以下是應屆畢業生演講稿網站為大家整理推薦的楊瀾在ted大會上的一篇題為the generation that's remaking china(重塑中國的一代)的演講稿中英原文。她在演講中分享了自己的人生經歷，並講述了當下中國的一些火熱現象，演講雖然不長，但是很多觀點都很精闢，非常值得一看。
英文演講稿：
the night before i was heading for scotland, i was invited to host the final of “china’s got talent” show in shanghai with the 80,000 live audience in the stadium. guess who was the performing guest? susan boyle. and i told her, “i’m going to scotland the next day.” she sang beautifully, and she even managed to say a few words in chinese. [chinese] soit’s not like “hello” or “thank you,” that ordinary stuff. it means “greenonion for free.” why did she say that? because it was a line from our chinese parallel susan boyle — a 50-some year-old woman, a vegetable vendor inshanghai, who loves singing western opera, but she didn’t understand anyenglish or french or italian, so she managed to fill in the lyrics with vegetable names in chinese. (laughter) and the last sentence of nessun dormathat she was singing in the stadium was “green onion for free.” so [as] susanboyle was saying that, 80,000 live audience sang together. that was hilarious.
so i guess both susan boyle and this vegetable vendor in shanghai belonged to otherness. they were the least expected to be successful in the business called entertainment, yet their courage and talent brought themthrough. and a show and a platform gave them the stage to realize their dreams.well, being different is not that difficult. we are all different from different perspectives. but i think being different is good, because you present a different point of view. you may have the chance to make a difference.
my generation has been very fortunate to witness and participate in the historic transformation of china that has made so many changes in the past 20, 30 years. i remember that in the year of 1990, when i was graduating from college, i was applying for a job in the sales department of the first five-star hotel in beijing, great wall sheraton — it’s still there. so after being interrogated by this japanese manager for a half an hour,he finally said, “so, miss yang, do you have any questions to ask me?” i summoned my courage and poise and said, “yes, but could you let me know, what actually do you sell?” i didn’t have a clue what a sales department was about in a five-star hotel. that was the first day i set my foot in a five-star hotel.
around the same time, i was going through an audition —the first ever open audition by national television in china — with another thousand college girls. the producer told us they were looking for some sweet,innocent and beautiful fresh face. so when it was my turn, i stood up and said,“why [do] women’s personalities on television always have to be beautiful,sweet, innocent and, you know, supportive? why can’t they have their own ideas and their own voice?” i thought i kind of offended them. but actually, they were impressed by my words. and so i was in the second round of competition,and then the third and the fourth. after seven rounds of competition, i was the last one to survive it. so i was on a national television prime-time show. and believe it or not, that was the first show on chinese television that allowed its hosts to speak out of their own minds without reading an approved script.(applause) and my weekly audience at that time was between 200 to 300 million people.
well after a few years, i decided to go to the u.s. and columbia university to pursue my postgraduate studies, and then started my ownmedia company, which was unthought of during the years that i started mycareer. so we do a lot of things. i’ve interviewed more than a thousand peoplein the past. and sometimes i have young people approaching me say, “lan, you changed my life,” and i feel proud of that. but then we are also so fortunate to witness the transformation of the whole country. i was in beijing’s bidding for the olympic games. i was representing the shanghai expo. i saw china embracing the world and vice versa. but then sometimes i’m thinking, what are today’s young generation up to? how are they different, and what are the differences they are going to make to shape the future of china, or at large,the world?
so today i want to talk about young people through the platform of social media. first of all, who are they? [what] do they look like?well this is a girl called guo meimei — 20 years old, beautiful. she showed offher expensive bags, clothes and car on her microblog, which is the chinese version of twitter. and she claimed to be the general manager of red cross at the chamber of commerce. she didn’t realize that she stepped on a sensitive nerve and aroused national questioning, almost a turmoil, against the credibility of red cross. the controversy was so heated that the red cross had to open a press conference to clarify it, and the investigation is going on.
so far, as of today, we know that she herself made up that title — probably because she feels proud to be associated with charity.all those expensive items were given to her as gifts by her boyfriend, who used to be a board member in a subdivision of red cross at chamber of commerce. it’s very complicated to explain. but anyway, the public still doesn’t buy it. it is still boiling. it shows us a general mistrust of government or government-backed institutions, which lacked transparency in the past. and also it showed us the power and the impact of social media as microblog.
