What makes you special? | Mariana Atencio | TEDxUniversityofNevada · TEDx Talks
记者Mariana Atencio分享她如何通过旅行和跨文化交流理解‘人性’的真谛。适合练习跨文化沟通和表达个人经历。
Translator: Riaki Poništ Reviewer: Peter van de Ven
翻译者：Riaki Poništ 审稿人：Peter van de Ven
Thank you so much.
非常感谢您。
I am a journalist.
我是一名记者。
My job is to talk to people from all walks of life, all over the world.
我的工作是与来自世界各地、各行各业的人们进行交流。
Today, I want to tell you why I decided to do this with my life and what I've learned.
今天，我想告诉你们，我为什么决定这样安排自己的生活，以及我从中学到了什么。
My story begins in Caracas, Venezuela, in South America, where I grew up; a place that to me was,
我的故事始于南美洲的委内瑞拉首都加拉加斯——那里是我成长的地方。对我来说，加拉加斯是一个充满特殊意义的城市……
and always will be, filled with magic and wonder.
它永远都充满了魔力与奇妙之处。
Frоm a very young age, my parents wanted me to have a wider view of the world.
从我很小的时候起，我的父母就希望我能够更广泛地了解这个世界。
I remember one time when I was around seven years old, my dad came up to me and said,
我记得有一次，我大概七岁的时候，爸爸走到我身边对我说：
"Mariana, I'm going to send you and your little sister..."
玛丽安娜，我要把你和你妹妹送到……
- who was six at the time - "...to a place where nobody speaks Spanish.
……到了一个没有人说西班牙语的地方。”当时那个孩子只有六岁。
I want you to experience different cultures."
我希望你能体验不同的文化。
He went on and on about the benefits of spending an entire summer in this summer camp in the United States,
他滔滔不绝地讲述了在美国这个夏令营度过整个夏天的种种好处。
stressing a little phrase that I didn't pay too much attention to at the time: "You never know what the future holds."
我特别强调了当时没有太注意的一句话：“你永远不知道未来会带来什么。
Meanwhile, in my seven-year-old mind, I was thinking, we were going to get to summer camp in Miami.
与此同时，在我这个七岁孩子的脑海里，我一直在想：我们即将去迈阿密的夏令营。
Maybe it was going to be even better, and we were going to go a little further north,
也许情况会更好，我们会再往北走一点。
to Orlando, where Mickey Mouse lived.
去奥兰多，那里住着米老鼠。
I got really excited.
我真的很兴奋。
My dad, however, had a slightly different plan.
然而，我父亲的计划略有不同。
Frоm Caracas, he he sent us to Brainerd, Minnesota.
从加拉加斯出发，他（呵呵）把我们送到了明尼苏达州的布赖纳德市。
Mickey Mouse was not up there, and with no cell phone, no Snapchat, or Instagram, I couldn't look up any information.
米老鼠（Mickey Mouse）的信息根本无从查找；由于当时没有手机，也没有 Snapchat 或 Instagram 等社交平台，我根本无法获取任何相关资料。
We got there, and one of the first things I noticed was that the other kids' hair was several shades of blonde,
我们到了那里，我首先注意到的是：其他孩子的头发都是金色的，而且发色的深浅各不相同。
and most of them had blue eyes.
他们中的大多数人都有一双蓝色的眼睛。
Meanwhile, this is what we looked like.
与此同时，这就是我们当时的样子。
The first night, the camp director gathered everyone around the campfire and said, "Kids, we have a very international camp this year;
第一个晚上，营地负责人把所有人召集到篝火旁，说道：“孩子们，今年我们的营地参与者来自世界各地；
the Atencios are here from Venezuela."
来自委内瑞拉的“Atencios”们到了这里。
The other kids looked at us as if we were from another planet.
其他孩子们看着我们，仿佛我们来自另一个星球一样。
They would ask us things like, "Do you know what a hamburger is?"
他们会问我们一些这样的问题：“你们知道汉堡包是什么吗？
Or, "Do you go to school on a donkey or a canoe?"
或者：“你是骑驴去上学，还是乘独木舟去上学？
I would try to answer in my broken English, and they would just laugh.
我会试着用我那蹩脚的英语来回答问题，但他们只会笑。
I know they were not trying to be mean; they were just trying to understand who we were,
我知道他们并不是故意要刻薄或伤害别人，他们只是想了解我们是谁。
and make a correlation with the world they knew.
并将这些发现与他们所熟悉的世界联系起来（即找出两者之间的关联）。
We could either be like them, or like characters out of a book filled with adventures, like Aladdin or the Jungle Book.
我们要么可以像他们一样；要么可以成为那些充满冒险故事的书中角色，比如阿拉丁或《丛林之书》里的角色。
We certainly didn't look like them, we didn't speak their language, we were different.
我们确实和他们不一样：我们不说他们的语言，我们的生活方式也不同。
When you're seven years old, that hurts.
当你七岁的时候，那种痛苦确实难以承受。
But I had my little sister to take care of, and she cried every day at summer camp.
但我还有妹妹需要照顾，她在夏令营里每天都哭。
So I decided to put on a brave face, and embrace everything I could about the American way of life.
于是，我决定强颜欢笑，尽可能地去接受美国的生活方式。
We later did what we called "the summer camp experiment," for eight years in different cities that many Americans haven't even heard of.
后来，我们进行了所谓的“夏令营实验”；这项实验持续了八年，分别在许多美国人都未曾听说过的城市中进行。
What I remember most about these moments was when I finally clicked with someone.
关于这些时刻，我印象最深刻的是当我终于与某个人建立起真正的默契（或者说，我们之间的交流变得顺畅、自然）的那一刻。
Making a friend was a special reward.
结交一个朋友是一种特别的收获。