A Scared Mountain 圣山六_西南联大英文课 Freshman Reading in English_免费在线阅读收听下载

Consider what the Chinese have done to Tai Shan, and what the West will shortly do, once the stream of Western tourists begins to flow strongly. Where the Chinese have constructed a winding stairway of stone, beautiful from all points of view, Europeans or Americans will run up a funicular railway, a staring scar that will never heal. Where the Chinese have written poems in exquisite calligraphy, they will cover the rocks with advertisements. Where the Chinese have built a series of temples, each so designed and placed so as to be a new beauty in the landscape, they will run up restaurants and hotels like so many scabs on the face of nature. I say with confidence that they will, because they have done it wherever there is any chance of a paying investment. Well, the Chinese need, I agree, our science, our organization, our medicine. But is it affectation to think they may have to pay too high a price for it, and to suggest that in acquiring our material advantages they may lose what we have gone near to lose, that fine and sensitive culture which is one of the forms of spiritual life? The West talks of civilizing China. Would that China could civilize the West!

试想中国人如何对待泰山，而不久之后当西方游客大量涌入泰山时，西方人又会有何举动？中国人修筑蜿蜒石径，从任何角度看上去都美不胜收，而美国人和欧洲人只会在石径上方架构索道，看上去就像一道永难愈合的显眼的伤疤。中国人用优雅的书法在山岩上作诗，西方人则会在上面写满广告。中国人在山上修建寺庙，每一座都像是为美景锦上添花，而西方人则在山上经营餐馆和旅店，好比自然之美颜上多了许多疥疮。我可以自信地讲，西方人定会如此为之，因为他们已经在任何有机会投资的地方采取了相同的举动。不错，中国人需要我们的科学、组织和医药，但倘若认为中国人必须为此付出极高的代价，或者认为在获取我们物质优势的同时，中国也势必同样丢弃我们几乎丢弃的那种精神生活形式——一种优秀而细腻的文化——那就是我们自以为是了。西方总是大谈启蒙中国，而我愿中国也能启迪西方。

（罗选民　译）

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