【TED】这“一分钱”,让我感觉自己像个百万富翁


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视频介绍
小时候,塔妮娅·卢娜离开切尔诺贝利事件后乌克兰的家,到美国寻求庇护。有一天,在她和家人居住的纽约无家可归者收容所的地板上,她发现了一便士。她再也没有这么富有过。一个关于童年苦乐参半的冥想——以及如何记住它们。
演讲者:塔妮娅·卢娜
片长:5 : 31
I'm five years old, and I am very proud. My father has just built the best outhouse in our little village in Ukraine. Inside, it's a smelly, gaping hole in the ground, but outside, it's pearly white formica and it literally gleams in the sun.
我5岁那年,我非常自豪,因为我父亲刚刚建好我们家在乌克兰小村里最好的屋外厕所。内部是臭哄哄的,在地上挖的一个大洞,但是外面,却是珍珠白胶木,在阳光下闪闪发光。
 
This makes me feel so proud, so important, that I appoint myself the leader of my little group of friends and I devise missions for us. So we prowl from house to house looking for flies captured in spider webs and we set them free. Four years earlier, when I was one, after the Chernobyl accident, the rain came down black, and my sister's hair fell out in clumps, and I spent nine months in the hospital.
这让我感到那么的自豪且重要,好让我可以自命为小伙伴们的领袖,去指挥我们的任务。我们在屋舍之间玩耍,看苍蝇黏在蜘蛛网上,我们将它们放生。往前推4年,在我1岁的时候,发生了切尔诺贝利(核泄漏)事故,天空下著黑雨,我姐姐的头发成簇地脱落,我在医院待了9个月。
 
There were no visitors allowed, so my mother bribed a hospital worker. She acquired a nurse's uniform, and she snuck in every night to sit by my side. Five years later, an unexpected silver lining. Thanks to Chernobyl, we get asylum in the U.S. I am six years old, and I don't cry when we leave home and we come to America,
期间不允许任何访客,我的母亲只好贿赂了一个医院工作者。她拿到了一件护士制服,每天晚上偷偷坐在我的身旁,5年之后,出现了意想不到的希望。由于这场灾难,我们得到了美国政府的庇护。那时我6岁,离开家乡时并没有哭,然后我们来到了美国,
 
because I expect it to be a place filled with rare and wonderful things like bananas and chocolate and Bazooka bubble gum, Bazooka bubble gum with the little cartoon wrappers inside, Bazooka that we'd get once a year in Ukraine and we'd have to chew one piece for an entire week.
因为我将要抵达的地方充满了,稀奇珍宝,比如香蕉、巧克力以及火箭牌泡泡糖,火箭牌泡泡糖里面都装有小卡通画,在乌克兰,我们每年只能有拿到一盒泡泡糖然后一片要嚼上一整个星期。
 
So the first day we get to New York, my grandmother and I find a penny in the floor of the homeless shelter that my family's staying in. Only, we don't know that it's a homeless shelter. We think that it's a hotel, a hotel with lots of rats. So we find this penny kind of fossilized in the floor, and we think that a very wealthy man must have left it there because regular people don't just lose money.
当我们来到纽约的第一天,我的祖母和我发现了1美分硬币就在我们住下的收容所的地板上。只有我们认为那个不是收容所。我们把它当成了宾馆,一个充满了老鼠的宾馆。所以当我们发现了这1美分,像化石般凝固在地板上,我们以为是哪个非常富有的人丢在了那里。因为普通人不会丢钱。
 
And I hold this penny in the palm of my hand, and it's sticky and rusty, but it feels like I'm holding a fortune. I decide that I'm going to get my very own piece of Bazooka bubble gum. And in that moment, I feel like a millionaire. About a year later, I get to feel that way again when we find a bag full of stuffed animals in the trash, and suddenly I have more toys than I've ever had in my whole life.
我把这1美分牢牢地握在手里,它又粘又生锈,但是让我觉得,我握住了财宝。我决定去用它来买属于自己的一片火箭牌泡泡糖。在那一瞬间,我觉得自己是百万富翁。一年之后,我再次体验了这种感觉,当我发现一个装满毛茸茸玩具的袋子丢在垃圾站,突然之间我有那么多的玩具,比我从小到大玩过的还要多。
 
