How Chinese Students Experience America | The New Yorker

COVID, guns, anti-Asian violence, and diplomatic relations have complicated the ambitions of the some three hundred thousand college students who come to the U.S. each year.
冠状病毒枪支、反亚裔暴力和外交关系使每年约三十万名来到美国的大学生的野心变得复杂化。

In my composition class at Sichuan University, in the southwestern Chinese city of Chengdu, the first assignment was a personal essay. I gave some prompts in case students had trouble coming up with topics. One suggestion was to describe an incident in which the writer had felt excluded from a group. Another was to tell how he or she had responded when some endeavor went unexpectedly wrong. For the third prompt, I wrote:
在中国西南城市成都的四川大学,我的作文课上,第一份作业是一篇个人论文。 我给出了一些提示,以防学生在想出话题时遇到困难。 一个建议是描述一个作者感到被排除在群体之外的事件。 另一个是告诉他或她当某些努力出乎意料地出错时如何反应。 对于第三个提示,我写道:

Have you ever been involved in a situation that was extremely threatening, or dangerous, or somehow dramatic? Tell the story, along with what you learned.
您是否曾经遇到过极具威胁、危险或戏剧性的情况? 讲述故事以及您学到的知识。

It was September, 2019, and the class consisted of engineering majors who were in their first month at university. Like virtually all Chinese undergraduates, they had been admitted solely on the basis of scores on the gaokao, the national college-entrance examination. The gaokao is notorious for pressure, and most of my students chose to write about some aspect of their high-school experience. One girl described a cruel math instructor: “He is the person whose office you enter happily and exit with pain and inferiority.” Edith, a student from northern Sichuan Province, wrote about feeling excluded from her graduation banquet, because her father and his male work colleagues hijacked the event by giving long-winded speeches that praised one another. “That’s what I hate, being hypocritical as some adults,” she wrote.
那是 2019 年 9 月,班级里都是大学第一个月的工程专业学生。 与几乎所有中国本科生一样,他们的录取仅基于考试成绩 高考,全国高考。 这 高考 压力是出了名的,我的大多数学生选择写下他们高中经历的某些方面。 一个女孩描述了一位残酷的数学老师:“他是那种让你愉快地走进办公室,带着痛苦和自卑离开办公室的人。” 来自四川省北部的学生伊迪丝(Edith)写道,她感到自己被排除在毕业宴会之外,因为她的父亲和他的男同事通过发表长篇大论互相赞扬来劫持了这次活动。 “这就是我所讨厌的,像一些成年人那样虚伪,”她写道。

Few students chose the third prompt. Some remarked that nothing dangerous or dramatic had ever happened, because they had spent so much of their short lives studying. But one boy, whom I’ll call Vincent, submitted an essay titled “A Day Trip to the Police Station.”
很少有学生选择第三个提示。 有些人说,没有发生任何危险或戏剧性的事情,因为他们在短暂的一生中花了很多时间在学习上。 但是一个男孩,我称之为文森特,提交了一篇题为“警察局一日游”的文章。

The story began with a policeman calling Vincent’s mother. The officer said that the police needed to see her son, but he wouldn’t explain why. After the call, Vincent tried to figure out if he had committed some crime. He was the only student who wrote his essay in the third person, as if this distance made it easier to describe his mind-set:
故事开始于一名警察打电话给文森特的母亲。 该警官说警方需要见见她的儿子,但他没有解释原因。 接到电话后,文森特试图弄清楚自己是否犯了罪。 他是唯一一个用第三人称写论文的学生,仿佛这种距离更容易描述他的心态:

He was tracing the memory from birth to now, including but not limited to [the time] he broke a kid’s head in kindergarten, he used V.P.N. to browse YouTube to see some videos, and talked with his friends abroad in Facebook and so on. Suddenly he thought of the most possible thing that happened two years ago.
他在追溯从出生到现在的记忆,包括但不限于他在幼儿园打破了一个孩子的头,他用VPN浏览YouTube看一些视频,以及在Facebook上和国外的朋友聊天等等。 突然他想到了两年前发生的最有可能的事情。

In the summer vacation in 2017, he bought an airsoft gun in the Internet, which is illegal in mainland China but legal in most countries or regions. Although it had been two years since then, he left his private information such as the address and his phone number. In modern society, it is possible to trace every information in the Internet and [especially] easy for police.
2017年暑假,他在网上购买了一把气枪,这在中国大陆是非法的,但在大多数国家或地区是合法的。 虽然已经过去两年了,但他还是留下了地址、电话号码等私人信息。 在现代社会,追踪互联网上的每一条信息都是可能的,而且对警察来说尤其容易。

Vincent’s parents both worked tizhinei, within the government system. The boy approached his father for advice, and the older man didn’t lecture his son about following the rules. Vincent described their exchange:
文森特的父母都工作 提之内,在政府系统内。 男孩向他的父亲寻求建议,而年长的父亲并没有教导他的儿子遵守规则。 文森特描述了他们的交流:

“If you are asked about this matter,” dad said, “you just tell him that the seller mailed a toy gun and you were cheated. And then you felt unhappy and threw it away.”
“如果有人问你这件事,”爸爸说,“你就告诉他,卖家邮寄了一把玩具枪,你被骗了。 然后你觉得不高兴就把它扔掉了。”

Sure enough, two policemen came to his home the next day.
果然,第二天就有两名警察来到他家。

Vincent stood about six feet tall, a handsome boy with close-cropped hair. He always sat in the front of the class, and he enjoyed speaking up, unlike many of the other engineers, who tended to be shy. On the first day of the term, I asked students to list their favorite authors, and Vincent chose Wang Xiaobo, a Beijing novelist who wrote irreverent, sexually explicit fiction.
文森特身高约六英尺,是一个留着短发的英俊男孩。 他总是坐在班级的前面,并且喜欢发言,这与其他许多害羞的工程师不同。 开学第一天,我让学生们列出他们最喜欢的作家,文森特选择了王小波,一位北京小说家,写着不敬的、露骨的色情小说。

As with many of his classmates, Vincent hoped to complete his undergraduate degree in the United States. I was teaching at the Sichuan University–Pittsburgh Institute, or SCUPI. All SCUPI classes were in English, and after two or three years at Sichuan University students could transfer to the University of Pittsburgh or another foreign institution. SCUPI was one of many programs and exchanges designed to direct more Chinese students to the U.S. In the 2019-20 academic year, Chinese enrollment at American institutions reached an all-time high of 372,532.
和他的许多同学一样,文森特希望在美国完成本科学位。 我当时在四川大学匹兹堡学院任教,或者 斯库皮。 全部 斯库皮 课程以英语授课,在四川大学学习两三年后,学生可以转学到匹兹堡大学或其他外国机构。 斯库皮 是旨在引导更多中国学生前往美国的众多项目和交流项目之一。2019-20学年,美国院校的中国学生入学人数达到历史最高水平372,532人。

Nobody in Vincent’s section had previously studied in the U.S. Almost all of them were middle class, and they often said that their goal was to complete their bachelor’s degree in America, stay on for a master’s or a Ph.D., and then come back to work in China. A generation earlier, the vast majority of Chinese students at American universities had stayed in the country, but the pattern changed dramatically with China’s new prosperity. In 2022, the Chinese Ministry of Education reported that, in the past decade, more than eighty per cent of Chinese students returned after completing their studies abroad.
Vincent所在的部门没有人曾在美国留学过,几乎都是中产阶级,他们常说自己的目标是在美国完成学士学位,继续读硕士或博士,然后再回来来中国工作。 上一代人,绝大多数在美国大学就读的中国学生都留在了中国,但随着中国新的繁荣,这种格局发生了巨大变化。 2022年,中国教育部报告称,过去十年,超过80%的中国学生完成学业后回国。

Vincent also intended to make a career in China, but he had specific plans for his time in the U.S. Once, during a class discussion, he remarked that someday he would purchase both a car and a real firearm. The illegal airsoft pistol that he had acquired in high school shot only plastic pellets. In 2017, when Vincent ordered the gun, it had been delivered to his home at the bottom of a rice cooker, as camouflage. At the time, such subterfuges were still possible, but the government had since cracked down, as part of a general tightening under Xi Jinping.
文森特也打算在中国发展事业,但他对在美国的时光有具体的计划。有一次,在课堂讨论中,他说有一天他会购买一辆车和一把真正的枪。 他在高中时获得的非法气枪手枪只能发射塑料弹丸。 2017年,当文森特订购这把枪时,它已经被送到他家的电饭锅底部,作为伪装。 当时,这种诡计仍然有可能发生,但作为习近平领导下全面紧缩政策的一部分,政府随后进行了打击。

In Vincent’s essay, he was surprised that the two policemen who arrived at his home didn’t mention the forbidden gun. Instead, they accused him of a much more shocking crime: spreading terrorist messages.
在文森特的文章中,令他感到惊讶的是,到达他家的两名警察没有提到禁枪。 相反,他们指控他犯有更令人震惊的罪行:传播恐怖信息。

“That’s ridiculous,” Vincent said. “I have never browsed such videos, not to mention posted them in the Internet. You must be joking.”
“这太荒谬了,”文森特说。 “我从来没有浏览过这样的视频,更不用说将它们发布到互联网上。 你一定是在开玩笑。”

“Maybe you didn’t post it by yourself,” the policeman said. “But the app may back up the video automatically.”
“也许不是你自己发的。”警察说。 “但应用程序可能会自动备份视频。”

Vincent admitted that once, in a WeChat group, he had come across a terrorist video. The police instructed him to get his I.D. card and accompany them to the station. After they arrived, they entered a room labelled “Cybersecurity Police,” where Vincent was impressed by the officers’ politeness. (“It’s not scary at all, no handcuffs and no cage.”) The police informed him that they had found a host of sensitive and banned material on his cloud storage:
文森特承认,有一次,他在微信群里看到了一段恐怖视频。 民警指示他领取身份证并陪同他们前往派出所。 到达后,他们进入了一个标有“网络安全警察”的房间,文森特对警察的礼貌印象深刻。 (“一点也不可怕,没有手铐,没有笼子。”)警方告诉他,他们在他的云存储中发现了大量敏感和违禁材料:

“But how interesting it is!” the policeman said. “They sent pornographic videos, traffic accident videos, [breaking news] videos, and funny videos.”
“但这多么有趣啊!” 警察说道。 “他们发送色情视频、交通事故视频、【突发新闻】视频、搞笑视频。”

“Yes,” he said helplessly, “so I am innocent.”
“是的,”他无奈地说,“所以我是无辜的。”

“Yes, we believe you,” the policeman said. “But you have to [sign] the record because it is the fact that you posted the terrorism video in the Internet, which is illegal.”
“是的,我们相信你,”警察说。 “但你必须[签署]记录,因为事实是你在互联网上发布了恐怖主义视频,这是非法的。”

On one level, the essay was terrifying—Chinese can be imprisoned for such crimes. But the calm tone created a strange sense of normalcy. The basic narrative was universal: a teen-ager makes a mistake, finds himself gently corrected, and gains new maturity. Along the way, he connects with the elders who love him. Part of this connection comes from what they share: the parents, rather than representing authority, are also powerless in the face of the larger system. The essay ended with the father giving advice that could be viewed as cynical, or heartwarming, or defeatist, or wise, or all these things at once:
从某种程度上来说,这篇文章令人恐惧——中国人可能会因为此类罪行而被监禁。 但平静的语气却给人一种奇怪的常态感。 基本的叙述是普遍的:一个青少年犯了一个错误,发现自己被温和地纠正,并获得了新的成熟。 一路上,他结识了爱他的长辈。 这种联系部分来自于他们的共同点:父母不仅不代表权威,而且在更大的体系面前也无能为力。 这篇文章以父亲给出的建议结尾,这些建议可以被视为愤世嫉俗的、温暖人心的、失败主义的、明智的,或者同时具有所有这些东西:

“That’s why I always like to browse news [but] never comment on the Internet,” father said. “Because the Internet police really exist. And we have no private information, we can be easily investigated however you try to disguise yourself. So take care whatever you send on the Internet, my boy!”
“这就是为什么我总是喜欢浏览新闻,但从不在互联网上发表评论,”父亲说。 “因为网络警察是真实存在的。 而且我们没有私人信息,无论你如何伪装自己,我们都很容易被调查。 所以,无论你在互联网上发送什么内容,都要小心,我的孩子!”