microblog boomed in the year of XX, with visitors doubled and time spent on it tripled. sina.com, a major news portal, alone hasmore than 140 million microbloggers. on tencent, 200 million. the most popular blogger — it’s not me — it’s a movie star, and she has more than 9.5 million followers, or fans. about 80 percent of those microbloggers are young people,under 30 years old. and because, as you know, the traditional media is still heavily controlled by the government, social media offers an opening to let thesteam out a little bit. but because you don’t have many other openings, theheat coming out of this opening is sometimes very strong, active and even violent.
so through microblogging, we are able to understand chinese youth even better. so how are they different? first of all, most of them were born in the 80s and 90s, under the one-child policy. and because of selected abortion by families who favored boys to girls, now we have ended up with 30 million more young men than women. that could pose a potential danger to the society, but who knows; we’re in a globalized world, so they can look for girlfriends from other countries. most of them have fairly good education.the illiteracy rate in china among this generation is under one percent. incities, 80 percent of kids go to college. but they are facing an aging china with a population above 65 years old coming up with seven-point-some percent this year, and about to be 15 percent by the year of 2030. and you know we have the tradition that younger generations support the elders financially, and taking care of them when they’re sick. so it means young couples will have to support four parents who have a life expectancy of 73 years old.
so making a living is not that easy for young people.college graduates are not in short supply. in urban areas, college graduates find the starting salary is about 400 u.s. dollars a month, while the average rent is above $500. so what do they do? they have to share space — squeezed invery limited space to save money — and they call themselves “tribe of ants.”and for those who are ready to get married and buy their apartment, they figured out they have to work for 30 to 40 years to afford their firstapartment. that ratio in america would only cost a couple five years to earn,but in china it’s 30 to 40 years with the skyrocketing real estate price.
among the 200 million migrant workers, 60 percent of them are young people. they find themselves sort of sandwiched between the urban areas and the rural areas. most of them don’t want to go back to the countryside, but they don’t have the sense of belonging. they work for longer hours with less income, less social welfare. and they’re more vulnerable to joblosses, subject to inflation, tightening loans from banks, appreciation of the renminbi, or decline of demand from europe or america for the products theyproduce. last year, though, an appalling incident in a southern oemmanufacturing compound in china: 13 young workers in their late teens and early 20s committed suicide, just one by one like causing a contagious disease. but they died because of all different personal reasons. but this whole incident aroused a huge outcry from society about the isolation, both physical and mental, ofthese migrant workers.
for those who do return back to the countryside, they find themselves very welcome locally, because with the knowledge, skills and networks they have learned in the cities, with the assistance of the internet,they’re able to create more jobs, upgrade local agriculture and create newbusiness in the less developed market. so for the past few years, the coastal areas, they found themselves in a shortage of labor.
these diagrams show a more general social background. the first one is the engels coefficient, which explains that the cost of dailynecessities has dropped its percentage all through the past decade, in terms offamily income, to about 37-some percent. but then in the last two years, it goes up again to 39 percent, indicating a rising living cost. the gini coefficient has already passed the dangerous line of 0.4. now it’s 0.5 — even worse than that in america — showing us the income inequality. and so you see this whole society getting frustrated about losing some of its mobility. and also, the bitterness and even resentment towards the rich and the powerful isquite widespread. so any accusations of corruption or backdoor dealings between authorities or business would arouse a social outcry or even unrest.
so through some of the hottest topics on microblogging,we can see what young people care most about. social justice and governmentaccountability runs the first in what they demand. for the past decade or so, amassive urbanization and development have let us witness a lot of reports onthe forced demolition of private property. and it has aroused huge anger and frustration among our young generation. sometimes people get killed, and sometimes people set themselves on fire to protest. so when these incidents are reported more and more frequently on the internet, people cry for thegovernment to take actions to stop this.
so the good news is that earlier this year, the state council passed a new regulation on house requisition and demolition and passedthe right to order forced demolition from local governments to the court.similarly, many other issues concerning public safety is a hot topic on the internet. we heard about polluted air, polluted water, poisoned food. and guesswhat, we have faked beef. they have sorts of ingredients that you brush on apiece of chicken or fish, and it turns it to look like beef. and then lately,people are very concerned about cooking oil, because thousands of people have been found [refining] cooking oil from restaurant slop. so all these things have aroused a huge outcry from the internet. and fortunately, we have seen the government responding more timely and also more frequently to the public concerns.
