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民工分离撕裂中国家庭(Rural Exodus for Work Fractures Chinese Family)
我爱英语网 http://www.52en.com
第一次在纽约时报上看到这篇文章，记得是在一个晴朗冬日的午后。懒懒的阳光穿过图书馆陈旧的木窗，洒落在一排排报纸杂志上，我正犹豫着该拿份什么报纸消遣这个下午，纽约时报头版的这篇关于中国农村报道吸引了我。
拿起报纸一气把这篇长文看完，心却似被什么东西紧紧揪住，要不是因为还有别人在，当时真想大喊几声以抒胸中恶气。虽然那些“上嘴皮靠着天，下嘴皮贴着地”的经济学家总是占据着媒体的主要目光，但我们的眼光却不得不透过那些浮华的数字，看到八亿农民的艰辛生活。也许我们无法直接为农民兄弟们做些什么，但至少下次在公车上相遇，请不要再对背着大包小包的他们侧目而视。因为他们肩上所背负的，是一家人的希望；而他们所付出的，是健康乃至生命。
SHUANGHU, China - Yang Shan is in fourth grade and spends a few hours every day practicing her Chinese characters. Her script is neat and precise, and one day, instead of drills, she wrote letters to her parents and put them in the mail.
双湖，中国 - 杨珊（音译）上小学四年级，每天花几个小时练习写字。她写的字干净、整洁。有一天，她不再只是练习，而是给自己的父母写了封信，并且把信发了出去。
"How is your health?" she asked.
Shan, who is 10, then added a more pointed question: "What is happening with our family?"
“你们身体怎么样？”她写到，随后，这个10岁的小姑娘又提出了一个尖锐的问题：“我们家为什么会这样？”
Her parents had left in March. Their absence was not new in Shan's short life. Her father, Yang Heqing, has left four times for work. He is now in Beijing on a construction site. Her mother, Ran Heping, has left three times. She is in a different city as a factory worker.
才三月，她的父母就走了。虽然杨珊才10岁，但面对这样的离别已不是第一次了。她的爸爸杨和清现在在北京的一个建筑工地，这已经是他第四次离家打工了。她的妈妈阮和平在另一座城市的工厂打工。
Over the years, Shan's parents have returned to this remote village to bring money and reunite the family. They leave when the money runs out, as it did in March. Her father had medical debts and needed cash to see another doctor. Shan's school fees were due, and her grandparents also needed help.
每一年，杨珊的父母个都会带着赚到的钱回到这个偏僻的乡村，一家人团聚。到了三月，随着钱的告罄，他们再外出打工挣钱。她爸爸看病欠下了些债，而且继续医治还需要钱。杨珊学费要缴，她的爷爷奶奶也需要接济。这一切都需要钱。
"I think they are suffering in order to make my life better," Shan said of her parents. She added a familiar Chinese expression: "They are eating bitterness."
“我想他们这么做，是为了让我的生活好起来，”杨珊用一句我们所熟悉的中文说：“他们在吃苦。”
For the Yang family and millions of others in the Chinese countryside, the only way to survive as a family is to not live as one. Migrant workers like Shan's parents are the mules driving the country's stunning economic growth. And the money they send home has become essential for jobless rural China.
对于杨家和数百外其他中国农村家庭来说，分离是生存下去的唯一办法。如杨珊的父母这样的农民工，正是推动中国经济高速增长的引擎。而他们汇回家的钱则是贫困农村的必要生活来源。
Yet even that money is no longer enough. Migrant wages have stagnated, education and health costs are rising, and the rural social safety net has collapsed - a crushing combination that is a major reason the income divide is widening so rapidly in China at the expense of the rural poor.
即使如此，钱还是不够。民工的工资一直停滞不前，而教育和医疗的花费却节节攀升，农村社会保障体系已然不存。这种牺牲农村的发展方式，也正是中国城市农村收入差距不断加大的关键原因。
Migration also has meant that urban and rural children in China are growing up in starkly different worlds. In cities, upwardly mobile couples call their precious only child xiao taiyang, or "little sun," as in center of the universe. Children are indulged with clothes, toys and snacks: childhood obesity is a new urban ill.
民工的外出，也意味着中国的城市和农村孩子成长在一个完全不同的世界。在城市中，经济能力日益提高的父母们把自己宝贝的独生子女称作“小太阳”。娇宠的孩子有着数不尽的衣服、玩具、快餐，而且儿童肥胖已经成为一种新的城市病。
In the countryside, the new vernacular phrase is liu shou, or "left behind" child. Millions of children like Shan are growing up without one or both parents. Villages often seem to be missing a generation. Grandparents work the fields and care for the children.