And again, I get that feeling when we get a knock on the door of our apartment in Brooklyn, and my sister and I find a deliveryman with a box of pizza that we didn't order. So we take the pizza, our very first pizza, and we devour slice after slice as the deliveryman stands there and stares at us from the doorway.
还有一次,我又有了百万富翁的感觉,当有人敲响我们布鲁克林公寓的门,我和姐姐发现是一位送货员,带来了一盒我们没有定过的匹萨,然后我们就拿下了这匹萨,我们的第一块匹萨,我们狼吞虎咽地吃了一片又一片,完全不顾送货员站在门口盯着我们看。
 
And he tells us to pay, but we don't speak English. My mother comes out, and he asks her for money, but she doesn't have enough. She walks 50 blocks to and from work every day just to avoid spending money on bus fare.
后来他要我们付钱,但我们不会说英语。我的母亲闻声而来,他向她要钱,但是我们的钱根本不够。母亲每天上下班徒步走50个街区,只是为了省一些公交车的钱。
 
Then our neighbor pops her head in, and she turns red with rage when she realizes that those immigrants from downstairs have somehow gotten their hands on her pizza. Everyone's upset. But the pizza is delicious. It doesn't hit me until years later just how little we had.
接着我们的邻居探出头来,然后她变得怒不可遏,当她意识到这些楼下的移民用他们的手碰了她的匹萨。所有人都很不愉快。但是匹萨却非常美味。家庭的贫困并没有打击到我,直到多年以后。
 
On our 10 year anniversary of being in the U.S., we decided to celebrate by reserving a room at the hotel that we first stayed in when we got to the U.S. The man at the front desk laughs, and he says, "You can't reserve a room here. This is a homeless shelter." And we were shocked. My husband Brian was also homeless as a kid.
在我们来到美国的10周年纪念时,我们决定去定一个宾馆庆祝一下。我们想去定刚来美国时住的“宾馆”,可是前台服务员大笑着说,“你可没法再定这里的房间,因为这里是流浪汉收容所。”我们当时就惊呆了。我的丈夫布莱恩也是一个无家可归的孩子。
 
His family lost everything, and at age 11, he had to live in motels with his dad, motels that would round up all of their food and keep it hostage until they were able to pay the bill. And one time, when he finally got his box of Frosted Flakes back, it was crawling with roaches. But he did have one thing.
他的家庭在他11岁时失去了一切,他不得不和父亲住在汽车旅店,汽车旅店的人扣下了他们所有的食物以此为要挟,直到他们付清了账单。后来,当他们最终拿回了装玉米麦片的盒子,里面已经爬满了蟑螂。但他确实拥有了一件财富。
 
He had this shoebox that he carried with him everywhere containing nine comic books, two G.I. Joes painted to look like Spider-Man and five Gobots. And this was his treasure. This was his own assembly of heroes that kept him from drugs and gangs and from giving up on his dreams.
他把这个盒子留下来,随时带在身边,里面装了9本漫画书,2个玩具美国兵,涂得像个蜘蛛侠以及5个机器人。这些是他的宝贝,是他自己收藏的英雄们,保护他远离毒品和犯罪,让他不放弃自己的梦想。
 
I'm going to tell you about one more formerly homeless member of our family. This is Scarlett. Once upon a time, Scarlet was used as bait in dog fights. She was tied up and thrown into the ring for other dogs to attack so they'd get more aggressive before the fight.
我想再多说一个例子,曾经无家可归,现在是我的家庭成员。她是斯嘉丽。之前,斯嘉丽被人用作斗狗的诱饵,她被栓住扔在笼子里,让其他的狗去攻击她,这样它们会在比赛前更兴奋。
 
And now, these days, she eats organic food and she sleeps on an orthopedic bed with her name on it, but when we pour water for her in her bowl, she still looks up and she wags her tail in gratitude. Sometimes Brian and I walk through the park with Scarlett, and she rolls through the grass, and we just look at her and then we look at each other and we feel gratitude.
现在,她可以吃到有机食品,睡在写有她的名字的骨骼矫正床上,现在当我们往她的碗里倒水时她还是会摇摇尾巴,用感激的眼神看着我们。有时我和布莱恩带着斯嘉丽在公园散步,她在草丛上打滚,我们就只是看着她嬉耍,然后再看看对方,我们就会心生感激。
 
We forget about all of our new middle-class frustrations and disappointments, and we feel like millionaires.
我们忘却那些新中产阶级曾经经历的痛苦以及失落,我们感觉自己就是百万富翁。
 
Thank you.
谢谢大家。

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