From this matter, Vincent really gained some experience. First, take care about your account in the Internet, and focus on some basic setting like automatic backup. Besides, don’t send some words, videos, or photos freely. In China, there is Internet police focus on WeChat, QQ, Weibo, and other software. As it is said in 1984, “Big Brother is watching you.”
从这件事上,文森特确实得到了一些经验。 首先,照顾好您在互联网上的帐户,并关注一些基本设置,例如自动备份。 另外,不要随意发送一些文字、视频或照片。 在中国,网络警察主要针对微信、QQ、微博等软件。 正如其中所说 1984, “大哥正望着你。”

More than twenty years earlier, I had taught English at a small teachers’ college in a city called Fuling, less than three hundred miles east of Chengdu. The Fuling college was relatively low in the hierarchy of Chinese universities, but even such a place was highly selective. In 1996, the year that I started, only one out of twelve college-age Chinese was able to enter a tertiary educational institution. Almost all my students had grown up on farms, like the vast majority of citizens at that time.
二十多年前,我在成都以东不到三百英里的涪陵市的一所小型师范学院教英语。 涪陵学院在中国大学的等级中相对较低,但即使是这样的地方,选择性也很高。 1996年,也就是我开始工作的那一年,只有十二分之一的中国大学生能够进入高等教育机构。 我的学生几乎都是在农场长大的,就像当时的绝大多数公民一样。

In two years, I taught more than two hundred people, not one of whom went on to live abroad or attend a foreign graduate school. Most of them accepted government-assigned jobs in public middle schools or high schools, where they taught English, as part of China’s effort to improve education and engage with the outside world. Meanwhile, the government was expanding universities with remarkable speed. In less than ten years, the Fuling college grew from two thousand undergraduates to more than twenty thousand, a rate of increase that wasn’t unusual for Chinese institutions at that time. By 2019, the year that I returned, China’s enrollment rate of college-age citizens had risen, in the span of a single generation, from eight per cent to 51.6 per cent.
两年内,我教了两百多人,没有一个人继续生活在国外或进入外国研究生院。 他们中的大多数人接受了政府分配的公立初中或高中的工作,在那里教授英语,这是中国改善教育和与外界接触的努力的一部分。 与此同时,政府正在以惊人的速度扩建大学。 不到十年的时间,涪陵学院的本科生从两千人发展到两万多人,这样的增长速度对于当时的中国院校来说并不罕见。 到2019年,也就是我回国的那一年,中国的大学适龄公民入学率在一代人的时间里从8%上升到51.6%。

When I had first arrived, in the nineties, I believed that improved education was bound to result in a more open society and political system. But in Fuling I began to understand that college in China might work differently than it did in the West. Students were indoctrinated by mandatory political classes, and Communist Party officials strictly controlled teaching materials. They were also skilled at identifying talent. In “River Town,” a book that I wrote about teaching in Fuling, I described my realization that the kind of young people I once imagined would become dissidents were in fact the most likely to be co-opted by the system: “The ones who were charismatic, intelligent, farsighted, and brave—those were the ones who had been recruited long ago as Party Members.”
当我九十年代初来乍到时,我相信教育的改善必然会带来更加开放的社会和政治体系。 但在涪陵,我开始了解到中国的大学运作方式可能与西方不同。 学生们接受强制性政治课的洗脑,共产党官员严格控制教材。 他们还善于识别人才。 在我写的一本关于涪陵教书的书《河镇》中,我描述了我的认识:我曾经想象的那些会成为异见人士的年轻人实际上最有可能被体制收编:那些有魅力、聪明、有远见、勇敢的人——这些人是早就被吸收为党员的人了。”

This strategy long predated the Communists. China’s imperial examination system, the ancestor of the gaokao, was instituted in the seventh century and lasted for about thirteen hundred years. Through these centuries, education was closely aligned with political authority, because virtually all schooling was intended to prepare men for government service. That emphasis stood in sharp contrast with the West, where higher learning in pre-modern times often came out of religious institutions. Elizabeth J. Perry, a historian at Harvard, has described the ancient Chinese system as being effective at producing “educated acquiescence.” Perry used this phrase as the title for a 2019 paper that explores how today’s Party has built on the ancient tradition. “One might have expected,” she writes, “that opening China’s ivory tower to an infusion of scholars and dollars from around the world would work to liberalize the intellectual climate on Chinese campuses. Yet Chinese universities remain oases of political compliance.”
这一战略早在共产党出现之前就已存在。 中国科举制度的鼻祖 高考,始建于七世纪,历时约一千三百年。 几个世纪以来,教育与政治权威密切相关,因为几乎所有的学校教育都是为了让人们为政府服务做好准备。 这种强调与西方形成鲜明对比,在西方,前现代时期的高等教育往往来自宗教机构。 哈佛大学历史学家伊丽莎白·J·佩里 (Elizabeth J. Perry) 将中国古代制度描述为能够有效地产生“有教养的默许”。 佩里在 2019 年发表的一篇论文中使用了这句话的标题,该论文探讨了今天的共产党如何在古老的传统基础上发展。 她写道:“人们可能会期望,向世界各地的学者和资金开放中国的象牙塔,将有助于开放中国校园的知识氛围。 然而,中国的大学仍然是政治合规的绿洲。”

At Sichuan University, which is among the country’s top forty or so institutions, I recognized some tools of indoctrination that I remembered from the nineties. Political courses now included the ideas of Xi Jinping along with Marxism, and an elaborate system of Party-controlled fudaoyuan, or counsellors, advised and monitored students. But today’s undergraduates were much more skilled at getting their own information, and it seemed that most young people in my classes used V.P.N.s. They also impressed me as less inclined to join the Party. In 2017, a nationwide survey of university students showed decreased interest in Party membership. I noticed that many of my most talented and charismatic students, like Vincent, had no interest in joining.
在四川大学,这所全国排名前四十的大学中,我认识到一些九十年代记忆中的灌输工具。 政治课程现在包括习近平的思想和马克思主义,以及复杂的党控制体系 福道园或辅导员,为学生提供建议和监督。 但现在的本科生在获取自己的信息方面更加熟练,而且我班上的大多数年轻人似乎都使用VPN。他们也给我留下了深刻的印象,他们不太愿意入党。 2017年,一项全国大学生调查显示,入党兴趣下降。 我注意到我的许多最有才华和魅力的学生,比如文森特,没有兴趣加入。

But they weren’t necessarily progressive. In class, students debated the death penalty after reading George Orwell’s essay “A Hanging,” and Vincent was among the majority, which supported capital punishment. He described it as a human right—in his opinion, if a murderer is not properly punished, other citizens lose their right to a safe society. Another day, when I asked if political leaders should be directly elected, Vincent and most of his classmates said no. Once, I asked two questions: Does the Chinese education system do a good job of preparing people for life? Should the education system be significantly changed? Vincent and several others had the same answer to both: no.
但它们并不一定是进步的。 课堂上,学生们在阅读了乔治·奥威尔的文章《绞刑》后就死刑展开了辩论,文森特是支持死刑的多数人之一。 他将其描述为一项人权——在他看来,如果凶手没有受到适当的惩罚,其他公民就会失去享有安全社会的权利。 有一天,当我问政治领导人是否应该直接选举时,文森特和他的大多数同学都说不。 有一次,我问了两个问题:中国的教育体系在为人们的生活做好准备方面做得好吗? 教育体系是否应该进行重大改变? 文森特和其他几个人对这两个问题都有相同的答案:不。

The students rarely exhibited the kind of idealism that a Westerner associates with youth. They seemed to accept that the world is a flawed place, and they were prepared to make compromises. Even when Vincent wrote about his encounter with the Internet police, he never criticized the monitoring; instead, his point was that a Chinese citizen needs to be careful. In another essay, Vincent described learning to control himself after a rebellious phase in middle school and high school. “Now, I seem to know more about the world,” he wrote. “It’s too impractical to change a lot of things like the education system, the government policies.”
学生们很少表现出西方人所认为的年轻人的理想主义。 他们似乎承认世界是一个有缺陷的地方,并且准备做出妥协。 即使文森特在写下自己与网警的遭遇时,也从未批评过监控; 相反,他的观点是中国公民需要小心。 在另一篇文章中,文森特描述了在初中和高中的叛逆期后学会控制自己的经历。 “现在,我似乎对这个世界了解更多了,”他写道。 “改变教育体系、政府政策等很多事情太不切实际了。”

Vincent took another class with me the following fall, in 2020. That year, China had a series of vastly different responses to COVID. Early on, Party officials in Wuhan covered up reports of the virus, which spread unchecked in the city, killing thousands. By February, the national leadership had started to implement policies—strict quarantines, extensive testing, and abundant contact tracing—that proved highly effective in the pre-vaccination era. There wasn’t a single reported case at Sichuan University that year, and we conducted our fall classes without masks or social distancing. Our final session was on December 31st, and I asked students to write about how they characterized 2020. Vincent, like more than seventy per cent of his peers, wrote that it had been a good year. He described how his thinking had evolved after observing the initial mistakes in Wuhan:
第二年秋天,即 2020 年,文森特和我一起上了另一门课。那一年,中国对 冠状病毒。 早些时候,武汉的党官员掩盖了该病毒的报道,该病毒在该市不受控制地传播,导致数千人死亡。 到二月份,国家领导层开始实施严格隔离、广泛检测和大量接触者追踪等政策,事实证明这些政策在疫苗接种前时代非常有效。 那年四川大学没有报告一例病例,我们在没有戴口罩或保持社交距离的情况下进行秋季课程。 我们的最后一次会议是在 12 月 31 日,我要求学生写下他们如何描述 2020 年。文森特和超过 70% 的同龄人一样,写道这是美好的一年。 他描述了在观察到武汉最初的错误后他的想法是如何演变的:

