Towards the end of “Jude the Obscure”, Thomas Hardy’s final novel, comes one of the most harrowing scenes in English literature. Jude, an itinerant laborer struggling to feed his family, returns home to find his eldest son has hanged himself and his younger siblings from the coat hook on the back of the door. A note says “Done because we are too menny.”
    harrowing 悲慘的 itinerant 周游的，流浪的 sibling 兄弟姐妹
    在托馬斯.哈代后一篇小說《無名的裘德》的結(jié)尾，人們能讀到英國(guó)文學(xué)中悲慘的一幕。四處流浪苦苦支撐家庭的裘德，當(dāng)他回到家時(shí)，在門后的衣帽勾發(fā)現(xiàn)他的大兒子吊死了弟妹，大兒子自己也上吊自殺。遺書中寫道“因?yàn)槲覀內(nèi)颂嗔恕薄?BR>    In June this year China suffered a real-life variant of this terrible scene. In a rural part of Bijie township in Guizhou province, in south-west China, a brother and three sisters, the oldest 13, the youngest five, died by drinking pesticide. They had been living alone after their mother had disappeared and their father had migrated for work. The 13-year-old boy left a note saying, “It is time for me to go—death has been my dream for years.”
    variant 變化，變體 pesticide 殺蟲劑
    今年六月，中國(guó)發(fā)生了這一恐怖場(chǎng)景真實(shí)的再現(xiàn)。在中國(guó)西南部的貴州省，畢節(jié)市的鄉(xiāng)村，一個(gè)哥哥和他的三個(gè)妹妹集體喝農(nóng)藥自殺。他們中大的13歲，小的僅僅5歲。自從母親失蹤，父親外出務(wù)工以來，他們一直獨(dú)自生活。13歲的哥哥遺書中寫道“我該走了，死亡是我多年的夢(mèng)想”。
    Three years before that, also in Bijie, five street children died of carbon-monoxide poisoning after they had clambered into a roadside dumpster and lit charcoal to keep themselves warm. Chinese social media drew parallels with the little match girl in Hans Christian Andersen’s story of that name: afraid to return home because she has not sold any matches, she freezes to death in the winter night, burning match after match because the light reminds her of her grandmother. It is a well known tale in China because it is taught in primary schools as an example of the uncaring nature of early capitalism.
    carbon-monoxide 一氧化碳 clamber爬 dumpster垃圾箱
    charcoal 木炭 capitalism資本主義
    就在三年前，同樣是在畢節(jié)，五名流浪街頭的孩子爬進(jìn)了街邊的垃圾桶點(diǎn)燃木炭來取暖，終卻死于一氧化碳中毒。中國(guó)的社會(huì)媒體將這件事與安徒生童話中的賣火柴的小女孩來比較。在安徒生的故事里，因?yàn)檫B一根火柴也沒有賣出去，小女孩害怕回家。她點(diǎn)燃了一根根火柴因?yàn)楣饬潦顾肫鹆俗婺?，終卻凍死在冬日的夜晚。這個(gè)故事在中國(guó)廣為人知，在小學(xué)里，它作為早期資本主義的冷漠本質(zhì)的例證被教授給孩子們。
    Over the past generation, about 270m Chinese laborers have left their villages to look for work in cities. It is the biggest voluntary migration ever. Many of those workers have children; most do not take them along. The Chinese call these youngsters liushou ertong, or “l(fā)eft-behind children”. According to the All-China Women’s Federation, an official body, and UNICEF, the UN organization for children, there were 61m children below the age of 17 left behind in rural areas in 2010. In several of China’s largest provinces, including Sichuan and Jiangsu, more than half of all rural children have been left behind. In effect, some villages consist only of children and grandparents. This is a blight on the formative years of tens of millions of people. Alongside the expulsion of millions of peasants from the land they have farmed and the degradation of the country’s soil, water and air, this leaving behind is one of the three biggest costs of China’s unprecedented and transformative industrialization.