而在农村，一种新的说法是“留守儿童”。上百万像珊珊一样的孩子只有单亲或者根本没有父母陪在身边。农村就像是缺了一代人：祖父母在田间干活且照顾孙辈。
"We are a triangle, three people in three different places," said Mr. Yang, 36, the father. "The pain of missing one another is very difficult. All parents are the same in this world. All parents care about their children."
“我们家像是个三角形，三人各处一地，”36岁的杨和清说：“思念的痛苦是难熬的。世界上的父母都一样，所有的父母都牵挂自己的孩子。”
But Shan's parents, strapped with debt and obligation, are among the untold millions of people in rural China caught in a brutal cycle. Studies show that medical costs are the leading reason that people fall into poverty in China. Many city residents still have some health benefits, but peasants now fall under a pay-for-service system. Sickness can mean bankruptcy.
话虽这么说，但杨珊的父母依然像中国乡村成百万农民工一样，在债务和义务的驱使下外出打工。研究显示，庞大的医疗费用，是致使中国人陷入贫穷的主要原因。城里人还有一些医疗保障，但农村人看病全靠自己掏钱。生病，对他们来说意味着破产。
Mr. Yang went to Beijing in part to earn enough money for medical treatment. He was warned four years ago that he needed treatment for prostate problems, but he could not afford it. Now, his health has worsened on his construction job. He has missed days and is jeopardizing the pay he needs to see a doctor.
杨和清去北京打工，挣钱给自己治病也是一个目的。四年前，医生已经警告他身患前列腺疾病，但他无钱医治。如今在建筑工地的工作恶化了他的病情；而因为病痛，他已经几天没工作，这又威胁到他赖以治病的工钱。
His wife, Ms. Ran, 33, wants to visit her daughter in February for the Lunar New Year, when migrant workers traditionally go home. But she said her factory in the city of Baoding will fine her $72 - roughly six weeks' pay - if she does not work straight through to July. Shan's school fees are due soon, and the family needs more money.
杨和清的妻子，33岁的阮和平一直盘算着二月春节能回家看女儿，这段时间也正是民工们返乡的时候。但她在保定打工的工厂规定，如果工人不能一直工作到明年七月，就要被扣掉差不多一个半的工资－－600块钱。珊珊的学费就要缴了，家里也需要更多的钱。
Shan has never left this village in mountainous central China, a few hours' drive from the Three Gorges along the Yangtze River. She is still a child, but she understands the pressures on her family and how her own future depends on getting an education. She grew worried when the school began asking for next semester's tuition.
珊珊从来没有离开过中国中部山区的这个村庄，他们的村庄离三峡只有几个小时的车程。她很懂事，知道自己家庭的重压，也懂得自己的未来靠的就是接受教育。但当学校开始征收下学期的学费时，她又担心了起来。
"I love school," she said.
“我喜欢学校。”她说。
A Desperate Village
一个绝望的村庄
The students in Shan's fourth grade class rose in unison as the teacher, Du Nengwei, tapped his pointer against his desk to start the lesson.
四年级的老师杜能卫将教鞭轻轻拍打了一下桌子，宣布了上课开始，珊珊和她的同学们便整齐的起立。
"Hello, teacher!" the children shouted dutifully in early December as Mr. Du, his eyes magnified through thick glasses, signaled for everyone to sit down. The children began shouting out memorization drills, and the sounds of rote drilling rose out of other classrooms, as noisy as squawking birds.
“老师好！”孩子们认真的叫道。杜老师用那透过厚厚镜片的眼睛示意同学们坐下。孩子们开始背诵课文，背诵的声音贯穿了课堂，像是鸟儿嘈杂的叫声。
The village school, the focus of so much hope, is little changed from a century ago. The dirty, whitewashed building is made of mud brick and concrete. Shan's classroom has no heat or electricity. Light comes from two small windows.
虽然是农村孩子们的希望，但这乡村学校在一个世纪以来却没有多大改变。教室是泥砖和水泥砌成的，里面没有暖也没有电，照明则全靠两扇小小的窗户。
Mr. Du said 8 of his 14 students had at least one parent who is a migrant worker. He knows that parents leave in order to pay tuition, about $50 a year for families that often live on less than $300 a year. School, even this school, is their only chance, he said.
