A sorry tale  一个悲剧自传

A migrant worker’s story of her travails is a huge hit in China 

But urban snobbery towards such people will be hard to change   May 11th 2017

农民工生活的艰辛深深刺痛着中国，但城里人的傲慢很难改变。

NATIVES of China’s capital find it all too easy to ignore the millions of people who have moved to the city from the countryside. The newcomers live on building sites, or in windowless rooms in the basements of apartment blocks. Many of them rent cramped accommodation in ramshackle “migrant villages” on the city’s edges.Beijing-born residents often treat the outsiders with scorn, blaming them for much of the city’s crime and its pockets of squalor. It is usually only when the “peasant workers” flock back to their home towns to celebrate the lunar new year that Beijingers grudgingly admit the migrants are essential—for a grim few weeks the city is bereft of delivery boys, street vendors and domestic helpers.

地道北京人瞧不起外来务工人员。外来人员住在工地上或者没有窗户的地下室。很多租住在城郊破烂拥挤的“棚户区”。北京本地居民总是歧视外来人员，增加城市犯罪率，人不干净。通常只有当农民工春节回家过年的时候北京人才会意识到他们的重要性--------寒冷的数周里，北京城没了快递员、街边小贩和及家政人员。（周口店猿人才有资格说自己是地道北京人  d=====(￣▽￣*)b）

Recently, however, one such worker has caused a national stir with an autobiographical work circulated online. The 7,000-character essay, titled “I am Fan Yusu”, describes the hardships of Ms Fan (pictured): the deprivations of her rural childhood; her hand-to-mouth urban existence after she left home at the age of 20; and her marriage to an abusive and alcoholic man whom she eventually abandoned. Since then, she has looked after their two daughters alone.

然而最近一个务工人员的自传在网上的热议引起全国关注。《我是范雨素》7000字的文章描述了范小姐的苦难。童年贫困的农村生活；20岁离开家在城里吃了上顿没下顿；和一个家暴且酗酒的男人结婚最终离婚。自此，她独自养育两个女儿。（范雨素：我不是写文章的人，我靠做苦力谋生）

Few city-born Chinese would be surprised by such a story. What has captured their imagination is Ms Fan’s ambition and determination, as well as her literary passion and flair—migrants from the countryside are often regarded as uncultured bumpkins. Within days, her essay had been viewed millions of times. She has become such a celebrity in China that she appears to have gone into hiding to escape local reporters who have been searching for her.

城里出生的人对她的故事不会吃惊。超出大家想象力的是范小姐的志向和决心，还有文学上的热情和天分，来自农村的移民通常被当做没文化的乡巴佬。几天之内，文章被阅读数百万次。她在中国成了名人以至于不得不躲避当地的记者。

As a girl, Ms Fan devoured Chinese literature as well as novels in translation such as “Oliver Twist” and “Robinson Crusoe”. For the past few years she has lived in Picun, a migrant settlement on the outskirts of Beijing. There she has used the little time off she has from her job as a nanny to write essays and poetry.

当范小姐年轻的时候，她沉迷中国文学和翻译小说如《雾都孤儿》和《鲁滨逊漂流记》。皮村是北京郊区的一个移民安置点，她在那里生活了几年。范在做月嫂之余用有限的时间写文章和诗歌。

The widely held stereotype has it that China’s migrants leave their rural lives behind for one reason only: to earn more money than they could in their villages. Readers of Ms Fan’s account discovered that some have a bigger dream—of intellectual improvement. “I couldn’t bear to stay in the countryside viewing the sky from the bottom of a well, so I went to Beijing,” wrote Ms Fan, who is 44.

中国外出务工人员离开农村的原因之一就是：“挣得比老家多”，这一点非常普遍。范的读者发现有些农民工还有更大的心愿---- 要有文化。范小姐今年44岁，她说：“我受不了待在农村坐井观天，所以要去北京”。

That this could be a surprise is a sign of pervasive urban snobbery. Tens of thousands of people have posted comments on Ms Fan’s essay, many expressing sympathy with her travails and praising her writing. Many others, however, have not been able to resist nitpicking over her style, as if trying to prove that someone from the countryside who did not complete high school could ever write truly polished prose. One blogger called the essay “a bowl of coarse rice”.

这种惊讶的反应正标志着城里人普遍的优越感。范的文章下留下了数万个评论，很多人表达了对她遭遇的同情和写作的称赞。然而也有不少人忍不住挑刺她的写作风格（农家乐式写作），就像在证明一个高中都没毕业的农村人不可能写得出好文章。有博主称她的文章是“一碗糙米饭”。

Urbanites’ usual disregard for rural migrants is evident in Picun, which is home not only to Ms Fan and more than 20,000 other people from the countryside, but also to the capital’s only museum that pays tribute to the migrants’ contributions to city life. The privately run institution is small and receives very few visitors—a pity, given how it reinforces Ms Fan’s story (she has taken part in a writers’ workshop there). The exhibits make clear that the migrants routinely suffer from dangerous work conditions, the withholding of wages and state-imposed barriers in their access to housing, education and health care.

城里人对农名工的其实在皮村可见一斑，范小姐和超过两万名外来务工人员住在那里，皮村也有全国唯一的展览馆展示农民工对城市贡献。工友之家是私人运营，很小也没多少人参观，很可惜，毕竟这里影响了范小姐（她在那里参加学习写作班）。展览清晰展现了外来人员经常在危险的工作环境下工作，因为缺乏收入加上行政制度（户籍）限制了他们获得住房、教育和医疗资源。

Migrants from the countryside numbered 282m at the end of last year, 4m more than in 2015 (an increase in just one year equivalent to the population of Los Angeles). The hardships portrayed in the museum and in Ms Fan’s writings are shared by nearly all of them.

截止去年全国共有2.82亿外出务工人员，较2015年增加4百万（仅仅一年增加的人数几乎是洛杉矶的总人口）。工友之家和范小姐写作里描绘的苦难生活几乎是全天下所有农名工的心声。

感悟

网络充斥了太多的声音，公知、左左、娱乐等等。范小姐的“走红”和和谐，反应了社会阶层的撕裂。皮村人的挣扎就是中国人的挣扎。

原文 http://www.economist.com/news/china/21721955-urban-snobbery-towards-such-people-will-be-hard-change-migrant-workers-story-her

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Ps:

精彩选读 为什么《我是FYS》一天之内受到众多网民的热捧？ https://www.zhihu.com/question/59014025/answer/162804568 

原文阅读 我是范O(∩_∩)O好的雨O(∩_∩)O嗯!素  http://www.sohu.com/a/136691476_209083