8．不过我也发现文化就如同构成文化的民族一样，善于随机应变，富有弹性而且不可预测。在洛杉矶，世界文化堕落明显的源头，我看到的差异要比我想像的多——在好莱坞高中学生说32种完全不同的语言。在上海，我发现“芝麻街”这一电视节目已被中国教育家重新改组，用以传授中国人的价值观和传统习惯。一位教育家对我说：“我们借用美国盒子，装进去的是中国内容。”在有400多种语言和几种纪律严明的宗教的印度，麦当劳供应的是羊肉汉堡而不是牛肉汉堡，还为那些最正统的印度人提供素食菜谱。
9．许多既有时间又有钱的青少年---全世界共有8亿---是融合全球文化的关键及主要力量之一。孩子们爱旅行、闲逛，重要的是他们买东西。很遗憾我没能发现哪个青少年第一个倒戴垒球帽，哪个青少年第一个模仿他，但是我确实知道最先出现在市内黑人区的说唱乐就是在有叛逆精神的白人青少年开始买票观看时才开始赚大钱的。然而，人们又会如何预测孩子们需要什么呢?许多公司迫切想要了解孩子们的需要，因此出现了顾问，他们预测将来的趋势，被称之为“猎酷者”。阿曼达?弗里德曼一天上午向我讲述了其中的奥秘。
10．阿曼达22岁，在其基地设在纽约的一家叫作“青年情报”的公司工作，她到洛杉矶进行调查，调查的结果要通报给公司很多重要的客户。她留着披肩的棕发，穿着一条长及膝盖的织锦短裙。在我看来，阿曼达打扮得很酷，但她自己并不这样认为。她说：“我的工作有趣之处就在于做此工作你不必扮酷，你得有眼光。”
11．我们去了一家小一点的、50年代式样的餐馆，这家餐馆位于好莱坞东面一个比较破落的区域，这个区域刚刚成为时尚聚集点。然后我们去逛了几家旧货店。阿曼达说：“如果人们买不起，那它就不会流行起来。”
12．现在她看到将要形成的流行趋势了吗?“家正在成为一个社交的地方，眼下旅行正热——人们到某地去，买回来许多东西。”
13．她最后说：“现今创新极为困难，因此最容易的办法就是把现存的东西捏在一起，拿出一个新玩意儿来。融合将会成为人人都要使用的大词，将来会有越来越多的毫不相关的东西融合在一起，如西班牙乐和蓬克乐。”
14．洛杉矶是融合中心，各种文化在这里交汇并有所改变。以汤姆?斯洛珀和麻将为例：汤姆是个计算机怪才，同时还是个麻将迷。由于这是美国，所以他找到了把这两种爱好结合在一起的方式并把自己的成果出售。他设计了一个人们可以在互联网上玩麻将的软件程序，这个程序叫做“上海：帝国”。玩这种老式中国麻将既需要技巧又需要运气。亚洲人仍然在小屋子里玩麻将，屋子里弥漫着烟雾，到处都能听到麻将牌相互撞击所发出的不绝于耳的喀哒声。玩家们精神高度集中。居住在比弗利山(美国加利福尼亚州西南部城市，好莱坞影星集居地)和曼哈顿上西城公寓里的有钱女人们也在俱乐部里玩麻将。然而，一天晚上，在洛杉矶，50岁的汤姆一个人坐在办公桌旁，在寂静、空旷的办公大楼里玩麻将。
15．事实上，他只是看上去是一个人。他那亮着的计算机屏幕表明麻将已经玩起来了，其他几个参与者都是老牌友。他们是德国人“蓝鲸”、俄亥俄州的拉斯和住在明尼苏达州的美籍华人弗雷迪。我们一边谈着话，汤姆一边毫不费力地在玩麻将。 16．汤姆对我的态度很友好，但那是那种超然的友好，他的兴趣在连线的计算机上。他对我说：“我已掌握了11种麻将的玩法。在美国有几种不同麻将的玩法。我们常打中国式麻将。”
17．我看着小小麻将牌像纸牌一样在屏幕上弹来弹去。汤姆边玩边打字，和牌友简短交流牌局情况。
18．他和真人打过麻将吗?他回答说：“打过。一周一次，晚上在办公室，周四中午。”这时，屏幕上出现一个新名字。“是弗雷迪的母亲。不可能是，他们在维加斯。噢!一定是他姐姐。TJ也在线，她是威尔士人，一个真正的夜猫子。她快结婚了，现在与她未婚夫一起生活。有时她未婚夫起床对她说：‘离开那讨厌的电脑!’”
