Every one who comes to China has some sort of reason for being here.
每个来中国的人都有某种理由来这里。
Some are saving money, some are Sinophiles. That was my first mistake; coming to China with no clear objective. Looking back at that naive girl who arrived 8 months ago, the only reason I can come up with for why I came to China was to figure out why I felt such apathy about the place. I wanted to try on the one place in which I never actually had any interest. I have never been fascinated by the history. I never aimed to study the language. I never felt any pull to come here. Why didn’t I feel something for China?
有些人在存钱，有些人是中国爱好者。 那是我的第一个错误；来中国没有明确的目标。 回顾那个8个月前到达的天真女孩，我唯一能想到的来中国的原因是弄清楚为什么我对这个地方如此冷漠。 我想试试那个我从未真正感兴趣过的地方。 我从未被历史所吸引。 我从未打算学习这门语言。 我从来没有觉得来这里有什么吸引力。 为什么我对中国没有感觉？
Having lived, volunteered and generally travelled around a number of other countries (42 if we’re counting), I thought figuring out my feelings, or lack thereof, regarding China was a challenge for which I was more than equipped. However, upon arrival on the mainland, I realised that none of the experience I had had anywhere prepared me in any way. I thought I had seen enough of the world to transition seamlessly in China. I thought that, somehow, all my international experiences made me ready for anything China could throw my way. Instead, China hit me over the head with a hammer and humbled me. My first few months in Nanjing had me trying to simply survive the elements, no small task given how out of my own element I am living here.
我曾在许多其他国家生活过、做志愿者，并且通常旅行过（如果我们算上的话，有42个国家），我认为弄清楚我对中国的感受或缺乏感受是一个挑战，我更有能力应对。 然而，到达大陆后，我意识到我在任何地方的经历都没有以任何方式为我做好准备。 我以为我已经看够了世界，可以在中国顺利过渡。 我想，不知何故，我所有的国际经验都让我做好了迎接中国可能向我扔的任何事情的准备。 相反，中国用锤子打我的头，让我感到谦卑。 我在南京的头几个月让我试图简单地在元素中生存，考虑到我在这里生活得如此不自在，这不是一件小事。
Water
水
The first morning I woke up in Nanjing, I was greeted by a welcome basket left in my hotel room by my company. In it were a bundle of apples. I took one and mindlessly rinsed it under the tap while on the phone with my friend, knowing good and well that water in China is not drinkable unless purified and in a plastic bottle. After a few bites, I felt my throat swell and close up. A burning sensation took over my mouth and, suddenly, I could not speak. I hung up the phone without a word and found myself spitting apple up in the hotel rubbish bin. I did not understand; I had drunk unclean water all over Southeast Asia and Mexico and never had a single problem. How could a country as industrialised as China, a world leader in solar energy, have such lethal water that my infamous steel stomach could not handle gently rinsed fruit?! I realised, kneeling over a trash can that smelt like an ash tray, that I had been too cocky. Way, way too cocky.
我在南京醒来的第一个早晨，迎接我的是公司留在酒店房间的欢迎礼篮。 里有一捆苹果。 我拿了一个，在和朋友通电话时不假思索地在水龙头下冲洗，我很清楚中国的水，除非是纯净的，放在塑料瓶里，否则不能喝。 咬了几口后，我感到我的喉咙肿胀并闭合。 一股灼熱感佔據了我的嘴，突然，我說不出話來。 我一言不發地掛了電話，發現自己在酒店的垃圾桶裡吐了蘋果。 我不明白；我在东南亚和墨西哥都喝了不干净的水，从来没有遇到过任何问题。 像中国这样工业化的国家，太阳能领域的世界领导者，怎么可能有如此致命的水，以至于我臭名昭著的钢铁胃无法处理轻轻冲洗的水果？！ 我跪在一个闻起来像烟灰缸的垃圾桶上，意识到我太自大了。 太，太自大了。
Metal
金属元素
About 3 days into my new Chinese life, I nearly got ran over by a bus. When I say “nearly”, I don’t mean that I stepped off a curb carelessly. I mean a bus screeched to a halt with all of about two feet between me and its front bumper at a pedestrian crossing, green walking light indicating my right to safe passage. Little did I know the happy green man only indicates that cars cannot drive straight on. It makes no guarantee of safety from cars in turning lanes. My own naivety about the rules of the road here almost had me flattened by a big metal bus days into my move.
