Fitzgerald’s enigmatic anti-hero in “The Great Gatsby” has seen a resurgence in popularity at the dawn of the 21st Century as a poster child for optimism, tenacity and the power of a bit of hard slog. Yet, it is the crass desire and dishonesty contained therein that rings so very true today, here in China and far beyond.
菲茨杰拉德在《了不起的盖茨比》中神秘的反英雄在21世纪初重新流行起来，成为乐观、坚韧和努力的力量的海报。 然而，正是其中所包含的粗俗欲望和不诚实，在今天，在中国和遥远的地方，都听起来非常真实。
The 21st century is a pretty radical place to in which to live. Last season’s wardrobe is not fit to wipe your shoes with once the new season hits the stores, usually a good two months before the weather has any inclination of changing. While hard-loving protagonist Gatsby, whose lust for his former love ultimately leads to an empty victory, one in which neither he nor she finds the happiness so long awaited, so too today, consumerism is gobbling us up. Unrequited desire is chomping away at the soul of humanity. Jay Gatsby knew all about unrequited desire, and Fitzgerald called it in the midst of the swinging Jazz Age. In a world where out with the old and in with the new is the new swish-swoo, what then, is the cost of achieving goals or attaining the objects of our hearts desire?
21世纪是一个相当激进的地方。 一旦新季节进入商店，上个季节的衣柜就不适合擦鞋了，通常在天气变化前两个月。 虽然强硬的主人公盖茨比（Gatsby）对前爱情的渴望最终导致了一场空虚的胜利，在这场胜利中，他和她都没有找到期待已久的幸福，今天也是如此，消费主义正在把我们吃光。 无情的欲望正在撕掉人类的灵魂。 杰伊·盖茨比（Jay Gatsby）对单调的欲望了如指掌，菲茨杰拉德（Fitzgerald）在摇摆不定的爵士乐时代中称它。 在一个旧事物出而新事物为新事物的世界里，那么，实现目标或实现我们内心渴望的目标的代价是什么？
As a species, we now prefer to drill into the earth to extract petroleum, then refine and process it into a plastic spoon to use once and dump it into an unlined, unrefined landfill in the subcontinent, rather than wash a spoon after ourselves. Taobao has stolen Christmas’ thunder, parcels and presents, along with the anticipation, delicious and dripping, that went with receiving a long-awaited gift. Grit and resilience come from training the mind to wait, to be patient; to work toward a goal. Just as Jay Gatsby amassed a great material fortune to try to fill the void left by spiritual dissatisfaction, so too do we sacrifice the pleasure of receiving a long-awaited spoil.
作为一个物种，我们现在更喜欢钻入土壤中提取石油，然后将其提炼并加工成塑料勺子，使用一次，然后将其倾倒到次大陆的未内衬、未精炼的垃圾填埋场，而不是自己洗一个勺子。 淘宝偷走了圣诞节的雷声、包裹和礼物，以及期待，美味又滴水，伴随着期待已久的礼物。 勇气和韧性来自训练头脑等待、耐心；朝着目标努力。 就像杰伊·盖茨比积累了巨大的物质财富，试图填补精神不满留下的空白一样，我们也牺牲了接受期待已久的战利品的快乐。
Birthdays are now a head-scratching dilemma; what to buy for the person who has everything? The fast fashion industry, which keeps us all in our glad rags, season in, season out, is crippling local textile industries in East Africa by flooding the market with cheap, second hand clothes. In 2016, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda announced a phase out of all imported, used clothes for the domestic market in an attempt to revive their flailing textile industries and create employment. In March, 2018, the USA imposed monetary sanctions on Rwanda, restricting its permission to export certain items duty-free to the US, a status it enjoys under the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (Agoa).
生日现在是一个令人头疼的困境；为拥有一切的人买什么？ 快时尚行业让我们都穿着快乐的破布，季节进，季节出，通过向市场充斥着廉价的二手衣服，正在削弱东非的当地纺织业。 2016年，卢旺达、坦桑尼亚和乌干达宣布逐步淘汰所有进口的二手服装进入国内市场，试图振兴其陷入困境的纺织业并创造就业机会。 2018年3月，美国对卢旺达实施了货币制裁，限制了其向美国免税出口某些物品的许可，这是根据《非洲增长和机会法》（Agoa）享有的地位。
Both Tanzania and Uganda bowed to pressure and will continue to import used clothes from America, even though it is crippling their own garment industries.
坦桑尼亚和乌干达都屈服于压力，将继续从美国进口二手衣服，尽管这正在削弱他们自己的服装行业。
The US has been criticised for punishing the tiny, landlocked African country for trying to protect and potentiate its nascent garment industry, whilst humming and hawing over how to remonstrate its mega-rich buddy, Saudi Arabia, for losing journalists in the Saudi Consulate of Turkey.
美国因惩罚这个内陆的非洲小国试图保护和增强其新生的服装业而受到批评，同时又如何反其超级富豪伙伴沙特阿拉伯在土耳其沙特领事馆失去记者。
On the moral ambivalence that seems to accompany the malaise of “disposable culture,” Pope Francis, in his 2016 encyclical, Laudato si, addressed the ethical responsibilities that come with wealth and power, criticising the “attempt of business to make us wasteful, debt-ridden, permanently discontented individuals”. This tendency to stick to the letter of the law, in the case of Rwanda, regardless of the fairness of the issue, is symptomatic of this “disposable culture”. Pope Francis calls it a “throwaway culture” and links many of the current ills of the world to its incipient spread throughout the globe. The tendency to dump stuff, rather than reuse it, leads to a constant race for the next biggest, better, sexiest status symbol. Chillingly, Pope Francis also contends that this tendency towards discarding rather than reusing extends as far as people themselves, stating that the current trend of disposing of unwanted babies, the elderly and the poor as examples. Contentious issues such as abortion, euthanasia, divorce and the treatment of developing countries by the first world have spearheaded this critique. It would appear that mercy should only be shown to the strong, and compassion to the unrepentant.