19．汤姆继续玩，一直到深夜。至少我所在的地方是深夜。他--- 一个美国人，和德国人、威尔士人、俄亥俄人还有明尼苏达人一起玩中国游戏，他在网络世界活动，这种活动超越时区。这是他从未谋面的那些人的王国，对他来说，那些人要远比他的左邻右舍更真实。
20．如果说西方的生活太超前了，已经看不清轮廓了。那么就看看中国。从1978年经济改革搞活市场至今的20年时间，许多中国城市居民的生活有了极大的改善。最近对12个主要城市进行了，调查，数据显示97％的调查对象拥有电视机，88％拥有电冰箱和洗衣机。另一项调查显示农民每年的食肉量增加了48％，水果增加了400％。26万中国妇女每个月都在阅读《时尚》杂志，那些开领袒胸的画页及其他内容。
21．我到上海去调查在世界人口最多国家的最大城市里文化趋势如何出现。上海也是对西方开放最久的城市，譬如通用汽车公司早在1929年就在上海设立。如今，通用汽车投资1.5亿美元在上海建立了中国最大的中美合资新厂。
22．上海曾是一座建有雅致的别墅和庄严的办公大楼的城市，但现在却是一座带状城市。10年中，几十座闪闪发亮的新的高层建筑拔地而起，挤压空间，使人张目不能远眺，使原本狭窄弯曲的街道更显压抑。而这些高耸大楼的存在也使公园和空地感到
憋闷。即使是在多车道的高架桥上，车辆也在爬行。然而，街上的妇女着装色彩艳丽，特别是在街道两边布满精品店和时装店的南京路上，许多妇女手里拎着多个购物袋。在刚开业的两周时间里，古奇专卖店的营业额为十万美元，令人惊讶不已。 23．法国时装杂志Elle中国版的总编吴颖说：“也许现在的年轻女性不了解过去。10年前我决不会想到我会穿这样的衬衫(那是一件红白相间的紧身圆点花纹衬衫)。那时人们买衣服时考虑的是它能穿多久，家庭主妇把每月的工资主要用来买食品。而现在买食品只需一小部分工资，因此她会考虑着装和旅行。现在有冰箱，我们也不必天天买食品。”
24．至于由此可能带来的文化错位问题，一位年轻的德国商人说：“上海人认为这不是问题。中国人是很善于应对多种可能性的。人们接受了它。‘很难，但还可以。那有什么?”’
25．潜力：这主要是西方概念。不谈古奇专卖店和摩天大楼，真正的巨大飞跃体现在观念上。我只有在亲眼目睹了澳门的休考克戏剧协会在当地上演的莎土比亚戏剧《麦克白》时才真正领会了这一点。
26．在上海戏剧学院，我和来自全中国文学与戏剧专业的大约30名教授和学生一起坐在折叠椅上观看演出，演出场地大约有半个垒球场那么大。翻译张芳小声对我说：“我帮不了什么忙；我不懂广东话，这里许多人都不懂。”
27．我原以为自己能看个八九不离十，结果却只能辨认出三个女巫。这几个人用了近一个小时的时间转圈、跳来跳去、用长棍子相互威胁打来打去。灯光集中在鬼影上，常常夹着闪电。语言不是问题，因为演员主要是在咆哮和尖叫。后来他们背对观众，一些人用广东话叫喊着。灯光熄灭，有一阵子，黑暗中惟一的声音就是一部价格昂贵的照相机自动倒卷时所发出的声音。 28．这是中国吗?这可以是西方的任何一所大学校园。这样的表演即使是现在也难以想像。令人难以想像的是就是在这个国家，20年前人们最想要的一种奢侈品是手表、自行车和缝纫机。
29．许久以来我认识到我需要某种指南针来指引我穿越全球文化的荒原。因此在洛杉矶时，我找到阿尔文?托夫勒．1970年他的《未来的冲击》一书出版。此后近30年，他提出并完善了一些有趣的想法，他在与夫人海蒂合著的《第三次浪潮》一书中详述了这些想法。
30．我问他人们对以前并不知道的将来现在又了解多少呢?他马上就做出了回答：“人们都知道秩序产生于混乱。没有冲突就不可能有大的改变。尤其是在俄罗斯或中国这样的国家。不是东方和西方的冲突，也不是南北之间的冲突。而是以1：业为主和以农业为主的国家间的冲突，或处在转型期的国家间的冲突。”
31．他进一步解释说，浪潮就是文明的重大变化。第一次浪潮指的是农业发展，第二次指_丁业。今天我们正处在第三次浪潮之中．主要指信息业。1956年开始产生新事物，就是出现了新文明。托夫勒说：“就是在那一年美国服务业和信息业的工人超过了蓝领工人。1957年苏联人造地球卫星升空。随后航空商业化、电视普及、计算机开始被广泛应用，随之而来的就是文化变迁。”
32．他继续说到：“现在世界权利正在发生三等分变化。农业国在底层，工业国在中间，发展知识经济的国家在上面。”在有些国家，如巴西，三种文明并存，相互冲撞。
33．托大勒说：“我们会看到文化上有很大变化。你一打开电视，就能收看用母语播放的尼日利亚和斐济电视节日。”一些专家还预测未来电视有500个有线频道，少数群体可以用这种电视发展自己独立的、与众不同的文化和语言。
34．托夫勒还说：“人们要问。我们会经历第三次浪潮而继续保持中国特色吗? 会的，会有由自己核心文化构成的独特文化，但那是未来的中国文化，而不是过去的中国文化。”
35．相互联系：全球文化传播最终就意味着相互联系。商品会继续流动从1987年剑1995年，加利福尼哑州经济部¨多出口了200％的产品，爱达荷商业部多出口了375％。人员流动：从国外引进商业雇员比在国内培训工人便宜。观念转变：在日本，玩互动电子游戏长大的一代至少在网络世界体验到了新的可能性。大前研一在一本书中写道：“玩这种游戏向人们传递着一个模糊的信息，就是人们有可能主动操纵自己的处境，因此就会改变自己的命运。对日本人来说．这完全是一种新的思维方式。” 36．变化：变化是一个事实，而不是一种选择。那么真正的驱动力是什么呢?各种文化并没有更加一致；相反。新趋势和旧趋势相互转变。已故的哲学家以赛亚?柏林认为一个社会应该追求一些别的东西，而不是某种乌托邦式的理想。他在自传中写道：“不是我们持一致意见，而是我们相互理解。”
37．10月的某个晚L。在上海，我和一群人在一间又小又闷的宾馆会议室里相聚。那是犹太赎罪日前夜。参加聚会的有许多西方国家的外交官、教师和商人，还有携带可爱孩子的漂亮女士、单身男士和年轻的父亲。夏勒姆?格林伯格是位年轻的以色列犹太人，娶了个美国太太。他是第一次作为拉比(犹太教巾负责执行教规、律法并主持宗教仪式的人)主持这种刚刚开始定期举行的新年宗教集会。
38．格林伯格拉比说：“犹太人遍布世界各地，这是犹太历史的一部分。他们从当地文化吸收了不少东西，但仍然保持了自己的本色。”
39．庄严的礼拜仪式在继续，经过几千年和上百种外同文化的影响都未曾改变。他吟诵：“啊，上帝啊!给我一颗纯净的心，恢复我健康的心灵!”我既不是犹太人也不是中国人，但坐在这里我一点都不觉得陌生．感觉就像在家里一样。忏悔可能具有犹太特色，但是渴望得到上帝的原谅却是普遍的。
40．全球文化并不仅仅意味着拥有更多的电视机和耐克鞋。相互联系是人类自然的欲望，是其共同的命运。但是连接全球人类的纽带并不只是技术或商业，这种连接靠的是强有力的心灵的纽带。
