一个充满魅力的人生犹如顺河漂流,你永远不知道弯道那边会有什么等着你,但你总是相信会有一些好心人在那里,以这样或那样的方式来帮助你,激励你,引导你穿越激流。
The man who stood at the entrance to my new world passed away recently, and though I hadn’t seen him in more than three decades, the news of his demise1) left me unexpectedly bereft2). I remember a warm voice, expressive eyes, and bushy eyebrows that wiggled3) comically at a pun or a joke. I remember someone who treated me with care, made me feel special when I—a stranger on a new shore—was terribly lost and bewildered.
那个曾引我进入新世界的人,最近辞世了。我已有三十多年没有见过他,然而,听到他离去的消息,我还是感到一种失去至亲的痛苦,这是我始料未及的。我记得他那温暖的声音、炯炯的眼神、浓密的眉毛——一句双关语、一个笑话便会使他那浓眉滑稽跳动。我记得,初次踏上这片陌生的海岸时,我曾感到那么地失落、迷茫,是他给了我无微不至的呵护,让我感到自己与众不同。
My Class with Mr. K 凯先生的课程
Ernie Kaeselau was my first teacher in America. Having fled Saigon in spring of 1975 during finals in sixth grade, I landed in San Francisco a couple months later and attended summer school in Colma Junior High in Daly City, preparing myself for seventh grade. At that time I didn’t speak English, only Vietnamese and passable French.
I never knew what Mr. K’s politics were—liberal is my guess. But when it came to me—the first Vietnamese refugee in his classroom—his policy was plenary4) kindness.
Mr. K’s first question was my name and his second was how to properly pronounce it in Vietnamese. He would ask me to repeat this several times until, to my surprise, he got the complicated intonation almost right. And soon thereafter, the Vietnamese refugee boy became the American teacher’s pet. It was my task to go get his lunch, erase the blackboard, and collect and distribute homework assignments. When I missed the bus, he’d drive me home, a privilege that was the envy of the other kids.
For a while, I was his echo. “Sailboat,” he would say while holding a card up in front of me with an image of a sailboat on it, and “sailboat” I would repeat after him, copying his inflection and facial gestures. I listened to his diction. I listened to the way he annunciated5) certain words when he read passages from a book. If he could say my Vietnamese name, surely I could bend my tongue to make myself sound more American.
That first summer, he gave me A’s that didn’t count. He took our little group bowling, formed a little team, and taught us how to keep score. Then, he took us on a baseball field trip, my first. He took his time to explain to me the intricacy of the game. It was followed by a trip to Sonoma to see wineries and cheese factories. I remember crossing the Golden Gate Bridge for the first time, with Mr. K’s voice narrating its history, how it was built, and I remember asking him afterward if it was made of real gold, and the entire bus erupted in laughter.
Along with a bowling team, Mr. K formed a little book club. And for a few dollars, we—children of the working class and immigrants—became owners of a handful of books. The box came one morning in the middle of class, and it felt a bit like Christmas in July. We jostled each other to be up front at his desk as Mr. K read the title of each book out loud, then matched the book with the name of its owner. My first book in America was The Wind in the Willows, by Kenneth Grahame6), and I remember poring over7) its pristine8) pages in wonder. Perhaps it was then that the smell of fresh ink, paper and glue indelibly9) became for me the smell of yearning and imagination. I did not yet know how to read in English, oh, but how impatient I was to learn!
I pushed myself very hard to move forward. Within a few months, I began to speak English freely, though haltingly, and outgrew Mr. K’s cards. I made friends. I joined the school newspaper, became something of a cartoonist. By my second year in, I was getting straight A’s, no fake A’s needed anymore. Mr. K marveled at the change. I remember his astonished face when I argued against the class clown and won. I found my bearings10); I embraced my new world.
