2017考研英语拓展阅读：文化多样性是否隔绝了中英交流

考研英语来源：新东方网整理 2016-05-19　

The good news is that Chinese food remains as popular as ever, with surveys consistently showing the cuisine among the world’s favourites.

好消息是中国菜依然像往常一样受欢迎。许多调查都持续显示中国菜是全世界最受喜爱的菜式之一。

Meanwhile, China now sends more tourists abroad than any other country - their cash making a major contribution to the coffers of those host nations able to pull them in with the offer of beaches, beauty spots and heritage sites.

与此同时，中国现在拥有全世界最多的海外游客。他们海量的资金为目的地国家的经济收入做出了巨大的贡献，也使得他们能够畅游在各种海滩、景点和文物古迹中。

Yet the increasing encounters between Chinese people and the rest of the world also provide more possibilities for cultural misunderstanding and for the perception of rudeness.

但是随着中国人和越来越多的外国人接触的同时，也更有可能发生对于文化的误解、甚至留下粗鲁的印象。

"Their habit of spitting was the main problem," says Eddie Chan, who runs a Chinese health centre in central London. A long-time resident of the UK, he watched the first wave of Chinese tourists arrive and the reaction they provoked.

艾迪·陈在伦敦市中心开办了一家中国健康中心，他说：“中国人吐痰的习惯是(产生负面印象的)主要原因。”作为英国的一名长期居民，他目睹了第一波到来的中国游客潮，并且对这些游客引起的反响有一个切身的体会。

"Chinese people are also not accustomed to queuing. Their behaviour getting on a bus can certainly seem rude to foreigners."

“中国人也经常因为不排队而受到指责。在外国人看来，中国人乘坐公交的时候的举止是很粗鲁的。”

No-one knows if the Queen felt her Chinese guests were getting too physically close, prompting her judgement that they were rude.

没有人知道是否是因为女王的中国客人靠她太近了，从才而导致她认为他们很“粗鲁”的评价。

But she might perhaps appreciate Switzerland’s approach to this perceived problem.

但是在这一问题上，她或许非常赞赏瑞士人的做法。

After repeated complaints of rude behaviour by Chinese tourists, one Swiss rail company created special carriages for visitors from Asia - acknowledging that they were really just aimed at the Chinese.

由于多次接到关于中国游客粗鲁举止的投诉，一家瑞士铁路公司为亚洲游客设置了特别车厢，并承认这一行动其实只是针对中国游客。

A little more understanding is called for by Jieyu Liu, a sociologist at London’s School of Oriental and African Studies. She argues that anyone’s behaviour is determined by the time and place of their upbringing and that rules of etiquette are never universal.

而有人却呼吁应该多一点理解。刘婕妤(音)是一名伦敦东方和非洲研究学院的社会学家，她认为任何人的行为习惯都是由其所成长的时间和地点决定的，而全世界从来都没有一个统一的礼仪规则。

"A lot of Chinese people work in factories, with machines in the background," she says by way of example. "That’s why Chinese people speak loudly and can appear rude when they talk loudly in public."

她举例说道：“许多中国人都在工厂里工作，那儿一般都有许多机械在运转。因此中国人习惯了大声讲话，而当他们在公共场合大声讲话时，就会被认为很粗鲁。”

The perception of rudeness also cuts both ways, according to Eddie Chan. Chinese people, he says, often have an image of foreigners from films and the British in particular are imagined as being terribly polite, doffing their hats at passers-by and drinking tea with exquisite care.

据艾迪·陈表示，中国人对粗鲁的认知却是另一个极端。他说中国人对于外国人的印象大多来自于电影，而在电影里英国人一般被塑造为有礼貌得过了头--向行人脱毛致礼、对喝茶非常考究等。

"We don’t understand where they’re coming from," says Rod Wye, a former Foreign Office official who spent 10 years at Britain’s embassy in Beijing. Chinese history and more importantly, the way Chinese people perceive their history are just not appreciated sufficiently, he believes.

罗德·瓦伊是英国前外交官员，曾在北京英国大使馆工作了10年，他说：“我不知道中国人对英国人的这些印象是从哪里来的。”不过他相信，中国历史、或者说中国人理解自己历史的方式并没有得到足够的赞赏。

"We will all get more sophisticated as there is more personal interaction. But there will always be misunderstandings and these will be construed as rudeness."

“由于越来越多的人际交流(我们会越来越了解对方的历史和文化)，我们会(对中英两国人民之间的交流)变得更有经验。但是无论如何误解总是会存在的，而这些误解将被解释成为粗鲁。”