a high-speed train to Hefei.

我在上海下得飞机，然后坐高铁去合肥。

Before I left, I read an article on how the US-China trade war was affecting the price of soy.

在我离开之前，我读了一篇关于中美贸易战如何影响大豆价格的文章。

When I arrived in Hefei it was evening, and I was just in time for my nainai's 90th birthday dinner.

我到合肥的时候已经是晚上了，正好赶上奶奶的90岁生日晚宴。

I walked out of the enormous, near-empty train station to meet my uncle's car, and we drove to a family restaurant on a quiet street.

我走出巨大的、几乎空无一人的火车站去寻找我叔叔的车，我们开车来到一条安静的街道上的一家家庭餐厅。

When we brought out the cake, nainai's great-granddaughter, my little niece, offered her a plastic yellow crown with lights and helped her blow out the candles.

当我们拿出蛋糕时，奶奶的曾孙女，也就是我的小侄女，给了她一个带着灯的黄色的塑料皇冠，并帮她吹灭了蜡烛。

My grandfather wasn't present at the dinner table. Before I arrived, I had harboured some hope – not knowing the full extent of his dementia – that I could talk to him still, excavate his memories.

我的祖父不在餐桌上。来之前我还曾抱着一丝希望——不知道他痴呆的程度有多严重——希望我还能和他说说话，挖掘出他的记忆。

But by the time I arrived, it was already too late. Mentally, he was long gone.

但等我回去时已经太晚了，他早已经神志不清了。

His name was Qian Feng, Qian as in "money", the family name I have inherited.

他的名字叫钱峰，“钱”就是英语里的“钱”，我继承了这个姓。

He was born in 1925, in the year of the bull, on an impoverished farm in Jiangsu where they wove cotton and herded cows.

他于1925年(牛年)出生在江苏的一个贫困的农场里，他们在那里织棉花、放牛。

He had six siblings and no formal education. Because he was always hungry, at the age of 15 he ran away to join the Chinese Communist party army, where he knew he'd be fed.

他有六个兄弟姐妹，都没有接受过正规教育。因为总是挨饿，他在15岁时便跑去参加了中国共产党的军队，他知道自己在那里能有口吃的。

He fought against the Japanese in the second world war, and was deaf in one ear because of a war wound.

第二次世界大战时他还曾和日本人作过战，并且因为战伤而导致一只耳朵聋了。

In the army, he learned how to write. From his illiterate, uneducated background, he became a professional writer, producing novels, stories and essays.

他在军队里学会了如何写作，从一个没有受过教育的文盲变成了一名职业作家，创作小说、故事和散文。

This, a classic story of proletariat triumph, is one of the great origin myths of my family.

这是一个关于无产阶级胜利的经典故事，也是我们家族最伟大的起源神话之一。

With my grandmother, he had five children. The first was born in 1953.

他和祖母有五个孩子。第一个孩子出生在1953年。

Three of their children harboured ambitions to become writers; instead, those three went on to study medicine.

他们有三个孩子都有成为作家的抱负，然而这三个孩子并没有走上作家的道路，而是学起了医。

Two, including my father, emigrated to the US.

另外包括我父亲在内的两人移民到了美国。

And then there was me, his granddaughter, born in a suburb of Los Angeles in a democratic country, in a completely different place and time, in the affluent, bourgeois west – and I wanted to be a writer as well.

然后是我，他的孙女，出生在洛杉矶郊区的一个民主国家，在一个完全不同的地方和时代，在富裕的、资产阶级的西方——而我，也想成为一名作家。