杜老师说，他的14个学生中，有8个孩子都有父母进城务工。他知道农民们打工赚钱也是为了给孩子们挣学费，虽然家庭收入还不足2500元，一年的学费却需要400元。而学校（即使是这样的学校），也是农民子弟们的唯一希望。
"Some say they want to be a driver, a scientist or a teacher," Mr. Du said. "But nobody wants to go on being a farmer." Of Shan, he said, "she studies very hard and does well."
“同学们说想当司机、科学家或者教师，”杜老师说。“但没有人还想做农民。”至于珊珊，他说：“她学习很努力，也很不错。”
She usually ranks second or third in the class. At home, she studies as much as three hours a day. She said she wanted to advance to middle school, then high school, even college.
她一般在班里拿第二第三。每天回家后，她都要学习三个小时左右。她说自己想继续读初中、高中、甚至大学。
"The more schooling I have, the more knowledge I have," she said.
“读的书越多，懂的知识就越多，”珊珊说。
Her home is a mud-walled communal house built more than a century ago during the Qing Dynasty. Her grandparents sleep in one section, her aunt and younger cousin in another. Shan sleeps alone in two unheated rooms converted from a small barn. Her room is above the pen with the family's three pigs. Her parent's empty room is over the open pit that is the communal toilet.
珊珊的家是清朝时建的老房子，她的爷爷奶奶睡一间，婶婶和堂弟们睡另一间。珊珊独自睡在两间从畜圈改过来的房子里。她的房间在三头猪的猪圈上面，她爸妈的空房间则在家里的厕所上面。
"I'm not scared," she said. She has painted her colorless wooden shutter with the Chinese characters for "wealth" and "prosperity."
“我不怕，”她说道。她在自己房间的木窗上写慢了中文汉字“财富”，“繁荣。”
Her grandfather, Yang Xianglin, 72, said his three sons each contributed $150 a year to support the family. Two of the three are migrant workers; the third just returned home from a migrant job. But the money is not enough, so the grandfather must borrow from other relatives.
珊珊的爷爷，72岁的杨祥林说自己的三个儿子每年给家里贴1200元。三个儿子中，两个都在外务工，剩下一个也是刚刚回来；但尽管如此，钱还总是不够，爷爷不得不向亲戚们去借钱。
Shan knows she is poor, but does not seem to feel poverty's sharp sting. Asked if she has any toys, she brightened and showed off two tiny plastic figurines and a single silk flower. Her parents cannot afford more, though her mother stitched her a pink sweater.
珊珊知道家里穷，但年纪还不大的她却并不以此为苦。记者问她有没有什么玩具，她立刻欢喜起来地拿出两个塑料小人和一朵绸做的小花。此外妈妈还给她织过一件红毛衣，超出这些的父母就负担不起了。
"She misses them always," her grandfather said. "She keeps asking, when will her parents come home?"
“珊珊老想他们，”爷爷说。“她总是问，爸爸妈妈什么时候回来呀？”
Nearly every family in Shuanghu has had someone leave. Local wages are as low as $1 a day; a migrant can make $5 or more. A few fortunate families have built concrete homes with migrant money.
在双湖，几乎每个家里都有人外出务工。本地的工资一天只有8元钱，而一个农民工每天能挣40元。少数幸运的家庭靠着打工带回的钱已经盖起了新房。
"We have more freedom now than when we had a communal life," said Lei Jinchen, 53, a neighbor whose two sons work at the same factory as Shan's mother. "We can now go out and find work. But we only have enough to feed ourselves. That's it."
53岁的雷金辰说：“比起以前农民公社时期，现在自由多了，至少能出去打工。不过也仅仅能养活自己而已。”雷金辰是珊珊家的邻居，他有两个儿子也在珊珊妈妈的工厂工作。
Central government leaders often boast of new programs to benefit China's poorest villages. One national program called for farmers to hand over land for reforestation in exchange for annual payments. In 2002, Shan's grandfather surrendered two-thirds of an acre for promised payments of $65 a year. As yet, he and other farmers have received nothing.
中央的领导们常常自夸扶助贫困地区的新政策。有个“退耕还林”的国家政策，许诺只要农民退还土地造林，就能每年给以补助。2002年，珊珊的爷爷退了四亩地，想着每年能拿540元补助。可至今为止，他也其他的退地农民一分也没有拿到。
Shuanghu was also designated for special antipoverty assistance, and about 50 families - including the Yangs - were named poverty households eligible to divide a $2,500 annual fund, or about $50 per family. But again, the Yangs and others have gotten nothing.
