2024年3月14日发(作者：)

The Chinese Character

论中国人的性格

There is a theory among Occidentals that the Chinaman is inscrutable, full of

secret thoughts, and impossible for us to understand. It may be that a greater

experience of China would have brought me to share this opinion; but I could see

nothing to support it during the time when I was working in that country.

西方人中间有一种论调：中国人不可思议，满脑子的神秘思想，我们难以理解。如果

到中国去长期生活体验一下，可能也会使我抱这样的观点。但是，依我在那个国家讲学期

间的所见所闻，并没有发现有任何迹象可以证明这种论点是正确的。

One of the most remarkable things about the Chinese is their power of securing

the affection of foreigners. Almost all Europeans like China, both those who come

only as tourists and those who live there for many years. In spite of the

Anglo-Japanese Alliance, I can recall hardly a single Englishman in the Far East who

liked the Japanese as well as the Chinese. Those who have lived long among them

tend to acquire their outlook and their standards. New arrivals are struck by obvious

evils: the beggars, the terrible poverty, the prevalence of disease, the anarchy and

corruption in politics. Every energetic Westerner feels at first a strong desire to reform

these evils, and of course they ought to be reformed.

中国人最博得人们赞赏的品质之一，是他们把握外国人感情的能力。不论是到中国去

旅游的，还是多年居住在那儿的，几乎所有的外国人都喜爱中国人。尽管英日两国结成联

盟，但是我想不起哪一个孤身在远东的英国人，会像喜爱中国人那样喜爱日本人。只有那

些在他们中间长期生活的人，才能获得自己的看法和标准。初来乍到中国，一定对那里显

而易见的弊端感到震惊：乞丐成群，贫穷惊人，疾病横行，社会混乱，政治腐败。每个有

正义感的西方人，无不首先强烈地期待中国人能革除这些弊端。中国理所当然地应进行改

革。

The Chinese, from the highest to the lowest, have an imperturbable quiet dignity,

which is usually not destroyed even by a European education. They are not

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self-assertive, either individually or nationally; their pride is too profound for

self-assertion. They admit China’s military weakness in comparison with foreign

Powers, but they do not consider efficiency in homicide the most important quality in

a man or a nation. I think that, at bottom, they almost all believe that China is the

greatest nation in the world, and has the finest civilization. A Westerner cannot be

expected to accept this view, because it is based on traditions utterly different from his

own. But gradually one comes to feel that it is, at any rate, not an absurd view; that it

is in fact, the logical outcome of a self-consistent standard of values. The typical

Westerner wishes to be the cause of as many changes as possible in his environment,

the typical Chinaman wishes to enjoy as much and as delicately as possible. This

difference is at the bottom of most of the contrast between China and the

English-speaking world.

在中国,从最高层到最底层,有一种不可扰动的尊严,而这种尊严甚至连欧洲的教育也不

能破坏。他们不是自大,无论是个人或全国性的;他们是那么的自信而非自大。他们承认中国

的军事同外国相比较起来很弱小,但他们并不认为自杀效率是一个人或一个民族最重要的品

质。我认为,处于底层的人,他们几乎都认为,中国是世界上最伟大的国家,并具有最优秀的文

明。西方人是无法接受这种观点,因为这和他的传统意识的完全违背的。但是逐渐的你会认

识到，不论在任何层面上来说那并不是个荒唐的观点,也就是说事实上,这是一个基于始终不

变的信仰的逻辑输出结果。典型的西方人,希望自己可以是影响周围环境变化最大最多的因

素,而典型中国人希望尽可能多享受和微不足道。这种差别是处于中国和西方国家对比的最

底层，即最基本的比较。

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