Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: The Danger of a Single Story | TED · TED
通过自身经历讲述单一故事对文化认知的误导。适合练习文化、成长、生活类话题。
I'm a storyteller.
我是一个讲故事的人。
And I would like to tell you a few personal stories about what I like to call "the danger of the single story."
我想和大家分享一些个人经历，这些经历让我深刻体会到了所谓的“单一叙事（即只讲述一个版本的故事）所带来的危害”。
I grew up on a university campus in eastern Nigeria.
我在尼日利亚东部的一所大学校园里长大。
My mother says that I started reading at the age of two, although I think four is probably close to the truth.
我妈妈说我在两岁的时候就开始读书了，不过我觉得实际上应该是四岁左右。
So I was an early reader, and what I read were British and American children's books.
我是一个很早就开始阅读的孩子，当时我读的都是英国和美国的儿童读物。
I was also an early writer, and when I began to write, at about the age of seven,
我也是一个很早就开始写作的孩子；大约在七岁的时候，我就开始了我的写作生涯。
stories in pencil with crayon illustrations that my poor mother was obligated to read, I wrote exactly the kinds of stories I was reading:
那些用铅笔写成、配以蜡笔插图的故事，我可怜的母亲不得不一一读完。而我写的，恰恰就是我自己平时喜欢读的那种故事。
All my characters were white and blue-eyed, they played in the snow, they ate apples,
我所有的角色都是白皮肤、蓝眼睛的；他们在雪地里玩耍，喜欢吃苹果。
and they talked a lot about the weather, how lovely it was that the sun had come out.
他们聊了很多关于天气的话题，特别高兴太阳终于出来了，天气变得非常美好。
Now, this despite the fact that I lived in Nigeria.
尽管我曾在尼日利亚生活过，但情况仍然是如此。
I had never been outside Nigeria.
我从未离开过尼日利亚。
We didn't have snow, we ate mangoes, and we never talked about the weather, because there was no need to.
我们这里没有下雪，我们吃了芒果，也从未谈论过天气——因为实在没有这个必要。
My characters also drank a lot of ginger beer, because the characters in the British books I read drank ginger beer.
我的角色们也经常喝姜汁汽水；因为我读过的英国小说中的角色们都会喝这种饮料。
Never mind that I had no idea what ginger beer was.
算了，反正我根本不知道“姜汁啤酒”到底是什么。
And for many years afterwards, I would have a desperate desire to taste ginger beer.
在之后的许多年里，我一直都非常渴望品尝姜汁啤酒。
But that is another story.
不过，那是另一个故事了。
What this demonstrates, I think, is how impressionable and vulnerable we are in the face of a story,
我认为，这表明了我们在面对一个故事时是多么容易受到影响、多么脆弱。
particularly as children.
尤其是孩子们。
Because all I had read were books in which characters were foreign,
因为我读过的所有书籍中的角色都是外国人（即来自其他国家的角色）。
I had become convinced that books by their very nature had to have foreigners in them
我逐渐确信：从本质上讲，书籍中必然会涉及到外国人的角色（即书中会有一些外国人）。
and had to be about things with which I could not personally identify.
这些内容必须与我个人无法产生共鸣的事物相关。
Now, things changed when I discovered African books.
当我发现非洲出版的书籍后，情况发生了变化。
There weren't many of them available, and they weren't quite as easy to find as the foreign books.
这类书籍的数量并不多，而且比那些外国书籍更难找到。
But because of writers like Chinua Achebe and Camara Laye, I went through a mental shift in my perception of literature.
但由于有了奇努阿·阿切贝（Chinua Achebe）和卡马拉·莱耶（Camara Laye）这样的作家，我对文学的看法发生了根本性的转变。
I realized that people like me, girls with skin the color of chocolate, whose kinky hair could not form ponytails,
我意识到，像我这样的人——那些皮肤颜色像巧克力一样、头发卷曲到无法扎马尾的女孩——
could also exist in literature.
这种现象也可能出现在文学作品中。
I started to write about things I recognized.
我开始写下那些我能够理解、能够认同的事物。
Now, I loved those American and British books I read.
现在，我很喜欢我读过的那些美国和英国的书籍。
They stirred my imagination.
它们激发了我的想象力。
They opened up new worlds for me.
它们为我打开了新的世界。
But the unintended consequence was that I did not know that people like me could exist in literature.
但意想不到的后果是：我之前根本不知道，在文学作品中竟然可以塑造像我这样的人的形象。
So what the discovery of African writers did for me was this: It saved me from having a single story of what books are.
非洲作家的发现对我的意义在于：它让我摆脱了对于“书籍究竟是什么”这一问题的单一、片面的认知（即那种认为书籍只包含某种固定类型或内容的观念）。
I come from a conventional, middle-class Nigerian family.
我来自一个传统的、属于尼日利亚中产阶级的家庭。
My father was a professor.
我的父亲是一位教授。
My mother was an administrator.
我的母亲是一名管理人员。
And so we had, as was the norm, live-in domestic help, who would often come from nearby rural villages.
按照惯例，我们会雇用住在家里帮忙做家务的人，这些人通常来自附近的农村村庄。
So, the year I turned eight, we got a new house boy.
那年我八岁的时候，我们家又来了一位新的男仆。
His name was Fide.
他的名字叫菲德（Fide）。
The only thing my mother told us about him was that his family was very poor.
我母亲唯一跟我们提起关于他的事情就是，他的家庭非常贫穷。
My mother sent yams and rice, and our old clothes, to his family.
我母亲把他家的亲戚送去了红薯、大米以及我们的一些旧衣服。