Most people held negative attitudes to the government’s reaction, including me. Meanwhile, our freedom of expression was not protected and the supervision department did a lot to delete negative news, critical comments, and so on. I felt so sad about the Party and the country at that time.
大多数人对政府的反应持消极态度,包括我。 同时,我们的言论自由没有得到保障,监管部门也做了很多删除负面新闻、批评言论等的工作。 当时我对党、对国家感到非常难过。

But after things got better and seeing other countries’ worse behaviors, I feel so fortunate now and change my idea [about] China and the Party. Although I know there are still too many existing problems in China, I am convinced that the socialist system is more advanced especially in emergency cases.
但当情况好转并看到其他国家更糟糕的行为后,我现在感到很幸运,改变了我对中国和党的看法。 虽然我知道中国还存在太多问题,但我坚信社会主义制度是更加先进的,特别是在紧急情况下。

In 2021, after suspending visa services for Chinese students during the pandemic, the U.S. resumed them. Throughout the spring, I fielded anxious questions from undergraduates who were thinking about going to America. One engineer itemized his concerns in an e-mail:
2021年,美国在疫情期间暂停对中国学生的签证服务后,又恢复了签证服务。 整个春天,我一直在回答那些考虑去美国的本科生提出的焦虑问题。 一位工程师在一封电子邮件中详细列出了他的担忧:

1. How to feel or deal with the discrimination when the two countries’ relationship [is] very nervous?
1. 当两国关系非常紧张时,如何感受或应对歧视?

2. What are the root causes [in] America to cause today’s situation (drugs; distrust of the government, unemployment, and the most important, racial problem)?
2. 美国造成今天局面的根本原因是什么(毒品、对政府的不信任、失业以及最重要的种族问题)?

They generally worried most about COVID, although guns, anti-Asian violence, and U.S.-China tensions were all prominent issues. One student who eventually went to America told me that in his home town, in northeastern China, ideas about the U.S. had changed dramatically since his childhood. “When people in the community went to America, the family was proud of them,” he said. “But this time, before I went, some family members came and they said, ‘You are going to the U.S.—it’s so dangerous!’ ”
他们普遍最担心的是 冠状病毒,尽管枪支、反亚裔暴力以及美中紧张局势都是突出问题。 一位最终去了美国的学生告诉我,在他的家乡中国东北,自童年以来,对美国的看法发生了巨大的变化。 “当社区里的人去美国时,家人为他们感到自豪,”他说。 “但这一次,在我去之前,一些家人来了,他们说,‘你要去美国——太危险了!’ ”

Vincent’s mother was on a WeChat group for SCUPI parents, and that spring somebody posted an advisory from the Chinese Embassy in Washington, D.C.:
文森特的妈妈在微信群里呆了 斯库皮 父母们,那年春天,有人发布了中国驻华盛顿大使馆的警告:

Since the COVID pandemic, there have been successive incidents of discrimination and violent crimes against Asians in some cities in the United States. . . . On March 16, three shooting incidents occurred in Atlanta and surrounding areas, killing 8 people, of whom 6 were Asian women, including 1 Chinese and 1 Chinese citizen. . . . When encountering such a situation, you must remain calm, deal with it properly, try to avoid quarrels and physical conflicts, and ensure your own safety.
新冠疫情以来,美国部分城市接连发生针对亚裔的歧视和暴力犯罪事件。 。 。 。 3月16日,亚特兰大及周边地区发生3起枪击事件,造成8人死亡,其中6人为亚裔女性,其中1人为华人,1人为中国公民。 。 。 。 遇到此类情况,一定要保持冷静,妥善处理,尽量避免争吵、肢体冲突,确保自身安全。

That month, Vincent told me that he planned to buy a .38 revolver after arriving in Pittsburgh. He had already researched how to acquire a hunting license and a firearm-safety certificate. In July, a month before he was scheduled to leave, I had dinner with his mother. She said that she worried about gun violence and racial prejudice. “Lots of people say that now in America you can’t rise to the highest level if you are Chinese,” she said.
那个月,文森特告诉我,他计划到达匹兹堡后购买一把 .38 左轮手枪。 他已经研究过如何获得狩猎许可证和枪支安全证书。 七月,也就是他计划离开的前一个月,我和他的母亲共进晚餐。 她说她担心枪支暴力和种族偏见。 “很多人说,现在在美国,如果你是中国人,就无法达到最高水平,”她说。

Vincent’s mother was born in 1974, the same year as many of the people I had taught in Fuling. Like them, she had benefitted from a stable government job during the era of China’s economic boom. She and her husband weren’t rich, but they were prepared to direct virtually all their resources toward Vincent’s education, a common pattern. Edith, the girl who wrote about her graduation banquet, told me that her parents were selling their downtown apartment and moving to the suburbs in order to pay her tuition at Pittsburgh—more than forty thousand dollars a year. Like Vincent, and like nearly ninety per cent of the people I taught, Edith was an only child. Her mother had majored in English in the nineties, when it was still hard to go overseas. After reading “Gone with the Wind” in college, she had dreamed of going abroad, and now she wanted her daughter to have the opportunity.
Vincent 的母亲出生于 1974 年,与我在涪陵教过的许多人同年。 和他们一样,在中国经济繁荣时期,她也从稳定的政府工作中受益。 她和她的丈夫并不富有,但他们准备将几乎所有资源用于文森特的教育,这是一种常见的模式。 写毕业宴会的女孩伊迪丝告诉我,她的父母正在卖掉市中心的公寓,搬到郊区,以支付她在匹兹堡的学费——每年超过四万美元。 和文森特以及我教过的近百分之九十的人一样,伊迪丝也是独生女。 她的母亲在九十年代主修英语,当时出国还很困难。 大学时期读完《乱世佳人》后,她就梦想出国,现在她希望女儿也能有机会。

At dinner with Vincent’s mother, I asked how his generation was different from hers.
在与文森特的母亲共进晚餐时,我问他这一代人与她这一代有何不同。

“They have more thoughts of their own,” she said. “They’re more creative. But they don’t have our experience of chiku, eating bitterness.”
“他们有更多自己的想法,”她说。 “他们更有创造力。 但他们没有我们的经验 竹,吃苦。”

Even so, she described Vincent as hardworking and unafraid of challenges. I saw these qualities in many students, which in some ways seemed counterintuitive. As only children from comfortable backgrounds who had spent high school in a bubble of gaokao preparation, they could have come across as sheltered or spoiled. But the exam is so difficult, and a modern Chinese childhood is so pressured, that even prosperous young people have experienced their own form of chiku.
即便如此,她形容文森特工作勤奋,不惧挑战。 我在许多学生身上看到了这些品质,这在某些方面似乎违反直觉。 作为来自舒适家庭的独生子,他们在泡沫的泡沫中度过了高中。 高考 做好准备,他们可能会被认为是受到庇护或被宠坏的。 但考试如此困难,现代中国人的童年压力如此之大,以至于即使是富裕的年轻人也经历了自己的形式 竹.

They often seemed eager for a change of environment. In my classes, I required off-campus reporting projects, which aren’t common at Chinese universities. Some students clearly relished the opportunity to visit places that otherwise may have seemed illicit or inappropriate: Christian churches, gay bars, tattoo parlors. Occasionally, they travelled far afield. One boy in Vincent’s year who called himself Bruce, after Bruce Lee, rode a motorcycle several hundred miles into the Hengduan Mountains, at the edge of the Tibetan Plateau, to research a road that had been constructed as part of China’s supply chain during the Second World War.
他们似乎常常渴望改变环境。 在我的课堂上,我要求进行校外报告项目,这在中国大学并不常见。 一些学生显然很高兴有机会参观那些原本可能被视为非法或不适当的地方:基督教教堂、同性恋酒吧、纹身店。 有时,他们也会去很远的地方旅行。 与文森特同龄的一个自称李小龙的男孩,骑着摩托车数百英里进入青藏高原边缘的横断山脉,研究一条在第二次世界大战期间作为中国供应链一部分而修建的道路。世界大战。

Vincent liked interacting with people from different backgrounds, and he researched a massage parlor, a seedy pool hall, and an outdoor marriage market in Chengdu’s People’s Park. At the marriage market, singles tried to find partners, often with the help of parents and various middlemen. In Vincent’s opinion, Chinese parents were too controlling, and young people had spent so much time studying that they had no dating experience. He wrote:
文森特喜欢与不同背景的人交往,他研究了成都人民公园的一家按摩院、一间破旧的台球厅和一个露天婚庆市场。 在婚姻市场上,单身人士通常在父母和各种中间人的帮助下试图寻找伴侣。 在文森特看来,中国父母控制欲太强,年轻人花了太多时间学习,没有约会经验。 他写了:

Because of one-child policy and traditional ideology, many parents consider their children as their treasure which belongs to the parents instead of the children themselves. . . . I hope the future Chinese children can have genuine liberty.
由于独生子女政策和传统意识形态的影响,许多父母将孩子视为自己的宝贝,属于父母而不是孩子自己。 。 。 。 我希望未来的中国孩子能够拥有真正的自由。

Vincent’s mother told me that she and her husband had made a point of allowing their son to decide for himself whether to go to America. But many parents were nervous, including Bruce’s father, who didn’t want his son to go to the U.S. because of the political tensions with China. In the end, Bruce decided to take a gap year before leaving. The delay was probably fortunate, because while researching the highway in the mountains he drove his motorcycle around a blind curve and was hit by a thirteen-ton dump truck. Bruce and the motorcycle slid beneath the truck; by some miracle, the vehicle came to a halt before killing the boy. I didn’t hear about the accident from the police, or the hospital, or anybody at the university. It was characteristic of these hardworking students that the news arrived in the form of an e-mailed request for an extension:
文森特的母亲告诉我,她和她的丈夫特意让儿子自己决定是否去美国。 但许多父母都很紧张,包括布鲁斯的父亲,由于与中国的政治紧张关系,他不希望儿子去美国。 最后,布鲁斯决定在离开之前先休息一年。 这次延误可能是幸运的,因为在研究山区高速公路时,他驾驶摩托车绕过一个盲道,被一辆十三吨自卸卡车撞倒。 布鲁斯和摩托车滑到卡车下面; 奇迹般的是,汽车在杀死男孩之前停了下来。 我没有从警察、医院或大学里的任何人那里听说这起事故。 这些勤奋的学生的特点是,消息以电子邮件请求延期的形式传来:

Dear Prof. Hessler,亲爱的何伟教授:

I had an accident on my way to the Lexi Highway. I was turning a corner when I was hit by a truck. Now I have a fracture in my left hand and a piece of flesh has been grinded off my left hand. Then the ligaments and nerves were damaged, and the whole left hand was immobile. My left foot was also injured. It was badly bruised. The whole foot was swollen and couldn’t move. I’m in hospital now. I’ll have to stay in the hospital for a while before I can come back. So I may not be able to write the article about the Lexi Highway. I don’t know what to do now. Can I write the article at a later date? Because I can’t do my research right now. And it’s really hard for me to type with one hand.
我在去莱西高速公路的路上发生了事故。 当我被一辆卡车撞到时,我正在转弯。 现在我的左手骨折了,左手被磨掉了一块肉。 然后韧带和神经都受损了,整个左手都不能动了。 我的左脚也受伤了。 它被严重擦伤了。 整个脚都肿了,动不了。 我现在在医院。 我得在医院住一段时间才能回来。 所以我可能写不了关于勒西公路的文章了。 我现在不知道该怎么办。 我可以稍后再写这篇文章吗? 因为我现在无法进行研究。 而且用一只手打字对我来说真的很困难。

Best wishes,最好的祝愿,

Bruce

The first time I saw Vincent in Pittsburgh, in October, 2021, he had lived in America for only eighty-two days, but already he had acquired a used Lexus sedan, a twelve-gauge Winchester shotgun, a Savage Axis XP 6.5 Creedmoor bolt-action rifle, and a Glock 19 handgun. “It’s the Toyota Camry of guns,” he said, explaining that the Glock was simple and reliable.
2021 年 10 月,我第一次在匹兹堡见到文森特,他在美国只住了八十二天,但他已经买了一辆二手雷克萨斯轿车、一把十二号温彻斯特霰弹枪、一支 Savage Axis XP 6.5 Creedmoor 枪机。 - 动作步枪和一把 Glock 19 手枪。 “它是枪支中的丰田凯美瑞,”他说道,并解释说格洛克手枪简单而可靠。

Vincent had studied the gun laws in Pennsylvania, learning that an applicant for a concealed-carry permit must be at least twenty-one, so he applied on his birthday. The permit cost twenty dollars and featured a photograph of Vincent standing in front of an American flag. He had also researched issues of jurisdiction. “I can use it in Ohio,” he said. “But not in California. I don’t like California.” One reason he disliked California was that state law follows the Castle Doctrine, which, in Vincent’s opinion, provides inadequate protection for gun owners. “Pennsylvania has Stand Your Ground,” he said, referring to a law that allows people to defend themselves with deadly force in public spaces. “They made some adjustments to the Castle Doctrine.”
文森特研究过宾夕法尼亚州的枪支法,了解到隐蔽携带许可证的申请人必须年满二十一岁,因此他在生日那天提出了申请。 许可证的价格是二十美元,上面有一张文森特站在美国国旗前的照片。 他还研究了管辖权问题。 “我可以在俄亥俄州使用它,”他说。 “但不是在加利福尼亚。 我不喜欢加利福尼亚。” 他不喜欢加州的原因之一是该州法律遵循城堡主义,在文森特看来,该主义为枪支拥有者提供了不充分的保护。 “宾夕法尼亚州坚守阵地,”他说,指的是一项允许人们在公共场所使用致命武力自卫的法律。 “他们对城堡主义做了一些调整。”

Vincent was thriving in his engineering classes, and he said that some of the math was easier than what he had studied in high school in China. His views about his home country were changing, in part because of the pandemic. Vaccines were now widespread, but the Party hadn’t adjusted its “zero COVID” strategy. “Their policy overreacts,” Vincent told me. “You should not require the government to do too many things and restrict our liberties. We should be responsible for ourselves. We should not require the government to be like our parents.”
文森特在工程课上表现出色,他说有些数学比他在中国高中学的要容易。 他对祖国的看法正在改变,部分原因是疫情。 疫苗已经普及,但党还没有调整“零” 冠状病毒“ 战略。 “他们的政策反应过度,”文森特告诉我。 “你不应该要求政府做太多事情并限制我们的自由。 我们应该对自己负责。 我们不应该要求政府像我们的父母一样。”

A couple of times, he had attended Sunday services at the Pittsburgh Chinese Church Oakland, an evangelical congregation that offered meals and various forms of support for students. In China, Vincent had never gone to church, but now he was exploring different denominations. He had his own way of classifying faiths. “For example, a church with all white Americans,” he said, referring to his options. “One of my classmates joined that. I think he likes it. He goes every week. He can earn so many profits. Even the Chinese church, they can pick you up from the airport, free. They can help you deliver furniture from some store, no charge. They do all kinds of things!”
他有几次参加了奥克兰匹兹堡华人教会的周日礼拜,这是一个福音派教会,为学生提供膳食和各种形式的支持。 在中国,文森特从未去过教堂,但现在他正在探索不同的教派。 他有自己的信仰分类方式。 “例如,一座全是美国白人的教堂,”他在谈到他的选择时说道。 “我的一个同学也加入了。 我想他喜欢它。 他每周都去。 他可以赚取这么多的利润。 即使是华人教会,他们也可以免费去机场接你。 他们可以帮助您免费从某些商店运送家具。 他们做各种各样的事情!”

In 2021, there were more than fifteen hundred Chinese at the University of Pittsburgh, and around three thousand at Carnegie Mellon, whose campus is less than a mile away. I came to associate the city with Sichuanese food, because I almost never ate anything else while meeting former students. Some of them, like Vincent, were trying to branch out into American activities, but for the most part they found it easy to maintain a Chinese life. Many still ordered from Taobao, which in the U.S. is slower than Amazon but has a much better selection of Chinese products. They also used various Chinese delivery apps: Fantuan, HungryPanda, FreshGoGo. The people I taught still relied heavily on V.P.N.s, although now they used them to hop in the other direction across China’s firewall. They needed the Chinese Internet in order to access various streaming apps and pop-music services, as well as to watch N.B.A. games with cheaper subscription fees and Mandarin commentary.
2021年,匹兹堡大学有超过1500名中国人,距离校园不到一英里的卡内基梅隆大学约有3000名中国人。 我开始把这座城市与川菜联系在一起,因为我在见到以前的学生时几乎没有吃过其他东西。 他们中的一些人,比如文森特,试图扩展到美国的活动,但大多数人发现维持中国的生活很容易。 许多人仍然从淘宝订购,淘宝在美国的速度比亚马逊慢,但有更好的中国产品选择。 他们还使用了各种中国配送应用程序:饭团、HungryPanda、FreshGoGo。 我教过的人仍然严重依赖 VPN,尽管现在他们使用 VPN 跨越中国的防火墙跳向另一个方向。 他们需要中国互联网来访问各种流媒体应用程序和流行音乐服务,以及以更便宜的订阅费和普通话解说观看 NBA 比赛。

For students who wanted to play intercollegiate basketball, the Chinese even had their own league. An athletic boy named Ethan, who had been in my composition class at Sichuan University, was now the point guard for the Pittsburgh team. Ethan told me that about forty students had tried out and seventeen had made the cut. I asked if somebody like me could play.
对于想打校际篮球的学生来说,中国甚至有自己的联赛。 一个名叫伊森(Ethan)的运动男孩,曾是我在四川大学作文课上的同学,现在是匹兹堡队的控球后卫。 伊森告诉我,大约有四十名学生参加了尝试,其中十七人成功晋级。 我问像我这样的人可以玩吗?

“No white people,” Ethan said, laughing.
“没有白人,”伊森笑着说。

“What about hunxue’er?” The term means a person of mixed race.
“关于什么 混雪儿?” 该术语指的是混血儿。

“I think that works.”“我认为这有效。”

One weekend in 2022, I watched Pitt play Carnegie Mellon. Or, more accurately, I watched “UPitt,” because that was the name on the jerseys. My father attended Pitt in the late sixties, and I had grown up wearing school paraphernalia, but I had never heard anybody refer to the place as UPitt. The colors were also different. Rather than using Pitt’s royal and gold, the Chinese had made up uniforms in white and navy blue, which, in this corner of Pennsylvania, verged on sacrilege: Penn State colors.
2022 年的一个周末,我观看了皮特与卡内基梅隆大学的比赛。 或者,更准确地说,我观看了“UPitt”,因为那是球衣上的名字。 我的父亲在 60 年代末就读于皮特大学,我是穿着学校用具长大的,但我从未听过有人称这个地方为 UPitt。 颜色也不同。 中国人没有使用皮特的皇家和金色,而是用白色和海军蓝色制作了制服,在宾夕法尼亚州的这个角落,这种颜色近乎亵渎:宾夕法尼亚州立大学的颜色。

The team received no university funding, so it had found its own sponsors. Moello, a Chinese-owned athletic-clothing company in New York, made the uniforms, and Penguin Auto, a local dealership, paid to have its logo on the back, because Chinese students were reliable car buyers.
该团队没有获得大学资助,因此它找到了自己的赞助商。 纽约的一家中资运动服装公司 Moello 制作了校服,当地经销商 Penguin Auto 出钱将其标志印在了背面,因为中国学生是可靠的汽车购买者。

The Northeastern Chinese Basketball League, which is not limited to the Northeast, has more than a hundred teams across the U.S. On the day that I watched, the Pitt team played a fast, guard-dominated game, running plays that had been named for local public bus lines. “Qishiyi B!” the point guard would call out: 71B, a bus that runs to Highland Park. It was the first time I had attended a college basketball game in which the starting forward hit a vape pen in the huddle during time-outs.
中国东北篮球联赛,不只限于东北,全美国有一百多支球队。我观看的那天,皮特队打出了一场速度快、后卫主导的比赛,跑动打法已经被当地命名。公共巴士线路。 “七世一 乙!” 控球后卫会喊:71B,一辆开往高地公园的公共汽车。 这是我第一次参加大学篮球比赛,首发前锋在暂停期间在拥挤的人群中击中了电子烟笔。

The forward was originally from Tianjin, and his girlfriend was the team manager. She told me that she was trying to get him to stop vaping during games. Her name was Ren Yufan, and she was friendly and talkative; she went by the English name Ally. Ally had grown up in Shanghai and Nanjing, but she had attended high school at Christ the King Cathedral, a Catholic school in Lubbock, Texas, where she played tennis. “I was state sixth place in 2A,” she said. She noted that she had also been elected prom queen.
这位前锋是天津人,他的女朋友是球队经理。 她告诉我,她试图让他在比赛期间停止吸电子烟。 她叫任宇凡,性格友善,健谈; 她的英文名字是艾莉。 艾莉在上海和南京长大,但她在德克萨斯州拉伯克的一所天主教学校基督国王大教堂上高中,并在那里打网球。 “我在 2A 比赛中获得州第六名,”她说。 她指出,她还当选为舞会女王。