while young people seem to be very sure about their participation in public policy-making, but sometimes they’re a little bit lost in terms of what they want for their personal life. china is soon to pass the u.s. as the number one market for luxury brands — that’s not including the chinese expenditures in europe and elsewhere. but you know what, half of those consumers are earning a salary below 2,000 u.s. dollars. they’re not rich atall. they’re taking those bags and clothes as a sense of identity and social status. and this is a girl explicitly saying on a tv dating show that she would rather cry in a bmw than smile on a bicycle. but of course, we do have young people who would still prefer to smile, whether in a bmw or [on] a bicycle.
so in the next picture, you see a very popular phenomenon called “naked” wedding, or “naked” marriage. it does not mean they will wear nothing in the wedding, but it shows that these young couples are ready to get married without a house, without a car, without a diamond ring and without a wedding banquet, to show their commitment to true love. and also, people are doing good through social media. and the first picture showed us that a truck caging 500 homeless and kidnapped dogs for food processing was spotted andstopped on the highway with the whole country watching through microblogging.people were donating money, dog food and offering volunteer work to stop that truck. and after hours of negotiation, 500 dogs were rescued. and here also people are helping to find missing children. a father posted his son’s picture onto the internet. after thousands of [unclear], the child was found, and we witnessed the reunion of the family through microblogging.
so happiness is the most popular word we have heardthrough the past two years. happiness is not only related to personal experiences and personal values, but also, it’s about the environment. people are thinking about the following questions: are we going to sacrifice our environment further to produce higher gdp? how are we going to perform our social and political reform to keep pace with economic growth, to keep sustainability and stability? and also, how capable is the system ofself-correctness to keep more people content with all sorts of friction goingon at the same time? i guess these are the questions people are going to answer. and our younger generation are going to transform this country while at the same time being transformed themselves.
thank you very much.
譯文：
來蘇格蘭(做ted講演)的前夜，我被邀請去上海做”中國達人秀“決賽的評審。在裝有八萬現場觀眾的演播廳裏，在台上的表演嘉賓居然是(來自蘇格蘭的，因參加英國達人秀走紅的)蘇珊歐巴桑(susan boyle)。我告訴她，“我明天就要啓程去蘇格蘭。” 她唱得很動聽，還對觀眾說了幾句中文，她並沒有說簡單的”你好“或者”謝謝“，她說的是——“送你蔥”。為什麽?這句話其實來源于中國版的“蘇珊歐巴桑”——一位五十歲的以賣菜為生，卻對西方歌劇有出奇愛好的上海中年婦女(蔡洪平)。這位中國的蘇珊歐巴桑並不懂英文，法語或義大利文，所以她將歌劇中的辭彙都換做中文中的蔬菜名，並且演唱出來。在她口中，歌劇《圖蘭朵》的最後一句便是“song ni cong”。當真正的英國蘇珊歐巴桑唱出這一句“中文的”《圖蘭朵》時，全場的八萬觀眾也一起高聲歌唱，場面的確有些滑稽。
我想susan boyle和這位上海的買菜農婦的確屬于人群中的少數。她們是最不可能在演藝界成功的，而她們的勇氣和才華讓她們成功了，這個節目和舞台給予了她們一個實現個人夢想的機會。這樣看來，與眾不同好像沒有那麽難。從不同的方面審視，我們每個人都是不同的。但是我想，與眾不同是一件好事，因為你代表了不一樣的觀點，你擁有了做改變的機會。
我這一代中國人很幸運的目睹並且參與了中國在過去二三十年中經歷的巨變。我記得1990年，當我剛大學畢業時，我申請了當時北京的第一家五星級酒店——長城喜來登酒店的銷售部門的工作。這家酒店現在仍在北京。當我被一位日本籍經理面試了一個半小時之後，他問到，“楊小姐，你有什麽想問我的嗎?”，我屏住呼吸，問道“是的，你能告訴我，具體我需要銷售些什麽嗎?” 當時的我，對五星級酒店的銷售部門沒有任何概念，事實上，那是我第一次進到一家五星級酒店。
我當時也在參加另一場“面試”，中國國家電視台的首次公開試鏡，與我一起參與選拔的還有另外1000名大學女畢業生。節目製作人說，他們希望找到一位甜美，無辜(lol)，漂亮的新鮮面孔。輪到我的時候，我問道“為什麽在電視螢幕上，女性總應該表現出甜美漂亮，甚至是服從性的一面?為什麽她們不能有她們自己的想法和聲音?“我覺得我的問題甚至有點冒犯到了他。但實際上，他們對我的表現印象深刻。我進入了第二輪選拔，第三輪，第四輪，直至最後的第七場選拔，我是唯一一個走到最後的試鏡者。我從此走上了國家電視台黃金時段的熒幕。你可能不相信，但在當時，我所主持的電視節目是中國第一個，不讓主持人念已經審核過的稿件的節目(掌聲)。我每周需要面對兩億到三億左右的電視觀眾。
幾年以後，我決定來美國哥倫比亞大學繼續深造，之後也開始運營自己的媒體公司，這也是我在職業生涯初始時所沒有預料到的。我的公司做很多不同的業務，在過去這些年裏，我訪談過一千多人。經常有年輕人對我說，“楊瀾，你改變了我的人生”，我對此感到非常自豪。我也幸運的目睹了整個國家的轉變：我參與了北京申奧和上海世博會。我看到中國在擁抱這個世界，而世界也進一步的接受中國。但有時我也在想，今天的年輕人的生活是什麽樣的?他們(與我們相比)有什麽不同?他們將帶給中國，甚至整個世界的未來一些怎樣的變化?