厄尼·凯瑟劳是我在美国的第一位老师。1975年的春天,在六年级期末考试期间,我逃离了西贡,几个月之后来到了旧金山,在达利市的柯玛初级中学上暑期课程班,为上七年级作准备。 那时,我还不会说英语,只会说越南语,还会勉强说点法语。
我从不知道凯先生信奉什么样的政治观点——我想大概是自由派吧。但在对待我——他班上第一个越南难民的态度上,他采取的政策是无限的仁爱。
凯先生问我的第一个问题是我叫什么名字,第二个问题是这个名字在越南语里如何正确地发音。他要我一遍又一遍地重复这个发音,直到他差不多完全掌握了那复杂的音调,这一点令我非常惊讶。此后不久,我这个越南难民男孩就成了这位美国老师身边的红人。替他打午饭、擦黑板、收发家庭作业都是我的差事。如果我赶不上班车,他就会开车送我回家,这种特殊待遇让所有同学都羡慕不已。
有段时间,我简直就是他的“应声虫”。他把一张画有帆船的卡片举到我面前,说:“帆船。”我便模仿他的语调和面部表情,跟着他念:“帆船。”我留心听他如何咬字,听他朗诵课文段落时对于某些词如何发音。他都能学会说我的越南名字,那我也一定能学会卷舌头,好让自己说起话来更像美国人。
在美国的第一个暑期,他给我的成绩是A, 但我知道这并不是我真实的成绩。他带着我们一小伙儿人去玩保龄球,还组建了一支小型球队,教我们怎样记分。接着,他又带我们去棒球场看比赛,那是我第一次看棒球比赛。此后,他又带我们去了索诺马参观酿酒厂和奶酪厂。我至今还记得第一次通过金门大桥时的情景,耳边还回响着凯先生向我们讲述大桥的历史和建造过程时的声音。我记得后来我还问他,金门大桥是否真的是用金子造的,结果引得车上的同学们一阵爆笑。
除了组建保龄球队,凯先生还成立了一个小小的读书俱乐部。我们这些劳动阶层和移民的孩子,只需花上几美元便可成为一小部分书的主人。那箱子书是在一个上午送来的,当时我们正在上课,一看到书,教室里立马欢腾起来,就像是在七月过圣诞一样。我们一拥而上,跑到凯先生的桌前,听他大声朗读每本书的书名,然后将书名与主人的名字对号。我在美国拥有的第一本书是肯尼斯·格雷厄姆的《柳林风声》。当时自己仔细阅读那些崭新书页的情形,我至今仍记忆犹新。或许就是从那时起,清新的油墨、崭新的书页和芳香的胶水所散发的味道,对我来说成了渴望与想象的气息,永难磨灭。当然,我当时还不能读英文书,但我是多么如饥似渴、迫不及待地想要学会读书啊!
我刻苦勤奋,以求进步。短短几个月内,我已经可以自如地说英语了,尽管说得不是那么流利。我掌握的词汇也已超出凯先生的卡片范围。我开始结交朋友,还加入了校报,为报纸画漫画。到了第二年,我每门课程的成绩都是A,而且是我名符其实的成绩,我已不再需要作为鼓励的虚假成绩了。看到我这些变化,凯瑟劳先生惊叹不已。我至今仍记得,当我和班上有名的调皮鬼辩论并获胜时,凯先生露出的表情是多么惊讶。我找到了自己的位置;我热情地拥抱着我的新世界。
My Beautiful City 催人奋进的城市
In my eighth-grade yearbook, in the lower left hand corner, Mr. K in his succinct11) and modest way left this note:
“To my good Friend. It’s been a pleasure to be your teacher & friend for 2 years. Don’t forget to keep me informed of your progress. Ernie Kaeselau.”
When I graduated from junior high, I came to say goodbye to Mr. Kaesleau and he gave me the cards to take home as mementos, knowing full well that I didn’t need them anymore. That day, I remember taking a shortcut over a hill and on the way down, I tripped and fell. The cards flew out of my hand to scatter like a flock of playful butterflies on the verdant12) slope. Though I skinned my knee, I laughed. Then, as I scampered13) to retrieve the cards, I found myself yelling out ecstatically14) the name of each image on each one of them—“school”, “cloud”, “bridge”, “house”, “dog”, “car”—as if for the first time.