双湖还有上面特派的扶贫专款，大约有50户人家（包括杨家）每年该收到扶贫款20000元，平均每家每年400元。但是他们的希望又一次落空。
"Not many benefits get down to us," Mr. Lei said. "Local governments skim most of the money off."
“没有多少钱能到我们头上，”雷金辰说，“地方政府把大头都拿走了。”
So what remains is migrant work for the young and farming for the old. The mountainous landscape is impressive, but only narrow strips of land can be used for farming. In early December, Shan left for school one morning, and her grandparents walked up a rocky hillside toward their small plot.
所以剩下的办法只有让年轻人出去打工，老年人留家种田了。山区的景色是挺不错，但是能用作耕种的地却很有限。12月初的一天，珊珊去上学了，爷爷奶奶则走到一块充满碎石的坡地，开始他们的耕种。
The frost had lifted, and the grandmother, Hu Yangui, 65, squatted in the dirt and pulled turnips. She takes medicine for stomach ailments and arthritis, and the work tires her. She would let the turnips dry in the sun until afternoon, then feed them to the pigs beneath Shan's bedroom.
珊珊的奶奶，65的胡艳桂，有胃病和关节炎，需要吃药。在霜散尽的地里，奶奶正蹲在地上拔萝卜，拔出的萝卜要在先太阳底下晒干，然后喂给家里的猪吃。
The grandfather grabbed a large bale of corn stalks to use as bedding for the pigs and loaded it onto his back. His arthritis sometimes keeps him from sleeping, but he said the corn was not heavy. In a lower field, a child's voice echoed against the hillsides. It was Shan's cousin, Yang Qinlin, 4. Her own father works several hours away, and she goes months without seeing him.
爷爷抓起一大捆玉米秆，把他们负到背上，这些铺猪圈用的。虽然爷爷的关节炎很重，常常让他无法入睡；但爷爷说，玉米秆不重。山下，一个孩子的声音传到了山坡上。这是珊珊的表妹，4岁的杨琴琳，虽然她爸爸在不远的城镇打工，但她也已经几个月没见爸爸了。
She was singing a melancholy poem about missing home that is memorized by schoolchildren across China:
Looking up, I find the moon bright;
Bowing down, in homesickness I'm drowned.
她在朗诵一首描述思乡之情的古诗，这是一首中国孩子们都耳熟能详的诗：
举头望明月；低头思故乡。
An Ailing Father
一个生病的父亲
On the worst nights, Yang Heqing is awakened by the cold. His bunkroom is in a warehouse district in southern Beijing that is home to tens of thousands of migrants. There is no heat for the subfreezing temperatures, and the bunks are planks of plywood attached to metal scaffolding.
在最冷的夜里，杨和清总被冻醒。他住的工棚位于北京南面的一个仓库里，和他同住在这一片的有上万农民工。他们睡在木板搭成的高低铺上，虽然北京的冬夜气温已经在零度以下，但他们的工棚当然不会有暖气。
The room, provided by the construction company, is like a map of poverty in China's rural interior. Mr. Yang and three others from around his village sleep on two rows of bunks. Farmers from central Sichuan Province are in a different section. Apple farmers from dusty Shaanxi Province sleep across the room beside a few men from destitute areas in Hubei Province.
建筑公司提供的房子，就像一张中国内地农村的贫苦地图。杨和清和另外三个同村人占着两个高低铺，四川中部来的一些农民则睡在另外一边，几个湖北贫困地区来的人旁边睡着一个陕西来的苹果农。
There are 40 men in a room 30 feet long.
9米长的房间里睡着40个男人。
Asked how many of them have left wives and children at home, one man yelled, "All of us." Asked how much they are getting paid for working 12 hours a day, seven days a week for almost a year, they give an embarrassed answer.
当记者问，他们中有多少人是抛妻弃子来城里打工的。一人叫道：“我们全是”。但当记者接着问“你们的工钱有多少”时，这些一周工作七天、一天工作十二小时的工人们却扭捏起来。
"We don't know," another man admitted.
“我们也不知道，”一人说。
Mr. Yang, like the others, came to Beijing last March. He and his three friends learned from a cousin about a job working on a new government building. No firm promises were made on pay. Some men were told they could earn $500 or more for the year, nearly double the average income in the countryside. Others were told that workers from different provinces would be paid different wages.