我想通過社交媒體來談一談中國的年輕人們。首先，他們是誰，他們是什麽樣子?這是一位叫郭美美的女孩兒，20歲，年輕漂亮。她在中國版的twitter上——新浪微博上，炫耀她所擁有的奢侈品，衣服，包和車。她甚至宣稱她是中國紅十字會的工作人員。她沒有意識到她的行為觸及了中國民眾極為敏感的神經，這引發了一場全民大討論，民眾開始質疑紅十字會的公信力。中國紅十字會為了平息這場爭議甚至舉辦了一場記者會來澄清，直至今日，對于”郭美美事件“的調查仍在繼續。
時至今日，我們所知道的事實是，她謊報了她的頭銜，可能是因為她的虛榮心，希望把自己和慈善機構聯系起來。所有那些奢侈品都是她的男朋友給她買的，而那位”男朋友 “的確曾經是紅十字會的工作人員。這解釋起來很復雜，總之，公眾對他們的解釋仍然不滿意，這仍然是在風口浪尖的一件事。這件事體現出(中國社會)對長期不透明的政府機關的不信任，同時也表現出社交媒體(微博)巨大的社會影響力。
微博在XX年得到了爆炸性的成長，微博的訪問使用者成長了一倍，使用者的訪問時間是XX年的三倍。新浪(sina.com)，一個最主要的微博平台，擁有 1.4億的微博使用者，而騰訊擁有兩億使用者。(在中國)最有名的微博主——不是我——是一位電影明星，她擁有近九百五十萬”冬粉“。接近80%的微博使用者是年輕人，三十歲以下。因為傳統媒體還在政府的強力控製之下，社交媒體提供了一個開放的平台進行了一些(民眾觀點的)分流。因為這樣分流的渠道並不多，從這個平台上爆發出的能量往往非常強烈，有時候甚至過于強烈。
通過微博，我們可以更好的了解到中國的年輕一代。首先，他們中的大多數都出生在八零九零年代，在獨生子女的生育政策的大背景下長大。因為偏好男孩的家庭會選擇性的墮胎，現在(中國)的年輕男性的數量多過年輕女性三千萬，這可能帶來社會的不穩定(危險)，但是我們知道，在這個全球化的社會中，他們可能可以去其他國家找女朋友。大多數人都擁有良好的教育。這一代中國人中的文盲率已經低于1%。在城市中，80%的孩子可以上大學，但他們將要面對的是一個，有接近7%的人口都是老年人的社會，這個數位在2030年會成長到15%。在這個國家，傳統是讓年輕人來從經濟上和醫療上來支持老年人，這意味著，一對年輕的夫妻將需要支持四個平均年齡是73歲的老人。
所以對于年輕人而言，生活並不是容易。大學部畢業生也不在是緊缺資源。在城市中，大學部生的月起薪通常是400美元(2500人民幣)，而公寓的平均月租金卻是500美元。所以他們的解決方式是合租——擠在有限的空間中以節省開支，他們叫自己”蟻族。“ 對于那些準備好結婚並希望購買一套公寓的中國年輕夫婦而言，他們發現他們必須要不間斷的工作30到40年才可以負擔得起一套公寓。對于同樣的美國年輕夫婦而言，他們隻需要五年時間。
在近兩億的涌入城市的農民工中，他們中的60%都是年輕人。他們發現自己被夾在了城市和農村中，大多數人不願意回到農村，但他們在城市也找不到歸屬感。他們工作更長的時間卻獲得更少的薪資和社會福利。他們也更容易面臨失業，受到通貨膨脹，銀行利率，人民幣升值的影響，甚至美國和歐盟對于中國製造產品的抵製也會影響到他們。去年，在中國南方的一個製造工廠裏，有十三位年輕的工人選擇了結束自己的生命，一個接一個，像一場傳染病。他們輕生的原因各有不同，但整個事件提醒了中國社會和政府，需要更多的關註這些在精神上和生理上都與外界脫節的年輕農民工人。