It was then that I looked up and saw, far in the distance, San Francisco’s downtown, its glittering high-rises resembling a fairy-tale castle made of diamonds, with the shimmering sea dotted with sailboats as backdrop15). “City,” I said, “my beautiful city.” And the words rang true; they slipped into my bloodstream and suddenly I was overwhelmed by an intense hunger. I wanted to swallow the beatific landscape before me.
And that was that16), as they say. And I sailed on.
在我八年级的纪念册里左下角的位置上,凯先生以他那简洁而谦逊的笔调写下了他的留言:
“致好友:很荣幸做了你两年的老师和朋友。有了进步,勿忘告知。 厄尼·凯瑟劳。”
初中毕业时,我去向凯瑟劳先生告别。他将那些词汇卡片交给我,要我带回家作个纪念,显然他很清楚,我已不再需要它们了。那天,我记得自己抄近路爬山回家。下山的时候,我绊了一跤,摔倒了。卡片一下子从我手中飞出,像一群嬉戏的蝴蝶一般洒落在郁郁葱葱的山坡上。虽然摔倒时擦破了膝盖,但我却大笑起来。然后,我开始小跑着拾捡卡片,一边拾一边还如癫似狂地喊着卡片上每一幅图片的名称──“学校”“云彩”“桥”“房子”“狗”“汽车”──就像我是第一次读到它们似的。
就在那一刻,我举目远眺,在遥远的前方,我看到了旧金山市中心。在帆船点点、波光荡漾的大海的映衬下,那里熠熠闪耀的高楼犹如童话中用宝石打造的城堡。“城市啊,”我喊道,“我美丽的城市。”这呼喊发自我的肺腑,溶入了我的血液。我忽然被一阵强烈的渴望所征服,我甚至想要吞噬眼前这片美丽的景色。
套用人们常说的一句话:“那个阶段的生活就此划上了句号。”我继续扬帆前行。
My Article 作者无意,读者有心
I went to Lowell High School—a prestigious public school in San Francisco. I made new friends and ended up at Berkeley. That is to say, I left the working-class world and worked myself toward all the shimmering high-rises and the city’s golden promises.
I didn’t bother to look back, didn’t bother to keep my mentor and friend abreast of my progress. Several decades later, I, on one whimsical17) weekend, decided to write an article about learning English, and Mr. K was featured promptly.
Did I know that Mr. K read and treasured that article? Did I know that he, in retirement, kept coming back to it, to my writing—to me?
No. Not until this note from his best friend, another teacher, informed me of his passing.
“Most of us know what pleasure Ernie got from your article.… He sent copies to many relatives back East. I’m sure he couched18) it in pride for what you have accomplished, but he was deeply honored. What no one knows is he was a bit unhappy that there was no retirement recognition. He told me many times he didn’t want any big deal, but as the years passed, he would speak somewhat wistfully19) of the lack of acknowledgement. You gave him acknowledgement.”
To be honest, it never occurred to me to see the story from Mr. K’s angle. I had grieved for Vietnam, for my lost homeland, for many other things. I had traveled around the world many times, but I didn’t go back to where that little junior high stood at the foot of the mountains. Living so nearby, I had felt, unreasonably, that were I to drive to the junior high and peek through the window of my mentor’s classroom, he would still be there—that Mr. K would always be there, making other needy kids feel special, and that there would always be little bowling teams and little book clubs in the summer. And in dreams and reveries20), haven’t I revisited him countless times?
But that’s the trouble with childhood, isn’t it, especially happy ones? Happy children don’t question their contentment any more than fish wonder about the river’s current; they swim on. My childhood, interrupted by war, was rekindled by kindness. I felt blessed and happy, I went on blessedly with my business of growing up. Mr. K opened the gate and ushered me in, and I, so hungry for all its possibilities, rushed through it.