    blight枯萎，破壞 expulsion驅(qū)逐，離開 degradation 退化
    在過去一代人里，大約有2.7億中國(guó)勞動(dòng)離開家鄉(xiāng)，到城市尋找一份工作。這是有史以來規(guī)模大的自發(fā)遷徙活動(dòng)。這些工人中的許多人有子女，但大部分人不會(huì)把他們帶在身邊。中國(guó)人管這些孩子叫做“留守兒童”。官方組織中華全國(guó)婦女聯(lián)合會(huì)以及聯(lián)合國(guó)兒童組織UNICEF數(shù)據(jù)顯示，2010年大約有6100萬(wàn)17歲以下的農(nóng)村留守兒童。中國(guó)大的幾個(gè)省份中，包括四川和江蘇，超過半數(shù)的農(nóng)村孩子被“留守”了。這樣的后果是，有些村子里只剩下老人和小孩。數(shù)已千萬(wàn)孩子的性格成長(zhǎng)階段被破壞。同時(shí)，數(shù)以百萬(wàn)計(jì)的農(nóng)民被迫離開他們耕作的土地。鄉(xiāng)村的土地，水質(zhì)與空氣質(zhì)量持續(xù)惡化。而這些，是中國(guó)在史無前例的巨大工業(yè)化變革中，所付出的為高昂的代價(jià)之一。
    Just over half of the 61m counted in 2010 were living with one parent while the other spouse was away working; 29m had been left in the care of others. Mostly the carers were grandparents, but about 6m were being looked after by more distant relatives or by the state (that number includes orphans and children with disabilities who have been abandoned). There were 2m children who, like the little match children of Bijie, had been left just to fend for themselves.
    spouse 配偶 orphan孤兒
    2010年統(tǒng)計(jì)數(shù)據(jù)表明，在6100萬(wàn)兒童中，剛過半數(shù)與單親一起居住，而另一方則在外地打工;2900萬(wàn)兒童則被交給他人撫養(yǎng)。大部分的撫養(yǎng)人時(shí)這些孩子的爺爺奶奶，但仍有大約6百萬(wàn)兒童則被遠(yuǎn)親或是國(guó)家撫養(yǎng)(這一統(tǒng)計(jì)數(shù)據(jù)中包括孤兒和被遺棄的殘疾兒童)。跟畢節(jié)那“賣火柴的孩子”的情況類似，有兩百萬(wàn)兒童只得自食其力。
    Not all parents who up sticks to look for work leave their kids behind: in the 2010 figures 36m children had gone to live with their migrating families in cities. But this has its own problems; very few of these children can go to a state school or see a state doctor at subsidized prices in their new homes. Moreover, their hard-working parents often cannot look after the children. Without grandparents or a state school to keep an eye on them, such migrant children can be just as neglected as those left behind in the country.
    但也不是所有在外出務(wù)工的家長(zhǎng)都拋下了他們的孩子：2010年的統(tǒng)計(jì)數(shù)據(jù)表明，3600萬(wàn)孩子隨他們的父母一起到城市生活。但這也有其弊端;這些孩子幾乎無法進(jìn)入公立學(xué)校，抑或是在城市的公立醫(yī)院看病且享有補(bǔ)助。更嚴(yán)重的是，他們忙碌的家長(zhǎng)時(shí)常無法照看他們。脫離了爺爺奶奶與公立學(xué)校的看管，這些勞務(wù)移民的孩子被忽視的程度與那些留守兒童一樣。
    A damaged generation
    受傷害的一代人
    On top of that there were about 9m left behind in one city when one or both parents had moved to another. Add it all up and, in 2010, 106m children’s lives were being profoundly disrupted by their parents’ restless search for jobs. For comparison, the total number of children in the United States is 73m. And the proportion of these children who were left behind, rather than migrating with their parents, grew a great deal in the late 2000s.
    此外，大約有9百萬(wàn)城市留守兒童當(dāng)其單親或是雙親前往外地工作時(shí)，被留守在城市中。由于他們的父母焦慮不安的尋找工作，僅在2010年，總計(jì)就有1.06億兒童的生活受到了極大的影響。相比較而言，美國(guó)兒童的總數(shù)也只有7300萬(wàn)。留守兒童所占總數(shù)的比例從2000年底開始飛速增長(zhǎng)。
    The experience of those left with one parent while the other is away working is perhaps not so different from that of the children of single parents in the West. But a study by a non-governmental organization, called the Road to School Project, reckons that 10m left-behind children do not see their parents even once a year and 3m have not had a phone call for a year. About a third of left-behind kids see their parents only once or twice a year, typically on Chinese New Year.