Unit4 Professions for Women 女人的职业
Born in England, Virginia Woolf was the daughter of Leslie Stephen, a well-known scholar. She was educated primarily at home and attributed her love of reading to the early and complete access she was given to her father’s library. With her husband, Leonard Woolf, she founded the Hogarth Press and became known as member of the Bloomsbury group of intellectuals, which included economist John Maynard Keynes, biographer Lytton Strachey, novelist E. M. Forster, and art historian Clive Bell. Although she was a central figure in London literary life, Woolf often saw herself as isolated from the mains stream because she was a woman. Woolf is best known for her experimental, modernist novels, including Mrs. Dalloway(1925) and To the Lighthouse(1927) which are widely appreciated for her breakthrough into a new mode and technique--the stream of consciousness. In her diary and critical essays she has much to say about women and fiction. Her 1929 book A Room of One’s Own documents her desire for women to take their rightful place in literary history and as an essayist she has occupied a high place in 20th century literature. The common Reader (1925 first series; 1932 second series) has acquired classic status. She also wrote short stories and biographies. “Professions for Women” taken from The collected Essays Vol 2. is originally a paper Woolf read to the Women’s Service League, an organization for professional women in London.
When your secretary invited me to come here, she told me that your Society is concerned with the employment of women and she suggested that I might tell you something about my own professional experiences. It is true that I am a woman; it is true I am employed; but what professional experiences have I had? It is difficult to say. My profession is literature; and in that profession there are fewer experiences for women than in any other, with the exception of the stage--fewer, I mean, that are peculiar to women. For the road was cut many years ago---by Fanny Burney, by AphraBehn, by Harriet Martineau, by Jane Austen, by George Eliot —many famous women, and many more unknown and forgotten, have been before me, making the path smooth, and regulating my steps. Thus, when I came to write, there were very few material obstacles in my way. Writing was a reputable and harmless occupation. The family peace was not broken by the scratching of a pen. No demand was made upon the family purse. For ten and sixpence one can buy paper enough to write all the plays of Shakespeare--if one has a mind that way. Pianos and models, Paris, Vienna, and Berlin, masters and mistresses, are not needed by a writer. The cheapness of writing paper is, of course, the reason why women have succeeded as writers before they have succeeded in the other professions.
