On New Year's Day, China Daily posted four of photos on its microblog, showing how littered New York's Times Square was after its year-end celebration. The post attracted 3,000 comments and 14,000 retweets. Among the retweeters was People's Daily, which drew 9,000 comments and 17,000 retweets of its own.

元旦那天，《中國(guó)日?qǐng)?bào)》官方微博發(fā)布了四張照片。照片里的紐約時(shí)代廣場(chǎng)垃圾遍地，是前一夜人們新年狂歡后留下的。這條微博收到了3000條評(píng)論，被轉(zhuǎn)發(fā)14000次。其中人民日?qǐng)?bào)也轉(zhuǎn)發(fā)了這條微博，收到了9000條評(píng)論，被轉(zhuǎn)發(fā)17000次。

China Daily's post was an oblique comment on the opinion that only Chinese show no respect for public sanitation. In a follow-up post, it added: "As the human flow for such fetes grows year by year, it becomes a common challenge for metropolises the world over for effective management of public spaces and its order and security while facing a sudden huge influx of visitors. We have paid a high price. But, in this age of global communication and traffic, it is ridiculous to discuss the issue in terms of racial quality."

只有中國(guó)人不注重公共衛(wèi)生——中國(guó)日?qǐng)?bào)的微博正是對(duì)這種看法的一種無(wú)聲辯駁。中國(guó)日?qǐng)?bào)在后續(xù)發(fā)布的微博中補(bǔ)充道：“隨著狂歡規(guī)模年復(fù)一年增加，如何在人群密度陡然增大時(shí)，實(shí)施有效的公共區(qū)域管理以保障安全、維持秩序，是大都市集體面臨的難題，也是已讓我們付出慘重代價(jià)的新挑戰(zhàn)。無(wú)論如何，國(guó)界逐漸消失、人員全球交流的時(shí)代，以膚色種族論素質(zhì)是顯而易見(jiàn)的愚蠢?！?/p>

The "high price" refers to the stampede in Shanghai on New Year's Eve in which 36 people died. "Racial quality" is a euphemism some critics assign to the inferiority of their compatriots when it comes to the less-than-desirable behavior in the public environment, such as littering, jostling and jumping the line.

“沉重的代價(jià)”指的是新年前夜發(fā)生在上海的踩踏事件，導(dǎo)致36人身亡?！懊褡逅刭|(zhì)”是一種委婉的說(shuō)法。當(dāng)提及社會(huì)地位較低的國(guó)人們?cè)诠矆?chǎng)合的不令人滿意的行為時(shí)，如亂丟垃圾、擁擠推搡和插隊(duì)等，一些評(píng)論家就會(huì)開(kāi)始大談民族素質(zhì)問(wèn)題。

It may not represent the mainstream voice of China, but there has always been an undercurrent of racism in China - against Chinese ourselves. Only in China would such a bad thing happen because Chinese are selfish, undereducated, scheming or too trustful, among other bad qualities, goes the argument.

這并不代表中國(guó)的主流聲音，但中國(guó)總有一股民族偏見(jiàn)的暗流，詆毀我們中國(guó)人自己。他們認(rèn)為，只有在中國(guó)才會(huì)發(fā)生如此糟糕的事情，因?yàn)橹袊?guó)人太自私，受教育程度低，善耍詭計(jì)，容易輕信別人。

This kind of statement derives from at least two sources: One is the tendency to blame a whole village for something done by an individual. A report of a serial killer would elicit a wave of responses saying that only a place so vile would spawn a creature like this. And a second possible source is the critical self-evaluation of scholars who scrutinize China's cultural soil for elements holding back its progress.

這種說(shuō)法的出現(xiàn)有兩個(gè)原因：其中一個(gè)就是人們總愛(ài)用一個(gè)人干的壞事去責(zé)備整個(gè)村子的人。如果報(bào)道說(shuō)某地出現(xiàn)了連環(huán)殺手，人們就會(huì)臆斷只有罪惡充盈的地方才會(huì)造就這么一個(gè)殺人惡魔。另一個(gè)可能的原因就是，一些學(xué)者們想要通過(guò)細(xì)察中國(guó)文化土壤來(lái)找到阻礙中國(guó)進(jìn)步的因素，他們希望通過(guò)嚴(yán)格的自我審視來(lái)達(dá)到鞭策進(jìn)步的目的。

The problem is, online denizens tend to accept the academic conclusions without delving into detailed analysis. The urge to generalize is so tempting and fits so neatly into the fast-food atmosphere of Internet expression that few have the patience to go through the travail of supporting one's arguments with evidence or rationalization. Online, the world is either black or white, with no room for shades of gray.

問(wèn)題是，網(wǎng)民們傾向于不加深入分析便接受這種學(xué)術(shù)論斷。如此以偏概全的見(jiàn)解很是吸引人，也很符合網(wǎng)絡(luò)言論快餐式的氛圍，因而很少有人會(huì)有耐心去思考它是否能找到證據(jù)支撐，它背后的邏輯是否講得通。網(wǎng)絡(luò)世界非黑即白，沒(méi)有灰色地帶可言。

That goes for both China and the United States as topics of contention. Especially China and the US - two countries used as points of reference for political grandstanding. If you are pro-China, you must be anti-America; and vice versa, or so some believe. It has become so simplistic, partly because of the 140-character limit of most arguments, that the best parts of a public discourse, the parts that involve new information or factual nuances, tend to be left out or ignored.

對(duì)于中美間極具爭(zhēng)議性的話題而言也是如此。尤其是中國(guó)和美國(guó)——它們常常被放在政治秀中對(duì)立的兩端。如果你支持中國(guó)，你就一定反美國(guó)；反之亦然，至少一些人是這樣認(rèn)為的。這種看法把復(fù)雜問(wèn)題過(guò)于簡(jiǎn)單化，而其中部分原因是微博有140字的字?jǐn)?shù)限制，公眾話語(yǔ)中最精華的部分，那些包含新的信息和事實(shí)細(xì)節(jié)的部分就可能被省略或忽略掉了。