去年11月,迪拜酋长国最大的企业迪拜世界宣布,将推迟6个月偿还债务时,全球为之震惊。因为在过去的十余年里,迪拜总是以“语不惊人死不休”的姿态让世界一次又一次地聚焦这个沙漠小国。他们推出的每个建设方案几乎都冠以“世界最大的”、“区域最大的”:最大的人工岛、号称七星级的金帆船酒店、世界上最高的迪拜塔等等。但很少人知道金碧辉煌背后的代价……
英美发音 适合泛听
Limitless 奢侈之极
Host A: Dubai is going to be the first country ever to feature a refrigerated beach.
Host B: You know what they got in Dubai?
Host A & B: Too much money!
Host B: Yes. They’re also the people who have the indoor ski slope.
Host A: Right. Right, right, right. And let me tell you exactly what a refrigerated beach is. The sand...underneath the sand there will be heat absorbing pipes, ...
Host B: Unh huh.
Host A: ...OK, so the sand won’t be 1)scorching. The visitors and tourists will be comfortable. Obviously the pools are gonna be temperature controlled by computers, and they’re gonna have cool water, and it’s gonna cost a ton of money.
Host B: I have a lot of opinions on this, surprisingly enough. First off, I think it looks really cool, like, if they did it, it’d be kinda “2)bad-ass” to have these almost like modern-day Gardens of Babylon, in a sense, and I’d like to go to them and experience it. Now, having said that, I think it’s a mistake. I think they’re building up this huge 3)edifice and it’s gonna crash one day, especially if you pull out the oil rug from underneath these guys, man, this economy that they’re building and these huge buildings and their refrigerated beaches and the indoor ski slopes. House of cards!
主持人甲:迪拜将成为第一个拥有冷藏海滩的国家。
主持人乙:你搞明白迪拜是怎么回事吗?
主持人甲和乙:钱太多了!
主持人乙:正是。他们还有室内的滑雪斜道。
主持人甲:对,对,对,对。我来告诉你冷藏海滩是怎么样的。海滩上的沙……在沙滩的下面会埋一些吸热管……
主持人乙:嗯。
主持人甲:这样呢,沙滩就不会像通常那样烫了。来这里的人与游客就会觉得很舒适。不用说,游泳池的水温会由电脑来控制,这样他们就能享用凉爽的水了,而这一切需要花好多钱。
主持人乙:我对这件事有不少想法,这可能让你感到意外。首先,我觉得这玩意儿看起来很酷。如果他们真的把它建成了,那可就太不同寻常了,因为从某种意义上说,它就像是现代版的古巴比伦空中花园。我很想去那里亲身感受一下。不过呢,话又说回来了,我认为这么做是不对的。我觉得他们现在正在建造的这个庞然大物有一天会轰然倒下,特别是如果这些家伙的脚下不再有石油的话。好家伙,那他们的经济,他们正在建造的这些摩天大厦,还有冷藏海滩、室内滑雪斜道,全部都不堪一击!
Heartless 残忍之极
The locals, the Emirati, are less than 20% of the total population. Someone has to do the work. For the most part, Emirati can lead a very privileged life. They benefit from an elaborate welfare system. If they want to, they can have free education right through university, 4)subsidized housing, incentives to marry a fellow national, and the opportunity to get government jobs.
As the sand is moved to create another 5)gargantuan project destined for the record books, there is one record that Dubai can be less proud of. Wherever another of Dubai’s monumental projects pops up, they are there. They are the muscle that pours the concrete, moves the sand, ties the steel rods. They are the manual labourers who are behind the construction boom of Dubai. There are almost a million of them, and they are here for one reason only.
Man: They’re trying to earn more money. They can’t get this much money in their home country.
He wakes up at 4:30 in the morning, cooks his breakfast, and by 5:30 takes a shower and gets ready. By 5:30 they start for their work site, and the whole day he works out there, by six o’clock and we can start(s) back for home and the time they reach home maybe sometimes eight o’clock. After going back, they wash their clothes and again cooks for their dinner and then they go to sleep.
