by 罗西 trs 陈德彰
I had once helped a friend of mine run a water melon stall. Inoticed something interesting when people came to buy watermelons, but nobody paid any attention to it because it seemedto be a common practice: Almost every buyer would lift themelon up to their ear, smartly rap it, apparently trying to listento something. I wondered what they expected to hear.
曾帮朋友摆过西瓜摊。当时，我注意到一个普遍的有趣现象，即几乎所有来买瓜的人总喜欢把西瓜举在耳际老练地“旁敲侧击”一番，我很奇怪，同时不明白他们到底希望听到什么。
Finally I could no longer hold back my curiosity and made bold to ask a customer—an elderlygentleman—about this. Hearing my question, he roared with laughter. Then he replied in a self-mocking tone, “Young man1, I have been doing this for more than fifty years. All I know is thateverybody would stare at you like you were a fool if just pick up the melon and leave!”
终于，有一天我实在忍不住问了一位顾客，那是一位老者，他听了我的问题后，哈哈大笑，然后有点自嘲地说：“孩子，我已经这样做50多年了，我所知道的是，如果你拿起瓜就走，别人都会像看傻瓜一样地盯着你！”
Not long after that, my friend, the water melon stall owner, unexpectedly sent me an invitation forher wedding, which really surprised me. I asked her, “How come you are seized by a sudden whimto get married? I don’t remember ever hearing you mention that you’ve got a boyfriend.” Sheanswered while counting money, “Everyone has to get married anyway, so it is better to getmarried sooner than later.”
不久，我这位卖西瓜的朋友，突然给我送来喜帖，我很惊讶：“你怎么心血来潮想结婚，好像从未听说过你有男友呀！“我的朋友一边点钱一边回答：“反正大家都要结婚，晚做还不如早做！”
I could think of no word to refute her. It seems that everybody is living for everybody else and hasforgotten the need of their own heart. It may be safe and save a lot of worries by following others’suit in doing things. The use of We or Us will give one a steady and sure sense of pride. But usingthe pronoun “I” would often give one a guilty conscience. The question is: How can we accountfor this mentality?
我无言以对。好像大家都是为大家活着，而唯独忘了自己的内心需求。随大流也许很省心也很安全，用“我们”或“咱们”造句时，总有一种踏实的豪迈感，而用“我”做主语造句时，显然有点心虚，但这是什么道理？
One day I cut myself incidentally when trimming my finger nails. I couldn’t help but utter a crybecause of the pain. A colleague of mine jeered at me, “What a fussy man2 you are!” He was notme. What right did he have to laugh at me since he did not feel the pain?
有一天，我在修剪指甲时，不小心剪到了肉，很痛，叫了起来，同事站在一旁大笑：“大惊小怪，娇气！”他不是我，他怎么有权利嘲笑我真实的呼喊？我痛，他能感觉到吗？
I find all these things somewhat funny. We have got used to taking cue from others and followtheir suit. In turn, we also take it for granted that we should judge the right and wrong of othersby our own standard. As a matter of fact, this massive practice is still wrong though we all followothers’ suit like this, but we feel at ease and justified simply because this is the way of Us, and sowe can have an easy conscience because this has been practiced by so many people.
我为这一切感到滑稽，我们常常要看别人的眼色而学习些什么，反过来，还会想当然地用自己的眼光，去判断别人的是非。其实，我们都错了，但因为是“我们”，所以心安理得，所以错得有规模。