我上了洛厄尔高中——这是旧金山一所知名的公立学校。我结交了新的朋友,最后进入了加州大学伯克利分校。换句话说,我离开了劳动阶层的世界,开始一步步靠近那熠熠闪光的高楼大厦,奔向城市里的金色前程。
我从未回首,也不曾费心思向我的老师和朋友汇报自己的新情况。只是几十年后,在某一个周末,我忽然心血来潮地打算写一篇关于英语学习的文章,凯先生的形象片刻间跃入我的脑海,成了我描绘的对象。
凯先生曾读过我写的这篇文章,对之珍爱有加;即便退休以后,他还常常重读这篇文章,重温我的作品,重新忆起我的点点滴滴。扪心自问:这些我都知道吗?
不,对此我一无所知,直到他最好的朋友,也是一位老师,来信告诉我他去世的消息。
“我们很多人都知道,你的文章给厄尼带来了无尽的快乐……他给东岸的许多亲戚都寄去了这篇文章。对你取得的成就,我想他一定引以为豪,同时也深感荣耀。但人们不知道的是,他对退休时没有得到表彰一直有些耿耿于怀。他多次对我说,他并无多大奢求。然而,随着岁月的流逝,他常常会怅然若失地谈到自己没有得到应有的认可。是你给了他这种认可。”
说实话,我从未想到过从凯先生的角度来看待问题。我曾为越南感到悲伤,为我失去的故乡感到悲伤,为许多其他的事情感到悲伤。我曾多次周游世界,但却从未回到过那座位于山脚下的初级中学。也许是因为住得太近,我竟毫无缘由地认为,只要我驱车前往学校,从我启蒙老师的教室窗口往里张望,他一定还会在那里——凯先生一定会永远在那里,让其他出身穷苦的孩子感到自己与众不同,暑期里也总还是会有小型的保龄球队,还有小小的读书俱乐部。而在梦境与幻想中,我难道没有一次又一次地与他重逢?
然而,这不正是童年——特别是幸福童年——的通病吗?幸福的孩子总是对自己的幸福习以为常,犹如河中的鱼儿总是对河中的流水习以为常一样;他们只管前行。我的童年一度被战争打乱,但在仁爱的呵护下,我又重获新生。我因此而感到幸福、快乐,并在幸福中自在成长。凯先生为我打开了一扇大门,引导我走进新世界,我对其中蕴含的无限奥妙求知若渴,于是匆匆穿过大门,直向前冲去。
Remembering Mr. K 凯先生的葬礼
The retired teachers sat on their pews to somber organ music. Wizened21), gray-haired, they rose, one by one, moving slowly, to speak with affection and humor of a man who was known as much for his aesthetic sensibilities and practical jokes and friendship as he was for his devotion to the art of teaching and to his students. Shared memories echoed inside the gilded columbarium22) like some ode to beauty itself …
He was a talented organist … loved driving cross-country … Spanish architecture and colonial history of California …created beautiful stained glass objects...
To all this I would say yet that his greatest talent is empathy: He intuited how one felt and, like a bodhisattva23), performed his magic to assuage24) grief.
在管风琴庄重的演奏声中,退休教师们安坐在教堂的长椅上。形容枯槁、白发苍苍的他们一个个站起身,缓缓地走上前去,感情充沛而又不失幽默地讲述着一位逝者的故事:他既以献身于教育艺术和他的学生而著称,又以审美触觉敏锐、言谈幽默、为人友善而闻名。共同的记忆在镀金的骨灰壁龛里回荡着,犹如一曲美的赞歌……
他是一位有才华的管风琴家……喜欢驾车越野……喜爱西班牙风格建筑以及加州殖民史……会制作漂亮的彩色玻璃物品……
除了这一切,我还想说,他最出众的才华是他的善解人意和感同身受般的待人之心:凭着直觉,他能体会到别人的感受,然后,像菩萨一样,施展法力替别人解难排忧。
Sailing Toward the Unknown 念师恩,走人生
Suddenly he stood by the edge of a full-fed river … The Mole was bewitched, entranced, fascinated. By the side of the river he trotted as one trots, when very small, by the side of a man who holds one spellbound25) by exciting stories.(编者注:这里选自童话《柳林风声》,详见注释6)
I did not fully appreciate the beauty of Grahame’s words. Yet even then, I knew that it had something to do with me—who, like Mole, albeit against my will, also left my insulated world and sailed toward the unknown.