In 2006, Human Rights Watch described the construction workers as “6)deportable forced labour” and condemned the Emirates of cheating workers. Demonstrations and strikes have shaken authorities and they’re beginning to crack down on those companies who don’t follow the rules.
阿联酋当地人占全部人口不到20%。可事情总得有人干。通常来说,阿联酋人过着一种非常优越的生活。他们得益于一套非常详尽的福利制度。如果他们愿意的话,他们可以享受免费教育,一直读完大学为止,住着国家补贴的房子;如果与阿联酋人结婚的话,还能获得奖励,并且有获得政府工作的机会。
每当沙子为又一个即将打破记录的巨型建筑移步时,有一项记录则是迪拜人不愿意提起的。每当迪拜又一地标式建筑项目拔地而起,这群人就在那里。他们是浇灌混凝土、搬移沙丘、系绑钢筋的主要力量。他们是迪拜建造业飞速发展中的体力劳动者。他们的人数几乎有一百万之多,他们来这里只有一个目的。
男:他们想多挣钱,因为他们在自己的国家挣不到这么多钱。
工人早上四点半起床,煮早餐,洗个澡,到五点半作好准备;五点半,他们出发到工地上去,整天都在那里干活;六点,工人开始回家,到家可能已经是八点了;回来后,他们洗衣服、煮晚餐,然后睡觉。
2006年,人权观察组织称迪拜建筑工人为“可被随意舍弃的强迫劳动者”,并对阿联酋人欺骗工人的行为予以谴责。工人的抗议示威和罢工使当局受到了震动,他们开始对那些不按规定行事的公司采取严厉措施。
Shameless 肮脏之极
It’s one of the world’s financial hubs with a reputation for mind-boggling engineering projects: the world’s tallest building, the biggest artificial islands, and a ski slope in the middle of the desert. But Dubai also has its share of critics. They claim that the charge towards all-out luxury is hurting natural resources and threatening the environment.
Water consumption in the United Arab Emirates is among the highest in the world at around 550 litres per person per day. Dubai’s expanded population is one contributor to this over-consumption. Hundreds of thousands of 7)expatriates have been drawn here by economic growth and high spending power, and it’s become a city of shopping centres and consumerism. But it’s also now got the world’s largest ecological footprint.
Tanzeed Alam (World Wide Fund for Nature): If everyone in the world lived like an average UAE resident, we’d need four and a half planets to sustain that level of consumption, and clearly, from that, our waste statistics also are 8)derived. Because we consume so much, we also waste a lot.
According to Dubai authorities, the city produces 60,000 tons of refuse a day, but there’s still no large-scale treatment program. That means most of it ends up here with no recycling. Ecologists now say it’s imperative for Dubai authorities to agree to some serious wide-ranging reforms to prevent natural resources here going to waste.
这里是世界的金融中心之一,它以在沙漠深处建造令人难以置信的巨大工程项目著称,如世界上最高的大楼、最大的人工岛屿和滑雪斜道。然而,迪拜也不乏批评者。他们称,竭尽全力打造奢华的后果是对自然资源造成伤害,对环境造成威胁。
阿联酋的人均水消耗量是每人550升一天,是全球最高的国家之一。迪拜不断膨胀的人口是造成其高消耗的原因之一。数以十万计的外国人被这里的经济发展和高消费力所吸引,使其成了一个由购物中心组成,以消费为中心的城市。但它也留下了世界上最大的生态足迹。
坦伊德·阿拉姆(世界自然基金会):如果世界上的人都像普通阿联酋人一样生活的话,那人类需要四个半地球才能支撑这种消费方式,我们也可以由此清楚知道他们造成的浪费。因为如果我们高消费,就会有大量的浪费。
根据迪拜当局的数字,这个城市每天要制造六万吨垃圾,但却没有处理量大的垃圾处理设施。于是,大部分垃圾就都堆放在这里,没有被回收。生态学家称,迪拜当局必须允诺采取各种重大措施进行这方面的改革,以防止这里的自然资源被浪费。
翻译:丁一 