关于似乎伴随着“一次性文化”的不适的道德矛盾，教皇方济各在他2016年的通谕《Laudato si》中谈到了财富和权力带来的道德责任，批评了“商业试图让我们变得浪费、负债累累、永久不满的个人”。 就卢旺达而言，无论问题是否公平，这种坚持法律的倾向都是这种“一次性文化”的症状。 教皇方济各称其为“一次性文化”，并将世界上许多当前的弊病与它在全球范围内的传播联系起来。 倾倒东西的倾向，而不是重复使用它，导致不断争夺下一个最大、更好、最性感的地位符号。 令人不寒而栗的是，教皇弗朗西斯还认为，这种丢弃而不是重复使用的倾向延伸到了人们自己，他指出，目前处置不需要的婴儿、老年人和穷人的趋势就是例子。 堕胎、安乐死、离婚和第一世界对发展中国家的待遇等有争议的问题引领了这一批评。 看来，应该只对强者施怜悯，对不悔改的人施以同情。
It is easy to say, “Not Me”, but with the closure of the subcontinent as a dumping ground for the excesses of the Western world, soon the evidence of our throwaway lifestyles will literally pile up on our front doorsteps. With the advent of the Chinese ban on recycling imports of 24 varieties of solid waste (adding 32 more types to the list by the end of 2019), the developed world is scrambling to deal with the excesses of its own waste.
说“不是我”很容易，但随着次大陆作为西方世界过度倾倒的垃圾场的关闭，我们丢弃生活方式的证据很快就会堆积在我们家门口。 随着中国禁止回收进口24种固体废物的出现（到2019年底，清单上又增加了32种），发达国家正在争先恐后地处理其过度废物。
Australia recently announced measures to bury its excess recycling waste in landfill due to the prohibitive costs of processing it. An interesting point to note is that of the two sub headings in a CNN story reporting thereon, one focuses solely on how the “ban could hurt consumers”.
China’s stance on its role as trash disposer for the west reflects its maturing attitude as a nation. Basically, as China gets richer, it gets choosier about what it imports and from whom. Establishing itself as a main player in the global economy, China too reaches a point where it has its hands full cleaning up after its own waste, leaving the western world with a mountain of rubbish and no idea what to
do with it.
澳大利亚最近宣布采取措施，将其多余的回收废物埋在垃圾填埋场，因为处理成本高昂。 值得注意的一点是，在CNN报道的两个副标题中，一个只关注“禁令如何伤害消费者”。 中国作为西方垃圾处理者的立场反映了其作为一个国家的成熟态度。 基本上，随着中国越来越富裕，它越来越选择从谁那里进口什么。 中国将自己确立为全球经济的主要参与者，也达到了一个地步，它满手忙脚乱地清理自己的垃圾，让西方世界只剩下一堆垃圾，不知道该做什么 用它做。
The Great Gatsby tells the sorry tale of Jay Gatsby, a self-made millionaire obsessed with winning back the heart of his beloved Daisy. While he amasses a fine fortune, throwing sick parties every weekend with the sole intention of catching her eye, Gatsby spends his nights staring across the bay at the green light on Daisy’s porch, dreaming of the day when she will be his once more.
《了不起的盖茨比》讲述了杰伊·盖茨比的遗憾故事，杰伊·盖茨比是一个自创百万富翁，痴迷于赢回他心爱的黛西的心。 虽然他积累了一笔大笔财富，每个周末都举办生病的派对，唯一目的是吸引她的眼球，但Gatsby整晚盯着海湾对面的Daisy门廊上的绿灯，梦想着有一天她再次成为他的。
We, the readers, are left with a stone of pity in our stomachs for the bootlegging rascal. Even when he achieves his heart’s desire, Gatsby’s mind is already racing ahead to the next goal, the next achievement, the next triumph; that Daisy must declare that she never loved her husband to begin with. Human nature is a sticky, tricky thing.
我们，读者，对走私的流氓感到悲痛。 即使他实现了内心的愿望，Gatsby的头脑也已经在朝着下一个目标、下一个成就、下一个胜利前进；Daisy必须宣布她一开始就从未爱过她的丈夫。 人性是一种粘稠、棘手的东西。
Like Gatsby, we have amassed such a vast amount of stuff, we do not know what to do with it. Yet, the gnawing persists, but perhaps now, we can pause a moment, and look down from the green light for long enough to see below the sea of trash that threatens not only our planet, but our very humanity. Pop a teaspoon in your pocket. Make a change today, for the Great Gatsby is back in fashion.
像《盖茨比》一样，我们积累了这么多东西，我们不知道该怎么处理。 然而，啃咬仍然存在，但也许现在，我们可以暂停片刻，从绿灯下往下看足够长的时间，看到垃圾海的下面，它不仅威胁着我们的星球，也威胁着我们的人类。 在你的口袋里放一茶匙。 今天做出改变，因为了不起的盖茨比又回到时尚了。