A charmed life is one that goes down a river not knowing what’s behind the bend, but confident nevertheless that gracious strangers will be there in one form or another to aid and abet and be a guide through turbulent waters. Charmed was how I felt when I first came here and more than three decades later, charmed is how I feel today—and much of that, I will acknowledge, has to do with Mr. K.
不知不觉间,他来到一条河水充盈的河畔。……鼹鼠像着了魔一般,看得如痴如醉。他沿着河畔一路小跑,就像一个人小时候被大人的故事迷住了,因而紧跟在大人身边一路小跑一样。
那时,我还不能完全领略格雷厄姆的文字之美。然而,即使在那时,我也知道文中所述与我有着某种联系。我,和鼹鼠一样,尽管情非所愿,却也离开了我那封闭的环境,驶向一片未知的世界。
一个充满魅力的人生犹如顺河漂流,你永远不知道弯道那边会有什么等着你,但你总是相信会有一些好心人在那里,以这样或那样的方式来帮助你,激励你,引导你穿越激流。我初来乍到时,感受到的就是这种魅力;三十多年后的今天,我感受到的依然是这种魅力——而在很大程度上,我必须承认,这与凯先生有莫大的关系。
1. demise [dI5maIz] n. 死亡
2. bereft [bI5reft] adj. 丧失亲人的,忍受失去所爱之人而痛苦的
3. wiggle [5wIgl] vi. 摆动
4. plenary [5pli:nErI] adj. 无限的,充分的
5. annunciate [E5nQnFIeIt] vt. 宣告
6. Kenneth Grahame:肯尼斯·格雷厄姆(1859～1932),童话作家,生于英国苏格兰的爱丁堡,代表作有《柳林风声》(The Wind in the Willow)、《黄金时代》(The Golden Age)、《做梦的日子》(Dream Days)等。其中,《柳林风声》是一部经典的童话,讲述的是发生在蟾蜍、鼹鼠、河鼠和老獾等大森林动物们身上的故事,是一部关于友谊和家园的温情之作。
7. pore over:用心阅读,细心研究
8. pristine [5prIstaIn] adj. 干净的,崭新的
9. indelibly [In5delIblI] adv. 不可磨灭地,难忘地
10. bearing [5bZErIN] n. 相对位置,方位
11. succinct [sEk5sINkt] adj. 简洁的,简明扼要的
12. verdant [5vE:dEnt] adj. 青翠的
13. scamper [5skAmpE] vi. 奔跑
14. ecstatically [eks5tAtIklI] adv. 入迷地,欣喜若狂地
15. backdrop [5bAkdrRp] n. 背景,背景幕
16. that’s that:用于表示谈论、调查、进展等的结束
17. whimsical [5(h)wImzIkEl] adj. 因心血来潮或异想天开而作决定的
18. couch [kautF] vt. (用语言)表达
19. wistfully [5wIstfulI] adv. 愁闷地,忧郁地
20. revery [5revErI] n. 空想,幻想
21. wizened [5wIznd] adj. 消瘦的,枯槁的
22. columbarium [7kClEm5bZErIEm] n. 骨灰盒壁龛
23. bodhisattva [7bRdI5sB:tvE] n. 菩萨
24. assuage [E5sweIdV] vt. 使缓和,使缓解
25. spellbound [5spelbaJnd] adj. 着迷的,出神的