Chinese find strength and hope in earthquake rubble
Kai-Fu Lee
李开复
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
2008年5月28日
San Francisco Chronicle
旧金山纪事报
On May 12, 2008, an earthquake of 8 magnitude struck in Sichuan. Everyone in China was shocked, and quickly became heartbroken as reported deaths climbed from 10,000 to 32,000 to more than 62,000 people. The death toll is still rising, and the number of injured and missing is many times more.
2008年5月12日，中国四川发生了里氏8级的大地震，每一个中国人都非常震惊，又迅速感到悲恸和心碎。报道中遇难同胞人数从1万很快上升到3万2千，随后又超过了6万2千，这个数字目前仍在上升之中，受伤和失踪的人数则数倍于此。
The Chinese people faced this disaster with compassion and courage. I was touched by the teacher who died forming a bridge with his body between two desks, protecting four surviving students under him, by the trapped child who told the rescue workers to save others first, and by the dying mother who texted her baby, "My Treasure: If you survive, always remember I love you." She died using her own body to shield her 3-month-old from harm. But don't worry about this baby growing up without a family. Thousands of families in China have already volunteered to adopt earthquake orphans.
中国人民用爱心和勇气来面对这场灾难。我被种种场面感动：一位遇难的老师，他把自己架在两个课桌之间，像一座桥的样子，保护着身下4名后来获救的学生；一名被困的孩子，告诉赶到的救援人员首先去救其他的人；一位母亲，她把才出生3月大的孩子护在自己的身体下面，临死之前，她给她的孩子留下了这样的话：“亲爱的宝贝：如果你能活着，一定要记住我爱你”。这位母亲不用担心她的小孩会在一个没有家庭的环境中长大，中国已经有成千上万个家庭申请领养地震孤儿。
And the Chinese people faced this disaster with resourcefulness and tenacity. A brave executive took his weekend SUV, drove hundreds of miles, started digging, and saved several lives. A child used his hands to dig out two fellow students. His hands were severely injured, but his friends survived. Cab drivers turned their cars into ambulances and delivery trucks. More than 100,000 brave soldiers risked (and some gave) their lives to find every survivor.
中国人民用智慧和勇气来面对这场灾难。一个勇敢的白领开着他的周末越野车驱车数百公里赶到灾区帮助挖掘，营救了数条生命；一个小孩用他的双手挖出了2名同学，他的手严重受伤，然而他的伙伴得救了；出租车司机把他们的车变成了救护车和运货卡车；超过1万个英勇的士兵冒着生命危险寻找每一位幸存者，他们中有些已经牺牲了。
In the Internet Age, heroism need not be on location. At Google China, where I work, one team worked all night and built a "lost loved one" search to accurately find information about missing people in Sichuan. Another team put together a satellite image map to help the rescue effort, and to connect supply donors with rescue areas in need. Finally, a team made sure that when a user searched for "earthquake donations" or similar words, he or she could complete a donation in as little as one minute. Almost $1 million was donated in one week.
在互联网时代，英雄不论出处。在我工作的谷歌中国公司，有一个小组夜以继日地工作，搭建了一个“失散亲人搜索平台”，这个平台上可以精确搜索到在四川的失踪人员的信息。另一个小组整合了卫星地图信息以帮助搜救工作，以及把捐赠供应者和搜救地区的需求者匹配在一起。最后，还有一个小组做了这样的事：，如果他们发现一个用户正在搜索“地震捐赠”或者类似的关键字，他们可以帮助这些用户在一分钟内完成捐赠。一周之内，已经超过1百万美元通过这种方式捐赠出去。
These are the heroes among us, whether they use an SUV, a shovel, a phone or a keyboard. Their heroic deeds and selflessness inspired me so deeply that I can recall only one other such occasion. It was 9/11 - I vividly remember the NYPD police officers, the firefighters, and of course the passengers and crew on United Flight 93.
这些人就是我们当中的英雄，无论他们是使用越野车还是铲子，是使用电话还是键盘，他们的英雄壮举和无私精神深深激励了我。在我的记忆中只有唯一一个类似的场景，那就是911事件——我现在仍清楚地记得纽约警察局的警官们、那些英勇的消防员们、还有联合航空93号班机上的乘客和机组人员。
As a Chinese American, I hope that the Chinese and the Americans will see that they have so much in common - their compassion, courage, ingenuity, generosity and grace. Amid recent differences between China and America, I hope that people will see that these heroic commonalities are much stronger than any differences, and will bind the two great peoples together. And I hope that these heroes from 9/11 and 5/12 will inspire all of us to turn our anxiety into courage, our misery into tenacity, and our sorrow into love.
作为一个美籍华人，我希望中国人民和美国人民能看到彼此存在如此多的共同之处——他们的爱心，勇气，创造力，慷慨和宽厚。尽管最近在中美之间存在一些分歧，我希望人们将认识到这些英勇的共性会比任何分歧都强大，从而把两个伟大的民族紧密联接在一起。我也希望，这些911和512中的英雄们能激励我们所有人，把我们的焦虑转化为勇气，把我们的苦难转化为坚韧，把我们的悲伤转化为爱心。
| | | | | |
·
·
·
· · · ·
· ·
·