进入我新的中国生活大约3天，我差点被一辆公共汽车撞倒。 当我说“接到”时，我并不是指我漫不经心地走下路边。 我的意思是，一辆公共汽车尖叫着停了下来，在人行横道上，我和前保险杠之间只有大约两英尺，绿色的步行灯表明我有权安全通行。 我不知道那个快乐的绿色男人只表示汽车不能直行行驶。 它不能保证汽车在转弯车道上的安全。 我自己对这里的道路规则的天真几乎让我在搬家几天后被一辆大金属巴士压扁了。
Fire
火元素
Not every “China first” was negative. A local co-worker kindly asked me if I’d like to get a traditional beauty treatment for free from her beauty therapist friend. I, being someone who rarely says no to trying new things, eagerly signed up without asking any questions. That weekend, I was taken to a woman’s apartment, fed an amazing home cooked vegetarian meal, and was then told I would be receiving a fire facial. Sure, I said. What started as a regular, run of the mill facial got fiery (literally) fast. A towel was placed over my face and covered with rubbing alcohol. Then, I heard the clicking of a lighter and smelled burning. Yes, the smell of fire on my face. After 15 minutes, I was told to sit up and the towel was removed. Did I have eyebrows? Was my face burnt? Luckily, no. But it was definitely an anecdote I’d like put in my eulogy someday.
并非每个“中国第一”都是负面的。 一位当地同事亲切地问我是否想从她的美容治疗师朋友那里免费获得传统的美容护理。 我，作为一个很少对尝试新事物说不的人，急切地注册了，没有问任何问题。 那个周末，我被带到一个女人的公寓，吃了一顿美味的家常菜，然后被告知我将接受火面部护理。 当然，我说。 一开始是常规的、普通的面部护理变得火热（字面意思）很快。 一条毛巾盖在我的脸上，沾上消毒酒精。 然后，我听到打火机的咔嗒声，闻到了烧焦的味道。 是的，我脸上的火味。 15分钟后，我被告知要坐起来，毛巾被拿走了。 我有眉毛吗？ 我的脸被烧伤了吗？ 幸运的是，没有。 但这绝对是一个轶事，我希望有一天能写在我的悼词中。
Earth
地球
I felt the weight of my decision to tackle life in a place with a reputation for being hard for foreigners to grasp during their first 3 months. I remember counting down the days until I left to go back home to New Zealand. In China, I felt like I was treading water and most of the time, I, being a vegetarian and entirely undomesticated, resorted to dragonfruit as my dinner. However pathetic the picture I’m painting seems, it was worse than that you are imagining. In an attempt to get out of an “adjustment period rut”, I neither anticipated nor experienced anywhere before, I took control of what I could; recycling. You read that right, recycling. I decided to lead the charge in a recycling initiative at my workplace. My supervisor let me place boxes for recycled paper around the office and post signs to remind my co-workers how happy the trees would be for their efforts. Weeks passed and the recycled paper boxes filled. I even saw the Ayi take paper out of the rubbish bin and place it in the recycling box. Just as I started designing the statue Nanjing would eventually erect of me “Tara Tadlock; Champion of The Earth”, I saw the cleaners collect the trash and dump the recycling paper into the giant black plastic bag with all the other Starbucks straws and lunchtime takeaway containers. My soul was crushed. I had been defeated. When I asked my Chinese manager what had happened to the recycled paper from the boxes, she simply replied, “We don’t really do that here, but your boxes look pretty. You should leave them”.