和其他人一样，杨和清也是三月来的北京。他和三个朋友现在在北京的一个建筑工地干活，这个活是从他的一个堂兄弟那儿听说的。至于报酬并没有订约，有些人听说一年能挣4000多元，这几乎是农村收入的两倍。另一些人则听说不同省的人给不同的工钱。
No one knows. The crew bosses will pay them when the job is done in January. Until then, the company provides daily rice or noodles, and workers get $12 a month in spending money if they work at least 25 days. Mr. Yang said he had missed many workdays because of illness. He often gets only $6 in monthly spending money as a penalty.
没人知道。包工头要到一月份工程完工了才会发工资。在那之前，公司提供每天的米面，每月上工25天以上工人，一个月发100元用以日常开支。杨和清说，自己因为生病缺了很多天工，所以除去罚款每月常常只能拿到50元钱。
"Sometimes I can feel the pain while I work," he said. "My chest hurts, and I have no energy."
“干活时也不时会感觉到痛，”他说。“我的胸口疼，浑身没力气。”
Mr. Yang first became sick in 2000 after five months working for an oil company in the far western region of Xinjiang. He earned nearly $600, a bounty, but he would spend all of it on medicine and visits to doctors. The diagnosis was pneumonia and inflammation of his prostate. At a city hospital, a doctor recommended $1,200 in treatment, a price he could not pay. Mr. Yang returned home, and his wife feared he might have cancer.
杨和清第一次得病是在2000年，是他在新疆的一个石油公司干了五个月之后。他挣了一大笔钱——5000元，可是后来都用在看病和买药上了。城里医生的诊断是肺炎和前列腺炎，并且建议他花10000元左右进行治疗，这个价格是杨和清无法承受的。于是他放弃治病而回了家，他的妻子阮和平则担心他是得了癌症。
"He lost hope," Ms. Ran said. "He said, 'If I die, I don't care.' I said, 'You can't leave behind your parents and your daughter.' "
“他失去了信心，”阮和平说，“他说‘死了就死了’我说‘你不能就这样抛下爸妈和女儿。’”
Weakened, Mr. Yang stayed home for four years, and his wife left for work, alone, in May 2000. His father said he then became frustrated that his wife, not himself, was supporting the family. His daughter knew something was wrong.
由于身体虚弱，杨在家里呆了四年；2000年五月开始，他的妻子就独自去城里打工。杨的父亲说，因为靠着妻子在外干活养家糊口，杨和清变得日益沮丧。女儿珊珊也察觉到了家中的变化。
"I always saw him buying medicine," Shan said. Her parents "don't know that I know," she added. "I'm afraid his sickness will become worse and worse."
In March, Mr. Yang felt he had to find work. He owed relatives nearly $300 for medical bills, and he could not make money at home. Sitting in his bunk in early December, he recalled the rush of excitement he felt arriving in Beijing to play some small role in building the country's booming capital.
His friend, Yang Xianglin, leaned over from the other bunk. He is a first-time migrant worker. Like many villagers, he thought working in Beijing would be exciting, even liberating. Now he wants to finish his job, get paid and never come back.
"It's not what we imagined," he said. "Migrant work is too hard. Even if the bosses are crooked, we have to obey them. I can't stand this. This isn't freedom."
Yang Heqing agreed, more from exhaustion than outrage. He had missed so much work that he finally borrowed money from his crew boss and visited a city hospital on Dec. 10. A doctor examined his prostate and suggested tests. The cost was $250; the boss had lent him $12.
Mr. Yang walked from the hospital to a nearby pharmacy and bought over-the-counter anti-inflammation pills. He said he was tempted to quit, take whatever pay the boss will give him and see the doctor again. But he also knows that he might not even get paid enough to return home.
Asked about his plans for his health and his family, he could only imagine as far as January, when his job will be done.
"My hope is for a few thousand yuan at the end of the year," he said. That is a few hundred dollars.
A Factory Mother
一个工人母亲
The outdoor market in Baoding is a patch of dirt where farmers have laid out mushrooms, tofu, cabbage and carrots. Cuts of meat are arranged on a flatbed, but Ran Heping cannot afford those. She and three relatives have just finished a 12-hour night shift at their factory and are making a weekly grocery run.
A handsome vendor haggles with Ms. Ran over the price of a head of cabbage. He is flirting and offers her a ride home. She laughs and walks away. She later says distance has destroyed the marriages of several workers at the factory.