Ally often answered questions with “Yes, sir” or “No, sir,” and her English had a slight Texas twang. Her parents had sent her to Lubbock through a program that pairs Chinese children with American host families. Ally’s host family owned a farm, where she learned to ride a horse; she enjoyed Lubbock so much that she still returned for school holidays. In the past ten or so years, more Chinese have found ways to enroll their kids in U.S. high schools, in part to avoid gaokao agony. In Pittsburgh, my Sichuan University students described these Chinese as a class apart: typically, they come from wealthy families, and their English is better than that of the Chinese who arrive in college or afterward. Their work patterns are also different. Yingyi Ma, a Chinese-born sociologist at Syracuse University, who has conducted extensive surveys of students from the mainland, has observed that the longer the Chinese stay in the U.S. the less they report working harder than their American peers. Like any good Chinese math problem, this distinctly American form of regression toward the mean can be quantified. In Ma’s book “Ambitious and Anxious,” she reports on her survey results: “Specifically, one additional year of time in the United States can reduce the odds of putting in more effort than American peers by 14 percent.”
艾丽经常用“是的,先生”或“不,先生”来回答问题,她的英语带有轻微的德克萨斯口音。 她的父母通过一个为中国孩子与美国寄宿家庭配对的项目将她送到拉伯克。 艾莉的寄宿家庭拥有一个农场,她在那里学会了骑马。 她非常喜欢拉伯克,以至于学校放假时她仍然会回来。 在过去十年左右的时间里,越来越多的中国人找到了让孩子入读美国高中的方法,部分原因是为了避免 高考 痛苦。 在匹兹堡,我的四川大学学生将这些中国人描述为一个与众不同的阶层:通常,他们来自富裕家庭,他们的英语比进入大学或大学毕业的中国人更好。 他们的工作模式也不同。 锡拉丘兹大学(Syracuse University)出生于中国的社会学家马英一对中国大陆的学生进行了广泛的调查,她发现,中国人在美国停留的时间越长,他们比美国同龄人工作更努力的程度就越低。 就像任何好的中国数学问题一样,这种明显的美国形式的均值回归是可以量化的。 马云在《雄心勃勃且焦虑》一书中报告了她的调查结果:“具体来说,在美国多呆一年可以将比美国同龄人付出更多努力的可能性降低14%。”

Ally’s boyfriend had attended a private high school in Pennsylvania that cost almost seventy thousand dollars a year, and he drove a Mercedes GLC. “We are using our parents’ money, but we can’t be as successful as our parents,” Ally said. Neither her father nor her mother had attended university, but they had thrived in construction and private business during the era of China’s rapid growth. Now the country’s economy was struggling, and Ally accepted the fact that her career opportunities would likely be worse than those of the previous generation. Nevertheless, she planned to return to China, because she wanted to be close to her parents. I asked if anything might make it hard to fit in after spending so many formative years in America.
艾莉的男朋友在宾夕法尼亚州的一所私立高中上学,一年费用近七万美元,他开的是一辆梅赛德斯 GLC。 “我们用的是父母的钱,但我们无法像父母一样成功,”艾莉说。 她的父亲和母亲都没有上过大学,但在中国快速发展的时代,他们在建筑业和私营企业中蓬勃发展。 现在国家经济陷入困境,艾莉接受了这样一个事实:她的职业机会可能会比上一代人差。 尽管如此,她还是计划返回中国,因为她想离父母更近一些。 我问,在美国度过了这么多年的成长岁月后,是否有什么事情会让你难以适应。

“My personality,” she said. “I’m too outgoing.”
“我的个性,”她说。 “我太外向了。”

“There are no prom queens in China, right?”
“中国没有舞会皇后,对吗?”

“No, sir.”“不,先生。”

By my second visit to Pittsburgh, in November, 2022, Vincent had decided to stay permanently in the U.S., been baptized in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and added an AK-47 and two Sig Sauer handguns to his arsenal. He had also downgraded to a less expensive car, because the Lexus had been damaged in a crash. Rather than getting the Glock 19 of automobiles, Vincent decided on the Camry’s cousin, a used Toyota Prius. He picked me up in the Prius, and we headed out for a traditional Steel City meal of lajiao and prickly ash. Vincent wore a Sig Sauer P365 XL with a laser sight in a holster on his right hip. The car radio was playing “Water Tower Town,” a country song by Scotty McCreery:
2022 年 11 月,我第二次访问匹兹堡时,文森特决定永久留在美国,在耶稣基督后期圣徒教会受洗,并在他的武器库中添加了一把 AK-47 和两把西格绍尔手枪。 他还降级到一辆较便宜的汽车,因为雷克萨斯在车祸中受损。 文森特没有购买 Glock 19 汽车,而是选择了凯美瑞的表弟,一辆二手丰田普锐斯。 他开着普锐斯来接我,然后我们出发去吃传统的钢铁城大餐 辣脚 和花椒。 文森特右臀部的皮套中装有一把带有激光瞄准器的 Sig Sauer P365 XL。 汽车收音机正在播放斯科蒂·麦克里里 (Scotty McCreery) 创作的乡村歌曲《水塔镇》(Water Tower Town):

In a water tower town, everybody waves
Church doors are the only thing that’s open on Sundays
Word travels fast, wheels turn slow. . . .
在水塔小镇,每个人都在挥手
教堂的大门是周日唯一开放的
消息传得快,车轮转得慢。 。 。 。

Earlier in the year, some Mormon missionaries had struck up a conversation with Vincent on campus. “Their koucai is really good,” he told me, using a word that means “eloquence.” “It helps me understand how to interact with people. They say things like ‘Those shoes are really nice!’ And they start talking, and then they ask you a question: ‘Are you familiar with the Book of Mormon?’ ” Now Vincent had a Chinese app for the Book of Mormon on his phone, and he attended services every Sunday. He had been baptized on July 23rd, which was also the day that he had quit drinking and smoking cigarettes, a habit he’d had since Sichuan University. He thought that the church might be a good place to meet a girlfriend. He had a notion that someday he’d like to have a big family and live in a place like Texas, whose gun laws appealed to him.
今年早些时候,一些摩门教传教士在校园里与文森特进行了交谈。 “他们的 口才 真的很好,”他告诉我,用的是一个意思是“雄辩”的词。 “它帮助我了解如何与人互动。 他们会说“这双鞋真漂亮!”之类的话。 他们开始说话,然后问你一个问题:“你熟悉摩尔门经吗?” 现在,文森特的手机上有一个摩尔门经的中文应用程序,他每周日都参加礼拜。 7月23日,他受洗了,这一天,他也戒掉了从四川大学开始就养成的喝酒和抽烟的习惯。 他觉得教堂或许是个认识女朋友的好地方。 他有一个想法,有一天他希望拥有一个大家庭,住在德克萨斯州这样的地方,那里的枪支法对他很有吸引力。

Corn grows high, crime stays low
There’s little towns everywhere where everybody knows. . . .
玉米产量高,犯罪率低
到处都有每个人都知道的小镇。 。 。 。

During the winter of Vincent’s first academic year in the U.S., his political transformation had been rapid. “I watched a lot of YouTube videos about things like June 4th,” he told me, referring to the date of the Tiananmen Square massacre, in 1989. He began to question the accommodationist views that he had previously held. “Young people are like this in China,” he said. “They tend to support the system.”
文森特在美国第一学年的冬天,他的政治转变迅速。 “我看了很多关于 6 月 4 日之类的 YouTube 视频,”他告诉我,指的是 1989 年天安门广场大屠杀的日期。他开始质疑自己之前持有的迁就主义观点。 “中国的年轻人就是这样,”他说。 “他们倾向于支持这个体系。”

In the spring of 2022, Vincent became dismayed by the excessive COVID lockdown in Shanghai. He posted a series of critical remarks on social media, and in May he sent me an e-mail:
2022年春天,文森特对过度的生活感到沮丧。 冠状病毒 上海封锁。 他在社交媒体上发表了一系列批评言论,五月份他给我发了一封电子邮件:

In recent months, I make some negative comments on WeChat on the humanitarian crisis caused by the lockdown in Shanghai and some other issues. My parents got nervous and asked me to delete these contents because their colleagues having me in their contact lists in WeChat read my “Pengyou Quan” [friends’ circle] and reminded my parents of potential risks of “Ju Bao” [political reporting] that would affect my parents’ jobs.
近几个月来,我在微信上就上海封城引发的人道主义危机等问题发表了一些负面评论。 我的父母很紧张,要求我删除这些内容,因为他们的同事把我放在微信联系人列表中,看了我的“朋友圈”,并提醒我的父母注意“聚报”的潜在风险。会影响我父母的工作。

One day, a man who may have been from the Chinese security apparatus phoned Vincent’s parents. Unlike in the call from years before, this man didn’t identify himself as the police. But he said that Vincent’s actions could cause trouble for the family. Such anonymous warnings are occasionally made to the parents of overseas Chinese, and they weigh heavily on students.
有一天,一名可能来自中国安全机构的男子给文森特的父母打电话。 与几年前的电话不同,这名男子并没有表明自己是警察。 但他表示,文森特的行为可能会给家人带来麻烦。 这种匿名警告偶尔会出现在海外华人家长身上,给学生带来沉重负担。

Vincent deleted his WeChat comments. But he also decided that he couldn’t imagine returning to China. “I would say something and get arrested,” he told me. “I need to be in a place where I have freedom.” An older Chinese friend in Pittsburgh had made a similar decision, and he advised Vincent on how to eventually apply for a green card.
文森特删除了他的微信评论。 但他也决定无法想象回到中国。 “我会说些什么然后被捕,”他告诉我。 “我需要去一个我有自由的地方。” 匹兹堡的一位中国老朋友也做出了类似的决定,他向文森特提供了如何最终申请绿卡的建议。

Vincent told his parents that he planned to stay in America for at least five years, but initially he didn’t say that his decision was permanent, because he worried that they would be upset. In the meantime, he didn’t want to waste their money, so he earned cash on the side by teaching Chinese students how to drive. Professional garages charged at least five hundred dollars to install a passenger brake, but Vincent found one on Taobao for about eighty-five dollars, including shipping from China. “I don’t know if it’s legal,” he told me. With his engineering skills, he was able to install the brake in the Prius.
文森特告诉父母,他计划在美国呆至少五年,但最初他并没有说他的决定是永久性的,因为他担心他们会不高兴。 与此同时,他不想浪费他们的钱,所以他通过教中国学生如何开车来赚取现金。 专业修理厂安装乘客制动器的费用至少为五百美元,但文森特在淘宝上找到一个价格约为八十五美元,包括从中国运送的费用。 “我不知道这是否合法,”他告诉我。 凭借他的工程技能,他能够在普锐斯上安装制动器。