    那些雙親中有一方去外地打工，只有單親在身邊的孩子與西方國(guó)家的單親家庭的孩子的成長(zhǎng)經(jīng)歷是一樣的。但是由一項(xiàng)非政府組織的名叫通往學(xué)校之路的研究估計(jì)，1千萬(wàn)留守兒童甚至一年到頭都見不到父母，3百萬(wàn)留守兒童一年都不會(huì)和父母通電話。1/3的留守兒童每年見到父母的次數(shù)只有或者兩次，基本上是在春節(jié)相見。
    Though any child may be left behind, there are some patterns. The youngest children are the most likely to be left, and girls are slightly more likely to be left than boys. This preference for taking boys along means that in cities the preponderance of boys over girls that has been produced by sex-selective abortions is exaggerated further. Anecdotal evidence suggests that an unusual number of left-behind children have siblings. One reason for this is that China’s one-child policy has been implemented less strictly in the countryside, and so more rural families have two children to leave behind.
    盡管任何孩子都可能被“留守”，但留守兒童卻有一些典型特征。小的孩子往往被“留守”，女孩比男孩留守的可能性更大。家長(zhǎng)帶著男孩進(jìn)城意味著城市中男孩數(shù)量相對(duì)過多，這將進(jìn)一步擴(kuò)大由于性別選擇人流造成的男女比例失衡。非官方消息表明，留守兒童的數(shù)量比官方統(tǒng)計(jì)的更多，而且他們還有兄弟姐妹。其中原因之一是，中國(guó)的計(jì)劃生育政策在農(nóng)村實(shí)施的不嚴(yán)格，因此很多農(nóng)村家庭有兩個(gè)留守兒童。
    It is not yet possible to say whether the phenomenal level of leaving behind found in the late 2000s persists. There is some evidence that with the slowdown in the economy migrant laborers are starting to drift back to their villages. But even if the trend has slowed, the dislocation still represents a third blow to the traditional Chinese family. First came the one-child-policy. Then the enormously distorted sex ratio. Now a mass abandonment.
    很難說2000年底發(fā)現(xiàn)的留守兒童現(xiàn)象是否還繼續(xù)存在。有證據(jù)表明，隨著經(jīng)濟(jì)增長(zhǎng)放緩，勞動(dòng)移民正在返回他們的村子。但即使這種趨勢(shì)放緩，勞動(dòng)移民造成的混亂的仍然是給中國(guó)傳統(tǒng)家庭帶來的第三個(gè)打擊。第一是計(jì)劃生育政策，其次是極大扭曲的性別比例，現(xiàn)在則是大量父母對(duì)孩子的離棄。
    Being left behind damages children in many ways. In Cangxi county, Sichuan province, in south-west China, the local education authority (as part of a study) gave eight- and nine-year-old left-behind children video cameras and taught them to film their lives. Sun Xiaobing, who is eight years old, is in the charge of her grandparents, but she is left alone for days on end. She shares her lunch with a stray dog to attract its companionship. Her two days of video consist almost entirely of her conversations with farm animals; she has no one else. Wang Kanjun’s film is about his little sister. The five-year-old girl spends most of her time at home playing with the phone; she is waiting for her mother to call.
    留守兒童在多方面受到了傷害。中國(guó)西南部省份四川蒼溪縣，當(dāng)?shù)亟逃鞴懿块T給八至九歲的留守兒童錄像機(jī)并讓他們拍攝自己的生活。
    八歲的孫小冰負(fù)責(zé)照顧她的爺爺奶奶，然而她幾天以來卻總是獨(dú)自一人。她把午飯分給流浪狗，與它交朋友。在她兩天的錄像中，幾乎全是她與牲畜的對(duì)話;她沒有其他人可以說話。王堪軍拍的是他的小妹妹。這個(gè)5歲的小女孩在家里的大部分時(shí)間都在玩手機(jī)，等著她媽媽的電話。
    Most left-behind children are lonely. Many live in rural boarding schools far from their villages because, in an attempt to improve educational standards in the countryside, the government shut many village schools down in favor of bigger institutions. About 60% of children in the new boarding schools have been left behind. A non-governmental organization, Growing Home, surveyed them this year and found that they were more introverted than their peers and more vulnerable to being bullied; they also had “significantly higher states of anxiety and depression” than their peers. Many say they do not remember what their parents look like. A few say that they no longer want to see their parents.
