对话思想者：鉴古知今，从中国古诗里看当下热点问题

短小精萃但饱含意韵，历经千年却常读常新，这是中国古诗词的魅力所在。将多首古诗翻译成英文，英国作家祁立天（Tim Clissold）醉心并深耕该领域二十余年。在专访中，当我问他是否担心这些千百年前的作品与现代世界脱节，他表示恰恰相反，这些古诗反映的是当下的问题，比如柳宗元《行路难》中的过度伐木、白居易诗里的税收问题等。而中国古诗又是如何暗含经济规律、反映难民等当下热点问题的？一起来听！

From climate change to the refugee crisis, what can ancient Chinese poems tell us about the problems of today? Plenty! says Tim Clissold, author of Cloud Chamber. “Ancient poems are all about current problems.” Just listen! 

Tim Clissold: I've lived in China for more than 20 years. And when I came back to the UK, my children could not continue their studies about China in the education system in the UK. That to me seems like a really serious problem. Because the world is going through incredible changes where there's a huge shift. It's an inevitable shift of wealth, power, and confidence from the West to the East. And we have to learn how to live together.

祁立天：我在中国居住了二十多年，回到英国后，我的孩子们无法在英国的教育系统中继续学习有关中国的知识，我觉得这个问题真的很严重。因为世界正在经历巨变，财富、权力和信心不可避免地从西方转移到东方，东西方必须学会如何共存。

Tim Clissold: So, I felt that there was a tremendous lack of understanding about China, particularly in the UK. That worried me, because there are two things about that. In a nutshell, I think that generally, especially the leadership, Chinese people understand more about us than we understand about the Chinese, right?

祁立天：我感觉整个世界特别是英国，对中国的了解太少了。这让我很担心，因为对中国缺乏了解会有两种后果。总体而言，尤其是领导人层面，中国对我们的了解远多于我们对中国的了解。

Tim Clissold: From the foreigners' perspective, that's a problem because it gives the Chinese competitive advantage in this process. That's actually a problem for the Chinese people as well, because if foreigners don't understand the real intention and motivations of Chinese people, that's a danger. Because they can misjudge the intention.

祁立天：作为外国人，我觉得这种认知的不对等是个问题，这让中国更具备竞争优势。但其实也不利于中国，因为外国人不理解甚至误判中国人的真实意图和动机，这很危险。

Tim Clissold: So that's why I'm so passionate about it. And we have a very, very urgent and pressing need to understand China. As you know, in the West, there are hawks and there are doves. Okay, there are some people think that China is a terrible threat to us, right? So in Western society, there's only one thing that unites both the doves and the hawks about China, and that is we need to understand it better.

祁立天：这也解释了我为何如此热衷于传播中国文化，我们迫切地需要了解中国。你知道在西方 有鹰派和鸽派之分，有些鹰派人士将中国视为可怕的威胁，在西方社会，鹰派鸽派两方人士的唯一共识是：我们需要更了解中国。

Liu Xin: That's good to know.

刘欣：非常高兴听到你这样说

Tim Clissold: So that's very good to know. So, what I was trying to do was to find poems that express things that are easy for foreigners to understand. The first thing is that they're so ancient. So the foreigner generally will say I have no idea that these poems are written 1,300 years ago. Then… 

祁立天：是的，这是个好消息。我所做的事情就是找到一些中国诗歌，这些诗里传达的内容是外国人容易理解的。这些古诗的年代太久远了，外国人常说，他们都不知道这些诗歌写于一千三百年前 。

Liu Xin: But aren't you worried that it's useless to study something that's 1,300 years old? Because…

刘欣：但是你不担心，研究一千三百年前的东西对现在没什么帮助吗？

Tim Clissold: So that is the exact opposite. That was the thing I find amazing, because all the poems are about currents problems, right? Liu Zongyuan wrote a poem about the problems of the excess logging on the environment, cutting down too many trees. Totally current problem. Du Fu was a “refugee”. Bai Juyi wrote about tax evasion…

祁立天：恰恰相反，这正是我觉得不可思议的地方，因为这些古诗反映的是当下的问题。柳宗元的《行路难》关注的是过度伐木造成的环境破坏，这完全是我们现在正面临的问题。杜甫颠沛流离 像“难民” 一样 白居易诗里提到了逃税问题。

Liu Xin: Internally displaced. 