我感受到了我决定在一个外国人在前3个月难以掌握的地方生活的重担。 我记得倒数着日子，直到我离开回家新西兰。 在中國，我感覺自己在踩水，大多數時候，我作為一個素食主義者，完全不熟，把火龍果當做晚餐。 无论我画的画看起来多么可悲，它比你想象的还要糟糕。 为了摆脱“调整期的循环”，我以前没有预料到也没有经历过，我控制了我能控制的东西；回收利用。 你读对了，回收。 我决定在工作场所领导一项回收计划。 我的主管让我在办公室周围放置回收纸的盒子，并张贴标志，提醒我的同事，树木会为他们的努力感到多么高兴。 几周过去了，回收的纸盒被填满了。 我甚至看到Ayi把纸从垃圾桶里拿出来，放在回收箱里。 就在我开始设计南京最终将为我竖立的雕像“塔拉·塔德洛克；地球的冠军”时，我看到清洁工们把垃圾收集，然后把回收纸和所有其他星巴克吸管和午餐时间外卖容器一起倒进巨大的黑色塑料袋里。 我的灵魂被粉碎了。 我被打败了。 当我问我的中国经理盒子里的再生纸怎么了时，她简单地回答说：“我们在这里真的不这样做，但你的盒子看起来很漂亮。 你应该离开他们。”
Air
空气
We foreigners love to point fingers and pretend that the Chinese air quality is solely a Chinese problem, despite capitalism and consumerism being majorly at fault. I washed my favourite white shirt my second week in China and hung it out on my balcony to dry in the crisp winter air. Later that afternoon, I noticed my shirt looked beige. Maybe it was just my eyes. I took the shirt into my flat, held it up to the bathroom light, then the kitchen light, and then popped my glasses on, only to find that it was not the lighting or my poor eyesight playing tricks on me. My crisp white shirt, which I had actually stolen from an ex-boyfriend (sorry Simon), had turned fully off-white in the polluted air. I know the air quality here is not for the Chinese to fix; I know it is the result of the Western world wanting to have everything as inexpensively as possible, delivered as quickly as possible. But that afternoon, I lay on my floor in starfish position, looking up at my apartment’s ceiling in silence for a solid hour, contemplating life in China.
我们外国人喜欢指责，假装中国的空气质量完全是中国的问题，尽管资本主义和消费主义主要有错。 在中国的第二周，我洗了我最喜欢的白衬衫，把它挂在阳台上，在清新的冬日空气中晾干。 那天下午晚些时候，我注意到我的衬衫看起来是米色的。 也许这只是我的眼睛。 我把衬衫带进公寓，把它举到浴室的灯下，然后是厨房的灯，然后戴上眼镜，却发现不是灯光或我视力差在捉弄我。 我那件清脆的白衬衫，实际上是我从一个前男友那里偷来的（对不起，Simon），在污染的空气中完全变成了灰白色。 我知道这里的空气质量不是由中国人来修理的；我知道这是西方世界希望以尽可能便宜、儘快交付一切的結果。 但那天下午，我以海星姿势躺在地板上，静静地仰望公寓的天花板整整一个小时，思考着中国的生活。
Would I die in Nanjing? Could I survive China? How is it possible that a place could so fully reject a person?! The water, the air, the public transport; it all wanted me gone. In this place, even a facial was riddled with an element of danger.
我会死在南京吗？ 我能在中国生存吗？ 一个地方怎么可能如此完全地拒绝一个人？！ 水、空气、公共交通；都想让我离开。 在这个地方，即使是面部表情也充斥着危险因素。
I was lying on the floor asking these questions, feeling low and hopeless and frustrated and defeated that I had found my feelings for China; I would never love it. I would appreciate it, as I have come to. I have met wonderful people and had some fantastic opportunities, but those things cannot fill the disconnect between all the things I love and everything I am and China. The total, irreconcilable disconnect that exists. But, in spite of that uncrossable trench, I had survived. And, yeah, I felt proud.
我躺在地板上问这些问题，感到沮丧、无望、沮丧和失败，因为我找到了对中国的感情；我永远不会爱上它。 我会很感激的，因为我已经到了。 我遇到了很棒的人，也有一些绝佳的机会，但这些事情并不能填补我所爱的一切、我的一切和中国之间的隔颒。 存在的完全的、不可调和的脱节。 但是，尽管有那个无法跨越的战壕，我还是活了下来。 而且，是的，我感到很自豪。
Yes, I was ill-prepared. I was over confident. I was too stubborn and even a bit ignorant, despite prior research and previous life experience. China hurled me out of my element and made sure I landed firmly in the deep end. I wanted to throw myself into chaos and I had done just that. Thanks to China and my time living here, I know I can handle anything. I am tougher than I thought and I would have never recognised my own blind spots had I not come here.
是的，我准备得不好。 我太自信了。 尽管有先前的研究和生活经验，但我太固执了，甚至有点无知。 中国把我从我的元素中扔了出来，并确保我牢牢地降落在深处。 我想把自己扔进混乱中，我做到了。 感谢中国和我在这里生活的时间，我知道我可以处理任何事情。 我比我想象的要坚强，如果我没有来这里，我永远不会认出自己的盲点。
China is a place where people sink or learn quickly to swim. Somehow though, I’m swimming. Metaphorically, I mean obviously, given the state of the Yangtze, I avoid bodies of water here altogether.
中国是一个人们沉沦或快速学习游泳的地方。 不知怎的，我在游泳。 隐喻地说，很明显，鉴于长江的状况，我完全避开了这里的水体。