But to tell you my story--it is a simple one. You have only got to figure to yourselves a girl in a bedroom with a pen in her hand. She had only to move that pen from left to right--from ten o’clock to one. Then it occurred to her to do what is simple and cheap enough after all--to slip a few of those pages into an envelope, fix a penny stamp in the corner, and drop the envelope into the red box at the corner. It was thus that I became a journalist; and my effort was rewarded on the first day of the following month--a very glorious day it was for me--by a letter from an editor containing a check for one pound ten shillings and sixpence. But to show you how little I deserve to be called a professional woman, how little I know of the struggles and difficulties of such lives, I have to admit that instead of spending that sum upon bread and butter, rent, shoes and stockings, or butcher’s bills, I went out and bought a cat--a beautiful cat, a Persian cat, which very soon involved me in bitter disputes with my neighbors.
What could be easier than to write articles and to buy Persian cats with the profits? But wait a moment. Articles have to be about something. Mine, I seem to remember, was about a novel by a famous man. And while I was writing this review, I discovered that if I were going to review books I should need to do battle with a certain phantom. And the phantom was a woman, and when I came to know her better I called her after the heroine of a famous poem, The Angel in the House. It was she who used to come between me an my paper when I was writing reviews. It was she who bothered me and wasted my time and so tormented me that at last I killed her. You who come off a younger and happier generation may not have heard of her--you may not know what I mean by The Angel in the House. I will describe her as shortly as I can. She was intensely sympathetic. She was immensely charming. She was utterly unselfish. She excelled in the difficult arts of family life. She sacrificed herself daily. If there was chicken, she took the leg; if there was a draft she sat in it--in short she was so constituted that she never had a mind or a wish of her own, but preferred to sympathize always with the minds and wishes of others. Above all--I need not say it--she was pure. Her purity was supposed to be her chief beauty--her blushes, her great grace. In those days--the last of Queen Victoria--every house had its Angel. And when I came to write I encountered her with the very first words. The shadow of her wings fell on my page; I heard the rustling of her skirts in the room. Directly, that is to say, I took my pen in my hand to review that novel by a famous man, she slipped behind me and whispered:“My dear, you are a young woman. You are writing about a book that has been written by a man. Be sympathetic; be tender; flatter; deceive; use all the art and wiles of our sex. Never let anybody guess that you have a mind of our own. Above all, be pure.” And she made as if to guide my pen. I now record the one act for which I take some credit to myself, though the credit rightly belongs to some excellent ancestors of mine who left me a certain sum of money--shall we say five hundred pounds a year? --so that it was not necessary for me to depend solely on charm for my living. I turned upon her and caught her by the throat. I did my best to kill her. My excuse, If I were to be had up in a court of law, would be that I acted in self-defense. Had I not killed her she would have killed me. She would have plucked the heart out of my writing. For, as I found, directly I put pen to paper, you cannot review even a novel without having a mind of your own, without expressing what you think to be the truth about human relations, morality, sex. And all these questions, according to the Angel of the House, cannot be dealt with freely and openly by women; they must charm, they must conciliate, they must—to put it bluntly-—tell lies if they are to succeed. Thus, whenever I felt the shadow of her wing or the radiance of her halo upon my page, I took up the inkpot and flung it at her. She died hard. Her fictitious nature was of great assistance to her. It is far harder to kill a phantom than a reality. She was always creeping back when I thought I had dispatched her. Though I flatter myself that I killed her in the end, the struggle was severe; it took much time that had better have been spent upon learning Greek grammar; or in roaming the world in search of adventures. But it was a real experience; It was an experience that was bound befall all women writers at that time. Killing the Angel in the House was part of the occupation of a woman writer.
But to continue my story. The Angel was dead; what then remained? You may say that what remained was a simple and common object--a young woman in a bedroom with an inkpot. In other words, now that she had rid herself of falsehood, that young woman had only to be herself. Ah, but what is “herself”? I mean, what is a woman? I assure you, I do not know. I do not believe that you know. I do not believe that anybody can know until she has expressed herself in all the arts and professions open to human skill. That indeed is one of the reasons why I have come here--out of respect for you, who are in process of showing us by your experiments what a woman is, who are in process of providing us, by your failures and succeeded, with that extremely important piece of information.
But to continue the story of my professional experiences. I made one pound ten and six by my first review; and I bought a Persian cat with the proceeds. Then I grew ambitious. A Persian cat is all very well, I said; but a Persian cat is not enough. I must have a motorcar. And it was thus that I became a novelist--for it is a very strange thing that people will give you a motorcar if you will tell them a story. It is a still stranger thing that there is nothing so delightful in the world as telling stories. It