The number of Chinese studying in the U.S. had dropped to the lowest level in nearly a decade. But there were still almost three hundred thousand, and many of them arrived in places like Pittsburgh and realized that qishiyi B and other public buses weren’t adequate for their needs. They preferred to hire driving instructors who spoke Mandarin, and Vincent’s rate was eighty dollars an hour. He charged even more for the use of his car during exams. Vincent told me that a Chinese-speaking driving instructor who hustled could earn at least two hundred thousand dollars a year. In my own business, the Chinese political climate had made it almost impossible for American journalists to get resident visas, and specialists of all sorts no longer had access to the country. Sometimes I envisioned a retraining program for old China hands: all of us could buy passenger brakes on Taobao and set up shop as mandarins of parallel parking.
中国赴美留学人数已降至近十年来的最低水平。 但仍有近三十万人,其中许多人到达匹兹堡等地后意识到 七十一 B 和其他公共巴士不足以满足他们的需求。 他们更愿意聘请会说普通话的驾驶教练,文森特的收费是每小时八十美元。 考试期间他的汽车使用费甚至更高。 文森特告诉我,一名会说中文的驾驶教练,一年至少能赚到二十万美元。 在我自己的行业中,中国的政治气候使美国记者几乎不可能获得居留签证,各种专家也无法再进入中国。 有时我会设想一个针对老中国通的再培训计划:我们所有人都可以在淘宝上购买乘客刹车并开设商店作为平行停车的官员。

I knew of only a few former students who, like Vincent, had already decided to make a permanent home outside China. It was viewed as an extreme step, and most of them preferred to keep their options open. But virtually all my former students in the U.S. planned to apply to graduate school here.
据我所知,只有少数像文森特这样的前学生已经决定在中国以外的地方定居。 这被认为是一个极端的步骤,他们中的大多数人更愿意保留自己的选择。 但几乎我以前在美国的所有学生都计划申请这里的研究生院。

They were concerned about the economic and political situation in China, but they also often felt out of place in Pittsburgh. American racial attitudes sometimes mystified them. One engineer had taken a Pitt psychology class that frequently touched on race, and he said that it reminded him of the political-indoctrination classes at Sichuan University. In both situations, he felt that students weren’t supposed to ask questions. “They’re just telling you how to play with words,” he said. “Like in China when they say socialism is good. In America you will say, ‘Black lives matter.’ They are actually the same thing. When you are saying socialism is good, you are saying that capitalism is bad. You are hiding something behind your words. When you say, ‘Black lives matter,’ what are you saying? You are basically saying that Asian lives don’t matter, white lives don’t matter.”
他们关心中国的经济和政治形势,但在匹兹堡也常常感到格格不入。 美国的种族态度有时让他们感到困惑。 一位工程师参加了皮特心理学课程,其中经常涉及种族问题,他说这让他想起了四川大学的政治灌输课程。 在这两种情况下,他都认为学生不应该提问。 “他们只是告诉你如何玩文字游戏,”他说。 “就像在中国,他们说社会主义是好的。 在美国你会说,“黑人的命也是命。” 它们实际上是同一件事。 当你说社会主义好时,你就是在说资本主义不好。 你的话背后隐藏着一些东西。 当你说“黑人的命也是命”时,你在说什么? 你基本上是在说亚洲人的生命不重要,白人的生命也不重要。”

It wasn’t uncommon for Chinese students to have been harassed on the streets. They often said, with some discomfort, that those who targeted them tended to be Black. Many of these incidents involved people shouting slurs from passing cars, but occasionally there was something more serious. One group of boys was riding a public bus at night when a passenger insulted them and stole some ice cream that they had just bought. Afterward, one of the students acquired a Beretta air pistol. He was wary of buying an actual gun, but he figured that the Beretta looked real enough to intimidate people.
中国学生在街头遭到骚扰的情况并不少见。 他们经常带着一些不安地说,针对他们的人往往是黑人。 其中许多事件涉及人们对过往车辆大声辱骂,但偶尔也会发生更严重的事情。 一群男孩在晚上乘坐公共汽车时,一名乘客侮辱了他们,并偷走了他们刚买的一些冰淇淋。 随后,一名学生获得了一把伯莱塔气手枪。 他对购买真枪持谨慎态度,但他认为伯莱塔手枪看起来足够真实,足以吓倒人们。

One evening, I went out for Sichuanese food with four former students, including a couple who had been involved in that incident. They seemed to brush it off, and they were much more concerned about Sino-U.S. tensions. One mentioned that if there were a war over Taiwan he would have only three options. “I can go back to China, or I can go to Canada, or I can go somewhere else,” he said. “I won’t be able to stay here.”
一天晚上,我和四名以前的学生一起出去吃川菜,其中包括一对参与那次事件的夫妇。 他们似乎对此不屑一顾,而且更关心中美紧张局势。 其中一位提到,如果台湾爆发战争,他只有三个选择。 “我可以回到中国,或者我可以去加拿大,或者我可以去其他地方,”他说。 “我不能留在这里了。”

“Look at what happened to the Japanese during World War Two,” another said. “They put them into camps. It would be the same here.”
“看看第二次世界大战期间日本人发生了什么,”另一个人说。 “他们把他们关进营地。 这里也一样。”

They all believed that war was unlikely, although Xi Jinping made them nervous. Back in China, my students had generally avoided mentioning the leader by name, and in Pittsburgh they did the same.
他们都认为战争不太可能发生,尽管习近平让他们感到紧张。 回到中国,我的学生通常避免提及领导人的名字,在匹兹堡他们也是这样做的。

“It all depends on one person now,” a student said at the dinner. “In the past, it wasn’t just one person. When you have a group of people, it’s more likely that somebody will think about the cost.”
“现在一切都取决于一个人,”一名学生在晚宴上说道。 “在过去,这不仅仅是一个人的事情。 当你有一群人时,更有可能有人会考虑成本。”

I asked whether they would serve in the Chinese military if there were a war.
我问如果发生战争他们是否会在中国军队服役。

“They wouldn’t ask people like us to fight,” one boy said. He explained that, in a war, he wouldn’t return home if his country was the aggressor. “If China fires the first shot, then I will stay in America,” he said.
“他们不会要求我们这样的人打架,”一名男孩说。 他解释说,在战争中,如果他的国家是侵略者,他就不会回家。 “如果中国打响第一枪,那么我将留在美国,”他说。

I asked why.我问为什么。

“Because I don’t believe that we should attack our tongbao, our compatriots.”
“因为我不认为我们应该攻击我们的 通宝,我们的同胞。”

I knew of only one Pitt student who planned to return to China for graduate school. The student, whom I’ll call Jack, was accepted into an aerospace-engineering program at Jiao Tong University, in Shanghai. Jack was one of the top SCUPI students, and in an earlier era he would have had his pick of American grad schools. But Chinese aerospace jobs are generally connected to the military, and American institutions had become wary of training such students. Even if a university makes an offer of admission, it can be extremely difficult to get a student visa approved. “Ten years ago, it would have been fine,” Jack told me. “My future Ph.D. adviser got his Ph.D. at Ohio State in aerospace engineering.” He continued, “Everybody knows you can’t get this kind of degree in the U.S. anymore.”
据我所知,只有一名皮特大学的学生计划返回中国读研究生。 这名学生,我称之为杰克,被上海交通大学的航空航天工程专业录取。 杰克是最顶尖的人之一 斯库皮 学生,在早期,他可以选择美国的研究生院。 但中国的航空航天工作通常与军队有关,美国机构对培训此类学生持谨慎态度。 即使大学发出录取通知书,学生签证也很难获得批准。 “十年前,一切都还好,”杰克告诉我。 “我未来的博士学位。 顾问获得了博士学位。 俄亥俄州立大学航空航天工程专业。” 他继续说道,“每个人都知道你在美国再也无法获得这种学位了。”

When I met Jack for lunch, I initially didn’t recognize him. He had lost twenty pounds, because in Pittsburgh he had adopted a daily routine of a four-mile run. “In middle school and high school, my parents and grandparents always said you should eat a lot and study hard,” he said. “I became kind of fat.”
当我吃午饭时遇到杰克时,我最初没有认出他。 他减掉了二十磅,因为在匹兹堡他养成了每天跑四英里的习惯。 “在初中和高中时,我的父母和祖父母总是说你应该多吃并努力学习,”他说。 “我变得有点胖了。”

He had assimilated to American life more successfully than most of his peers, and his English had improved dramatically. He told me shyly that he had become good friends with a girl in his department. “Some of my friends from SCUPI are jealous because I have a friend who is a foreign girl, a white girl,” he said. “They make some jokes.”
他比大多数同龄人更成功地融入了美国生活,而且他的英语水平也有了显着提高。 他害羞地告诉我,他和他部门的一个女孩成了好朋友。 “我的一些朋友来自 斯库皮 我很嫉妒,因为我有一个外国女孩朋友,一个白人女孩,”他说。 “他们会开玩笑。”

He said that he would always remember Pittsburgh fondly, but he expected his departure to be final. “I don’t think I’ll come to the U.S. again,” he said. “They will check. If they see that you work with rockets, with the military, they won’t let you in.”
他说他将永远怀念匹兹堡,但他预计他的离开将是最终决定。 “我想我不会再来美国了,”他说。 “他们会检查。 如果他们看到你与火箭、军队合作,他们不会让你进来。”

On the afternoon of January 10, 2023, at around three o’clock, in the neighborhood of Homewood, Vincent was stopped behind another vehicle at a traffic light when he heard a popping sound that he thought was fireworks. He was driving the Prius, and a Chinese graduate student from Carnegie Mellon sat in the passenger seat. Vincent wore a Sig Sauer P365 subcompact semi-automatic pistol in a concealed-carry holster on his right hip. The Carnegie Mellon student was preparing to get his driver’s license, and Vincent was taking him to practice at a test course in Penn Hills, an area that was known for occasional crime problems.
2023 年 1 月 10 日下午三点左右,在霍姆伍德附近,文森特在红绿灯前被另一辆车拦住,当时他听到一声爆裂声,他以为是烟花。 他驾驶的是普锐斯,副驾驶座上坐着一名来自卡内基梅隆大学的中国研究生。 文森特右臀部的隐藏式枪套中佩戴着一把 Sig Sauer P365 小型半自动手枪。 这位卡内基梅隆大学的学生正准备获得驾驶执照,文森特带他去宾夕法尼亚山的一个考试场练习,该地区以偶尔发生犯罪问题而闻名。

At the traffic light, Vincent saw a car approach at high speed and run a red light. Then there were more popping sounds. Vincent realized that they weren’t fireworks when a bullet cracked his windshield.
在红绿灯处,文森特看到一辆汽车高速驶来,闯了红灯。 然后又是更多的爆裂声。 当一颗子弹击穿挡风玻璃时,文森特意识到那不是烟花。

He ducked below the dashboard. In the process, his foot came off the brake, and the Prius struck the vehicle ahead of him. The shooting continued for a few seconds. After it stopped, the Carnegie Mellon student said, “Ge, brother, you just hit the car in front!”
他躲到仪表板下面。 在此过程中,他的脚脱离了刹车,普锐斯撞上了他前面的车辆。 枪击持续了几秒钟。 声音停止后,卡内基梅隆大学的学生说道:“锗兄弟,你刚刚撞到前面的车了!”