刘欣：杜甫是在国内四处奔波

Tim Clissold: Yeah, exactly sure. But it’s still a massive problem for Europe, it's the refugee problem. And Du Fu spent most of his life displaced. 

祁立天：是的，难民问题仍是欧洲的大难题，杜甫大半生都流离失所。

Liu Xin: It's a bit like, the more it changes, the more it doesn't change, right? It's all that people say, “Under the sun, there is nothing new”,  especially when you have a 5,000…for European culture as well, you have extremely, millennia-long civilization, so you have experienced all of these. 

刘欣：这有点“万变不离其宗”的意思了。人们也常说“太阳底下无新事”，尤其是中国有五千年的历史，欧洲文明也有几千年了，你也有这种感受吧。

Liu Xin: We have decided that we will try to illustrate what we talk about. And it's called Mai Tanweng, the old man who sells charcoal. And this is a good test of whether what you said just now is true, because you say this ancient wisdom can stand the test of time. Let's try that in just a moment, but let's first try to read this. Read a few lines, read maybe one stanza of this poem. 

刘欣：我们试着去解读一下这首诗，这首诗叫《卖炭翁》，一位卖炭的老人。这能佐证你刚才的说法，即古代的智慧能经历时间的检验。我们一会来看是否如此 ，我们先来读读，读几句吧或者读一节。

Liu Xin: It was written by Bai Juyi from the Tang Dynasty. He lived from 772 CE to 846 CE so that's 1,300 something like that years ago. And it's about an old man who sells charcoal. 

刘欣：《卖炭翁》是唐代诗人白居易所写，白居易生于公元772年 卒于公元846年，距今约一千三百年，这首诗描写的是一位卖炭的老人。

The Old Man Who Sells Charcoal 

卖炭翁

Cuts firewood, burns it up on Southern Hill

伐薪烧炭南山中。

Grimed with ash, face streaked with smoke from the fire,

满面尘灰烟火色，

His grey hair grizzled, each finger inky black.

两鬓苍苍十指黑。

What living can he make from this miserable fuel?

卖炭得钱何所营？

The clothes on his back, the food in his mouth. 

身上衣裳口中食。

So wretched – his coat so thin!

可怜身上衣正单，

Yet, anxious his fuel might lose value, he longs for icy weather. 

心忧炭贱愿天寒。

Tim Clissold: For me, this poem and the rest of it too, conjures up an image, very strong visual image of a very poor man, old and black, with the charcoal thing. And this man's terribly poor. Yet, even though he's poor and it’s close to freezing cold. And later on, he sits down in some slush by the southern gate melted snow because he's so exhausted. Even those in this pitiful state, he still wants the weather to be colder, because that means the price of his fuel will go up. So, he’s so desperate that he'll bear the pain of the ice.

祁立天：这首诗在我的脑海里浮现出一个强烈的形象——一位很贫穷的老人，他年事已高，身上还沾着木炭。这位老人非常穷，快冻僵了，但他随后坐在了南门外积雪融化的泥泞里，因为他太累了。虽然这位老人的境遇凄惨，但他还期盼着天气能更冷些，这样的话他的木炭会再涨点价，为此他愿意忍受严寒。

Tim Clissold: And that's me is not only very visual, but it's also something that tells me that Bai Juyi understood the relationship between supply, demand and price. Yeah, centuries before it was articulated in the West. And I think that's quite interesting as well.

祁立天：我觉得这首诗不仅很直观，也让我们知道白居易了解供求和价格的关系。这比西方早几百年，我觉得这也非常有趣。

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