Her factory in Baoding, about 90 minutes south of Beijing by train, makes metal balls for lawn games, to be exported to Europe and America, and smaller balls that Chinese manipulate with their hands as a form of traditional therapy.
It is dirty, difficult work, but the factory is a popular destination for migrants from Shuanghu because of word-of-mouth referrals. More than half the 70 employees are from around the village. The job is piecework, so workers get paid for each ball. During peak months, a worker casting metal or polishing can make more than $100. Usually, though, workers make less than $50.
Ms. Ran came here in 2000 when she left the village to support the family. Leaving her daughter worried Ms. Ran, but Shan was starting school and tuition was due. Ms. Ran also knew that her husband's illness gave her little choice.
"I knew we couldn't survive like this," she said. "I told Shan, 'I will go to work, and you be a good girl at home' "
She returned home nearly two years later. She brought almost $1,000, which went for medical bills, clothes, food, school fees, fertilizer and other farming costs. "When the money was gone, we needed more," she said. "I decided to go out again."
This time it was a shorter trip, from July 2002 until February 2003. She brought home only $210 after the factory deducted $72 for leaving without working a full year. She was furious and filed a complaint with the local labor bureau. Nothing happened.
The Yangs were together in the village for a year. But medical and school bills forced them apart again. When Mr. Yang left for Beijing last March, his wife left for a plastics factory. She later quit and tried to join her husband in Beijing.
"We are a family," her husband told her. "When we can, we should be together."
They were together for less than 10 days. Ms. Ran worked at a pastry factory but quit because the pay was so bad. She also said the cost of renting a room and living together in expensive Beijing would have erased the couple's savings.
She returned to Baoding and the metal ball factory in September. She is an inspector, an easier job that pays up to $40 a month. She is not lonely because several cousins work at the factory. They talk about their children or visit a local park together. There are days when she says being away in a big city can be exciting.
"There are no department stores where we are from," she said.
In November, she bought a bottle of shampoo for her long black hair. It was first time in her life she had ever bought shampoo. It cost $1.50.
These lighter moments are leavened by the dark. On the telephone, she pleads with her husband to see a doctor. "I said, 'When you get paid, spend all your wages to get better.' I said I would send my money home to take care of the family."
"But he doesn't really want treatment because it will cost so much," she said.
The grandparents called in December to ask for another $25 for Shan's tuition next year. Mrs. Ran wants to visit her daughter in February at New Year's. But her bosses insist she must work until July or again lose pay. She is angry but has decided she must stay. Her daughter does not know yet.
"I just hope that Heqing will recover and we can work together to put Yang Shan at least through high school," Ms. Ran said, when asked what she wanted for her future. "If his health doesn't improve, I'm worried we'll only be able to send her to middle school."
"It's a hard life," she added, "but we have no other choice."
An Unknown Future
一个未知的将来
Shan's grandparents say she almost never cries. She is happy playing with her friends and her cousins. Her parents both called on her birthday in July. She said it had made her happy.
珊珊的爷爷奶奶说，她很少会哭。她和自己的堂兄妹们玩的很开心。在珊珊七月生日时，爸妈都有打电话回来，珊珊说她特别高兴。
In early December, she sat outside and practiced writing. The letters she had sent her parents months earlier never reached them; she did not have a reliable addresses.
十二月初的一天，她坐在门外练习写字。她几个月前给爸爸妈妈写的信，他们没有能收到；因为她并没有一个可靠的地址。
Now, she started writing in a notebook.
现在，她在笔记本上写着：
"I want a ticket, a boat ticket and a bus ticket," she scribbled for a visiting photographer.
Where does she want to go?
"To see my parents," she answered. "I want to see my mom and dad. I think about them all the time."
“我想要一张票，船票或者车票，”她写给探访她的摄像师。
她想去哪儿？
“去看我的爸爸妈妈，”她答道。“我想看看我的爸爸妈妈，我天天都在想他们。”
For the moment, her earlier, darker image of their life had lifted. She wanted to join them. She wanted to be a migrant worker.
"I think their life is very good," the little girl answered.
"Their life is smooth."
此时，珊珊心中父母原本在外受苦的的场景不见了，而代之以好的多的生活。她想去加入他们，她也想去做一个农民工。
“我猜他们在城里过的可好了，”小女孩说道。“他们过的可舒服了。”
【原载纽约时报/52EN.Com编译◎译文仅供参考】
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