“Get your head down!” Vincent shouted. He backed up, swerved around the other vehicle, and tore through a red light. After a block, he saw a crossing guard waiting for children who had just finished the day at Westinghouse Academy, a nearby public school.
“低下头!” 文森特喊道。 他倒车,绕过另一辆车,闯了红灯。 过了一个街区,他看到一名路口警卫正在等待附近公立学校西屋学院刚刚结束一天学习的孩子们。

“Shots fired, shots fired!” Vincent shouted. “Call 911!”
“枪响了,枪响了!” 文森特喊道。 “拨打911!”

He parked on the side of the road, and soon he was joined by the driver whose car he had struck. They checked the bumpers; there wasn’t any damage. The driver, an elderly woman, didn’t seem particularly concerned about the shooting. She left before the police arrived.
他把车停在路边,很快,被他撞车的司机也加入了他的行列。 他们检查了保险杠; 没有任何损坏。 司机是一位年长的妇女,她似乎并不特别关心枪击事件。 她在警察到达之前离开了。

A woman from a nearby house came out to talk with Vincent. She remarked that shootings actually weren’t so common, and then she walked off to pick up her child from Westinghouse Academy. After a while, a police officer drove up, carrying an AR-15. Vincent explained that he was also armed, and the officer thanked him for the information. He asked Vincent to wait until a detective arrived.
附近房子里的一个女人出来和文森特交谈。 她说枪击事件实际上并不常见,然后她就去西屋学院接孩子了。 过了一会儿,一名警察开过来,手里拿着一辆AR-15。 文森特解释说,他也携带武器,该警官感谢他提供的信息。 他让文森特等侦探到来。

For more than two hours, Vincent sat in his car. The Carnegie Mellon student took an Uber home. When the detective finally showed up, his questions were perfunctory, and he didn’t seem interested in Vincent’s offer to provide dashboard-camera footage. A brief report about the incident appeared on a Twitter account called Real News and Alerts Allegheny County:
文森特在车里坐了两个多小时。 卡内基梅隆大学的学生打了一辆优步回家。 当侦探最终出现时,他的问题很敷衍,而且他似乎对文森特提供仪表板摄像机镜头的提议不感兴趣。 关于这一事件的简短报道出现在一个名为“真实新闻和警报阿勒格尼县”的 Twitter 帐户上:

Shot Spotter Alert for 20 rounds20 轮投篮观察员警报

Vehicles outside of a school shooting at each other.学校外的车辆互相射击。

1 vehicle fled after firing shots.1 辆车开枪后逃跑。

Later that year, Vincent took me to the site. He recalled that during the incident he had repeatedly said, “Lord, save me!,” like Peter the Apostle on the Sea of Galilee. The lack of police response had surprised Vincent. “I didn’t know they didn’t care about a shooting,” he said. For our visit, he wore a Sig Sauer P320-M17 on his right hip. “Normally, I don’t open-carry,” he said. “But this gun can hold eighteen rounds.”
那年晚些时候,文森特带我去了现场。 他回忆说,在事件发生期间,他反复说:“主啊,救救我!”就像加利利海上的使徒彼得一样。 警方没有做出回应,这让文森特感到惊讶。 “我不知道他们不关心枪击事件,”他说。 在我们的访问中,他的右臀部佩戴了 Sig Sauer P320-M17。 “通常情况下,我不会开盘,”他说。 “但这把枪可以装十八发子弹。”

It had been four years since Vincent arrived in my class at Sichuan University. Have you ever been involved in a situation that was extremely threatening, or dangerous, or somehow dramatic? Back then, he had written about what happened when the Chinese Internet police came to his home. Now Vincent’s American story was one in which the police effectively didn’t come after twenty rounds had been fired near a school. But there was a similar sense of normalcy: everybody was calm; nothing seemed out of the ordinary. The following month, four students were shot outside Westinghouse Academy.
文森特来到四川大学我的班级已经四年了。 您是否曾经遇到过极具威胁性、危险性或戏剧性的情况? 当时,他曾写过中国网警来到他家时发生的事情。 现在,文森特的美国故事是这样的:在一所学校附近开了二十发子弹后,警察实际上并没有来。 但也有一种类似的常态感:每个人都很平静;每个人都很平静。 似乎没有什么异常。 接下来的一个月,四名学生在西屋学院外被枪杀。

I asked Vincent if the incident had changed his opinion about gun laws.
我问文森特这件事是否改变了他对枪支法的看法。

“No,” he said. “That’s why we should carry guns. Carrying a gun is more comfortable than wearing body armor.”
“不,”他说。 “这就是为什么我们应该携带枪支。 携带枪支比穿着防弹衣更舒服。”

At Sichuan University, I also taught journalism to undergraduates from a range of departments. Last June, I sent out a detailed survey to more than a hundred and fifty students. One question asked if they intended to make their permanent home in China. A few weren’t certain, but, of the forty-three who answered, thirty said that they planned to live in China. There was no significant difference in the responses of students who were currently in China versus those abroad.
在四川大学,我还向多个院系的本科生教授新闻学。 去年六月,我向一百五十多名学生发出了一份详细的调查。 其中一个问题是,他们是否打算在中国永久定居。 有些人不确定,但是,在回答的四十三个人中,有三十人说他们计划住在中国。 目前在中国的学生与国外的学生的反应没有显着差异。

Since the pandemic, there have been increasing reports of young Chinese engaged in runxue, or “run philosophy,” escaping the country’s various pressures by going abroad permanently. A number of my students pushed back against the idea that runxue had wide appeal. “I think that’s just an expression of emotion, like saying, ‘I want to die,’ ” one student who was studying in Pittsburgh told me. “I don’t take it very seriously.” He planned to go to graduate school in America and then return home. He said that in China it was easy for him to avoid politics, whereas in Pittsburgh he couldn’t avoid the fact that he was a foreigner. During his initial few months in the city, he had experienced three unpleasant anti-Asian incidents. As a result, he had changed the route he walked to his bus stop. “I think I don’t belong here,” he said.
疫情发生以来,越来越多的报道称中国年轻人从事 润雪,或者说“跑步哲学”,通过永久出国来逃避国家的各种压力。 我的一些学生反对这样的想法 润雪 具有广泛的吸引力。 “我认为这只是一种情感表达,就像在说,‘我想死’,”一位在匹兹堡学习的学生告诉我。 “我不太认真对待这件事。” 他计划去美国读研究生,然后回国。 他说,在中国,他很容易避开政治,但在匹兹堡,他无法回避自己是外国人的事实。 在来到这座城市的最初几个月里,他经历了三起不愉快的反亚裔事件。 结果,他改变了前往公交车站的路线。 “我想我不属于这里,”他说。

Yingyi Ma, the sociologist at Syracuse who has surveyed Chinese students in the U.S., has observed that almost sixty per cent of her respondents intend to return to their homeland. She told me that young Chinese rarely connect with the political climate in the U.S. “But what makes America appealing is the other aspects,” she said. “The agency. The self-acceptance. Over time, as they stay in the U.S., they figure out that they don’t have to change themselves.”
雪城大学社会学家马英仪对在美中国学生进行了调查,她发现近百分之六十的受访者打算返回祖国。 她告诉我,中国年轻人很少与美国的政治气候产生联系,“但美国的吸引力在于其他方面,”她说。 “该机构。 自我接纳。 随着时间的推移,当他们留在美国时,他们发现自己不必改变自己。”

One former student told me that she might remain in America in part because people were less likely to make comments about her body. She’s not overweight, but she doesn’t have the tiny frame that is common among young Chinese women, and people in China constantly remarked on her size. In Pittsburgh, I met with Edith, the student who had written about her graduation banquet. Now she had dyed some of her hair purple and green, and she avoided video calls with her grandparents, who might judge her. Once, she had gone to a shooting range with Chinese classmates, and she had attended church-group meetings out of curiosity. She told me that recently she had taken up skateboarding as a hobby.
一位以前的学生告诉我,她可能会留在美国,部分原因是人们不太可能对她的身体发表评论。 她并不超重,但她没有中国年轻女性常见的娇小身材,中国人经常谈论她的身材。 在匹兹堡,我遇到了伊迪丝,她是一位写过毕业宴会的学生。 现在她把一些头发染成了紫色和绿色,并且避免与祖父母进行视频通话,因为他们可能会评判她。 有一次,她和中国同学一起去了射击场,出于好奇,她还参加了教会聚会。 她告诉我,最近她把滑板作为一种爱好。

It was typical for students to pursue activities that would have been unlikely or impossible in China, and several boys became gun enthusiasts. Nationwide, rising numbers of Asian Americans have purchased firearms since the start of the pandemic, a trend that scholars attribute to fears of racism. One afternoon, I arranged to meet a former student named Steven at a shooting range outside Wexford, Pennsylvania. I knew that I was in the right parking lot when, amid all the pickup trucks, I saw a car with a bumper sticker that said “E=mc².” On the range, whenever the call came for a halt in shooting—“All clear!”—a bunch of bearded white guys in camo and Carhartt stalked out with staple guns to attach new paper covers to the targets. Steven, a shy, round-faced engineer in glasses, was the only Chinese at the range, and also the only person who used quilting pins for his target. He told me that the quilting pins were reusable and thus cheaper than staples. He had come with a Smith & Wesson M&P 5.7 handgun, a Ruger American Predator 6.5 Creedmoor bolt-action rifle, and a large Benchmade knife that he wore in a leather holster. At the range, he shot his rifle left-handed. When he was small, his father had thought that he was a natural lefty, but he was taught to write with his right hand, like all Chinese students. He told me that shooting was the first significant activity in which he had used his left.
学生们从事在中国不太可能或不可能的活动是很常见的,一些男孩成为了枪支爱好者。 自疫情爆发以来,在全国范围内,越来越多的亚裔美国人购买枪支,学者们将这一趋势归因于对种族主义的恐惧。 一天下午,我安排在宾夕法尼亚州韦克斯福德郊外的一个射击场与一位名叫史蒂文的前学生见面。 当我在所有皮卡车中看到一辆汽车的保险杠贴纸上写着“E=mc”时,我知道我在正确的停车场²”。 在靶场上,每当听到停止射击的声音时——“全部解除!”——一群穿着迷彩服、留着胡须的白人和卡哈特就会拿着钉枪大步走出来,给目标贴上新的纸罩。 史蒂文是一位戴着眼镜、腼腆、圆脸的工程师,他是靶场里唯一的中国人,也是唯一一个用缝针来瞄准目标的人。 他告诉我,绗缝别针可以重复使用,因此比订书钉便宜。 他携带了一把 Smith & Wesson M&P 5.7 手枪、一把 Ruger American Predator 6.5 Creedmoor 栓动步枪,以及一把装在皮套中的 Benchmade 大刀。 在靶场,他用左手射击步枪。 当他小的时候,他的父亲曾认为他是天生的左撇子,但他被教导像所有中国学生一样用右手写字。 他告诉我,射击是他使用左手的第一个重要活动。