    大多數(shù)的留守兒童都十分孤獨(dú)。為了提升農(nóng)村教育水平，政府關(guān)閉了許多村鎮(zhèn)學(xué)校轉(zhuǎn)而支持規(guī)模更大的學(xué)校，因此許多孩子在遠(yuǎn)離他們村子的寄宿學(xué)校念書。大約60%的留守兒童在新的寄宿學(xué)校跟不上學(xué)習(xí)進(jìn)度。一個(gè)名叫家庭生長(zhǎng)的非政府組織今年的調(diào)查表明，這些留守兒童比他們的同齡人更自閉內(nèi)向，也更容易受到欺負(fù);這些孩子比他們的同齡人“更容易焦慮和沮喪”。許多留守兒童說他們無法記得父母的樣子。少部分說他們?cè)僖膊幌胍姷剿麄兊母改浮?BR>    In 2010 researchers at the Second Military Medical University in Shanghai studied over 600 children in 12 villages in Shandong province, in the north-east, half left behind and half not. The difference in the physical condition of the children was minor. But the difference in their school performance was substantial and so was the emotional and social damage to them, as measured by a standard questionnaire. “The psychological effect on left behind children is huge,” argues Tong Xiao, the director of the China Institute of Children and Adolescents. “The kids will have big issues with communications. Their mental state and their development might suffer.”
    2010年，上海市第二軍醫(yī)大學(xué)的研究員研究了山東省東北部12個(gè)村莊的600多名兒童，一半是留守兒童，一半不是。這些兒童的身體狀況差不多。然而根據(jù)一份調(diào)查問卷的結(jié)果，這些兒童在學(xué)校的表現(xiàn)卻有明顯的差異。留守兒童的情感和社交能力也收到了傷害?！傲羰貎和艿降男睦韨κ蔷薮蟮摹敝袊?guó)兒童與成人研究所所長(zhǎng)童曉說，“留守兒童存在巨大溝通障礙，他們的智力狀況和身體成長(zhǎng)將受到影響?！?BR>    Being brought up by grandparents is a common experience worldwide, and by no means necessarily harmful. But China’s rapid development does make it more of a problem now than it was in the past. Unlike their parents, the left-behind children’s grandparents are often illiterate; their schooling can suffer accordingly. According to the All-China Women’s Federation, a quarter of the grandmothers who are looking after small children never attended school. Most of the rest had only primary education. In one school in Sichuan visited by Save the Children, an international charity, an 11-year-old girl spent most of the lesson caring for her infant sister. As the visitors started to leave, though, she ran up and begged them to look at her homework: she seemed torn between being in loco parentis and a normal 11-year-old.
    There are few studies of the health of left-behind children. But given that they account for almost half of all rural children, rural health indicators are a proxy. These are worrying: 12% of rural children under five in China are stunted (ie, are short for their age)—four times as many as in urban areas; 13% of rural children under five are anaemic, compared with 10% for urban children.
    在世界上，孩子由爺爺奶奶帶大很尋常，這對(duì)孩子也不一定造成什么傷害。但是中國(guó)快速的發(fā)展比過去帶來了更多的問題。和留守兒童的父母不同，他們的爺爺奶奶卻大多是文盲。留守兒童的教育收到了影響。根據(jù)
    中華全國(guó)婦女聯(lián)合會(huì)的調(diào)查，1/4的留守兒童的奶奶從沒上過學(xué)，剩下的大多也只上過小學(xué)。拯救兒童這一國(guó)際慈善組織拜訪了四川省的一所學(xué)校，發(fā)現(xiàn)一個(gè)11歲大的小女孩課堂上的大部分時(shí)間是在照看她那還是嬰兒的妹妹。可當(dāng)這些拜訪者將要離去的時(shí)候，女孩卻跑過來要他們看看她做的家庭作業(yè)。她一半像個(gè)家長(zhǎng)，另一半還是那個(gè)11歲的普通小女孩。很少有關(guān)于留守兒童健康的研究。鑒于留守兒童占農(nóng)村兒童的一半，因此研究農(nóng)村留守兒童的健康問題將具有代表性意義。研究數(shù)據(jù)令人擔(dān)憂：5歲以下的中國(guó)農(nóng)村兒童中12%發(fā)育不良(生長(zhǎng)不達(dá)標(biāo))這個(gè)數(shù)字是城市兒童的4倍;5歲以下的農(nóng)村兒童13%患貧血，城市兒童只有10%貧血。