對于那些回到農村的年輕人，他們所經歷的城市生活，所學到的知識，技巧和建立的社會網路，讓他們通常更受歡迎。特別是在網際網路的幫助下，他們更有可能獲得工作，提升農村的農業水準和發展新的商業機會。在過去的一些年中，一些沿海的城鎮甚至出現了勞動力短缺。
這些圖片展現出整體的社會背景。第一張圖片是恩格斯系數(食品支出佔總消費支出的比例)，可以看到在過去的十年中，食物和生活必需品在家庭消費中的比例有所下降(37%)，然後在過去的兩年中，這項指數上升到39%，說明近兩年中生活成本的攀升。基尼系數早已越過了危險的0.4，到達0.5——這甚至高過了美國——體現出極大的貧富差距，所以我們才看到整個社會的失衡。同時，“仇富心態”也開始在整個社會蔓延，任何與腐敗和走後門相關的政府或商業醜聞都會引發社會危機和不穩定。
通過微博上很火的話題，我們可以看到年輕人的關註點。社會公正和政府的公信力是他們首要需求的。在過去的十年中，急速的城市化讓民眾讀到太多強製私人住戶拆遷的新聞，這引發了年輕一代的憤怒和不理解。有時候，被拆遷的住戶以自殺和自焚的方式來抗議(強製拆遷行為)。當這些事件越來越常在網際網路上被揭露出來，人們期待政府可以採取一些更積極的製止行動。
好訊息是，今年早些時候，人民代表大會通過了一項關于房屋征用和拆遷的新法規，將征用和拆遷的權利從當地政府移交到了法庭。相同的，很多其他與公共安全相關的問題也在網際網路上被熱烈討論。我們聽到有太多空氣污染，水污染，有毒食品的報道。你甚至都想不到，我們還有假牛肉。人們用一種特殊的材料加入雞肉和魚肉中，然後以牛肉的價格進行出售。最近，人們對食用油也很擔憂，大量的餐館被發現在使用“地溝油“。所有這些事件引發了網際網路上民眾觀點的大爆發。幸運的是，我們看到了政府正在更積極和更及時的對這些民眾的質疑給予回應。
一方面，年輕人越來越積極的參與到公共事務中;另一方面，他們也在尋找或者說迷失與個人生活的價值和定位。中國很快就要超過美國，成為世界上第一大奢侈品消費國——這還不包括中國人在國外的消費。但你知道嗎，超過半數中國的奢侈品消費者的(年)收入都低于兩千美元。他們其實並不富裕，他們用那些奢侈品牌的服裝和包體現身份和社會地位。這是一位在電視節目上公然表明，自己寧願在寶馬車裏哭也不坐在腳踏車後笑的年輕女孩。當然，我們也有更多的年輕人，喜歡微笑，不管是在寶馬還是在腳踏車上。
在下一幅圖中，你看到的是現在非常流行的”裸婚“，這並不代表這“裸露出席婚禮”，這體現的是年輕人願意接受結婚不買房，不買車，不買鑽戒，甚至不辦婚宴的這個現實，作為對純樸的真愛的致敬。但同時，人們也在通過社交媒體做一些善事。這副圖片裏，這輛車上裝有500隻被”綁架“來，準備被送去屠宰的狗，這輛車被網友們發現後，人們開始通過微博關註事態的進展，並且通過捐錢，捐食物和做義工來嘗試攔截該車。在幾個小時的周旋後，這500條狗獲救並被放生。有更多的人在通過微博尋找丟失的孩子。一位父親將他失散的兒子的照片發布到微博上，在幾千條”轉發“之後，他的兒子被找到，家庭的團聚也在微博上被報道出來。
“幸福(感)”是近兩年中國的流行辭彙。幸福感不僅僅與個人體驗和價值觀相關，更多的，它與環境息息相關。人們在思考：我們是否要犧牲環境來提升gdp?我們要怎樣進行社會和政治體製的改革來應對經濟的發展，保持穩定性和可持續性發展?同時，這個系統的自我修正能力是否足夠強大，是否能夠讓生活在其中的人民接受在前進過程中的各種壓力和困難?我想這些都是中國人民需要回答的問題，而中國的年輕一代將在改變這個國家的過程中也改變自己。
非常感謝。