On the same trip, I met Bruce for a classic Allegheny County dinner of mapo tofu and Chongqing chicken. After the accident in the Himalayas, Bruce had sworn off motorcycles. At Pitt, in addition to his engineering classes, he had learned auto repair by watching YouTube videos. He bought an old BMW, fixed it up, and sold it for a fifty-per-cent profit. He used the money to purchase a used Ford F-150 truck, which he customized so he could sleep in the cab for hiking and snowboarding excursions to the mountains. He had decorated the truck with two “thin blue line” American-flag decals and another pro-police insignia around the license plate. “That’s so it looks like I’m a hongbozi,” Bruce said, using the Mandarin translation of “redneck.” “People won’t honk at me or mess with me.” He opened the door and pointed out a tiny Chinese flag on the back of the driver’s seat. “You can’t see it from the outside,” he said, grinning.
在同一次旅行中,我遇到了布鲁斯,吃了一顿经典的阿勒格尼县晚餐,包括麻婆豆腐和重庆鸡。 喜马拉雅山事故发生后,布鲁斯发誓不再骑摩托车。 在皮特,除了工程课程外,他还通过观看 YouTube 视频学习汽车修理。 他买了一辆旧宝马,修理了一下,然后以百分之五十的利润出售。 他用这笔钱购买了一辆二手福特 F-150 卡车,并对其进行了定制,这样他就可以睡在驾驶室里,以便在山上徒步旅行和滑雪时使用。 他在卡车上装饰了两条“细蓝线”美国国旗贴花,并在车牌周围贴上了另一个支持警察的徽章。 “这样看来我就是一个 红钵子,”布鲁斯说,用的是“乡巴佬”的普通话翻译。 “人们不会对我按喇叭或惹我。” 他打开车门,指着驾驶座后面的一面小中国国旗。 “你从外面看不到它,”他笑着说。

Over time, I’ve also surveyed the people I taught in the nineties, and last year I asked both cohorts of former students the same question: Did the pandemic change anything significant about your personal opinions, beliefs, or values? The older group reported relatively few changes. Most are now around fifty years old, with stable teaching jobs that have not been affected by China’s economic problems. They typically live in third- or fourth-tier provincial cities, which were less likely to suffer brutal lockdowns than places like Shanghai and Beijing.
随着时间的推移,我还对我在九十年代教过的人进行了调查,去年我向两批以前的学生提出了同样的问题:这场流行病是否改变了你的个人观点、信仰或价值观? 老年组报告的变化相对较少。 现在大多数人都在五十岁左右,有稳定的教学工作,没有受到中国经济问题的影响。 他们通常居住在三四线省会城市,与上海和北京等地相比,这些城市遭受残酷封锁的可能性较小。

But members of the younger generation, who are likelier to live in larger cities and generally access more foreign information, responded very differently. “I can’t believe I’m still reading Mao Zedong Thought and Socialism with Chinese Characteristics,” one graduate student at a Chinese university wrote. “In this collectivist ideology, there is no respect for the dignity and worth of the individual.” Another woman, who was in graduate school in the United Kingdom, wrote, “Now I’ve switched to an anarchist. It reduces the stress when I have to read the news.”
但年轻一代的人更有可能生活在大城市,通常会接触到更多的外国信息,他们的反应却截然不同。 “我不敢相信我还在读《毛泽东思想和中国特色社会主义》,”一名中国大学的研究生写道。 “在这种集体主义意识形态中,不尊重个人的尊严和价值。” 另一位在英国读研究生的女性写道:“现在我已经转向无政府主义者了。 当我必须阅读新闻时,它减轻了我的压力。”

Their generation is unique in Chinese history in the scope of their education and in their degree of contact with the outside world. But this doesn’t necessarily mean that their concerns are broader. In my survey, I asked what they worried about most, and, out of forty-seven responses, three mentioned politics. Another three worried about the possibility of war with Taiwan. Only one cited environmental issues. The vast majority of answers were personal, with more than half mentioning job opportunities or problems with graduate school. This seemed to reflect the tradition of “educated acquiescence”: there’s no point in concerning yourself with big questions and systemic flaws.
他们这一代人的受教育程度和与外界的接触程度在中国历史上是独一无二的。 但这并不一定意味着他们的担忧更广泛。 在我的调查中,我问他们最担心什么,在 47 个回复中,有 3 个提到了政治。 另外三人担心与台湾发生战争的可能性。 只有一位提到了环境问题。 绝大多数答案都是针对个人的,超过一半提到了工作机会或研究生院的问题。 这似乎反映了“受过教育的默许”的传统:没有必要担心大问题和系统性缺陷。

Nevertheless, their worldliness makes it harder to predict long-term outcomes, and I sense a new degree of unease. On a recent trip to California, I interviewed a former student who commented that even when she and her Chinese boyfriend were alone they instinctively covered their phones if they talked about politics, as if this would prevent surveillance. I noticed that, like many other former students, she never uttered the name Xi Jinping. Afterward, I asked her about it over e-mail, and she replied:
然而,他们的世俗使得预测长期结果变得更加困难,我感到了新程度的不安。 在最近一次去加州的旅行中,我采访了一位以前的学生,她评论说,即使当她和她的中国男友独处时,如果他们谈论政治,他们也会本能地捂住手机,好像这样可以防止监视。 我注意到,像许多其他以前的学生一样,她从未说出习近平这个名字。 后来我通过电子邮件询问了她的情况,她回复说:

I do find myself avoiding mentioning Xi’s name directly in [California], even in private conversations and in places where I generally feel “safe.” . . . I guess it’s a thing that has been reinforced millions of times to the point that it just feels uncomfortable and daunting to say his full name, as it has too much association with unrestrained power and punishment.
我确实发现自己避免在[加利福尼亚州]直接提及习近平的名字,即使是在私人谈话中以及在我通常感到“安全”的地方。 。 。 。 我想这是一个已经被强化了数百万次的事情,以至于说出他的全名会让人感到不舒服和令人畏惧,因为它与不受限制的权力和惩罚有太多的联系。

In the survey of my Sichuan University students, I was most struck by responses to a simple query: Do you want to have children someday? The most common answer was no, and the trend was especially pronounced for women, at seventy-six per cent. Other surveys and studies in China indicate a similar pattern. One former student explained:
在对四川大学学生的调查中,令我印象最深刻的是一个简单问题的回答:你有一天想要孩子吗? 最常见的答案是否定的,这一趋势在女性中尤为明显,占 76%。 中国的其他调查和研究也表明了类似的模式。 一位以前的学生解释说:

I think that Chinese children are more stressed and profoundly confused, which will continue. We are already a confused generation, and children’s upbringing requires long periods of companionship and observation and guidance, which is difficult to ensure in the face of intense social pressure. The future of Chinese society is an adventure and children do not “demand to be born.” I am worried that my children are not warriors and are lost in it.
我认为中国的孩子压力更大、困惑更严重,这种情况还会持续下去。 我们已经是一个迷茫的一代,孩子的成长需要长时间的陪伴和观察引导,而这在巨大的社会压力下很难保证。 中国社会的未来是一场冒险,孩子不“要求出生”。 我担心我的孩子不是战士,会迷失其中。

By my third visit to Pittsburgh, in November, 2023, Vincent had graduated, been baptized again, and embarked on his first real American job. The previous year, I had attended Sunday services with him at a Mormon church, but this time he took me to the Church of the Ascension, an Anglican congregation near campus. When I asked why he had switched, he used a Chinese word, qihou. “Environment,” he said. “They aren’t pushy. The Mormons are too pushy.”
2023 年 11 月,我第三次访问匹兹堡时,文森特已经毕业,再次受洗,并开始了他的第一份真正的美国工作。 去年,我和他一起参加了摩门教教堂的周日礼拜,但这一次他带我去了升天教堂,这是校园附近的英国圣公会教堂。 当我问他为什么转行时,他用了一个中文词, 其后。 “环境,”他说。 “他们并不咄咄逼人。 摩门教徒太咄咄逼人了。”

He liked the fact that the Anglicans were conservative but reasonable. He saw politics in similar terms: he disliked Donald Trump, but he considered himself most likely to vote as a traditional Republican if he became a citizen. He had been baptized in the Anglican Church on Easter. “I told them that I had already been baptized,” he explained. “But they said that because it was Mormon it doesn’t count.”
他喜欢英国圣公会保守但理性的事实。 他以类似的方式看待政治:他不喜欢唐纳德·特朗普,但他认为如果自己成为公民,自己最有可能作为传统共和党人投票。 他于复活节在英国圣公会教堂接受了洗礼。 “我告诉他们我已经受洗了,”他解释道。 “但他们说,因为是摩门教徒,所以不算数。”

The previous summer, Vincent’s mother had visited Pittsburgh, where, among other places, he took her to church and to the shooting range. During the trip, he told her about his plan to live permanently in the U.S. When I spoke with her recently by phone, she still held out hope that he would someday return to China. “I don’t want him to stay in America,” she said. “But if that’s what he wants I won’t oppose it.” She said that she was impressed by how much her son had matured since going abroad.
去年夏天,文森特的母亲去了匹兹堡,他带她去了教堂和射击场等地方。 旅途中,他告诉她他打算永久居住在美国。当我最近通过电话与她交谈时,她仍然希望他有一天能回到中国。 “我不想让他留在美国,”她说。 “但如果这是他想要的,我不会反对。” 她说,出国后儿子的成熟让她印象深刻。

After receiving his degree in industrial engineering, Vincent decided not to work in the field. He believed that he was best suited for a career in business, because he liked dealing with all kinds of people. He had started working for his landlord, Nick Kefalos, who managed real-estate properties around Pittsburgh. One morning, I accompanied Vincent when he stopped by Kefalos’s office to drop off a check from a tenant.
获得工业工程学位后,文森特决定不在该领域工作。 他相信自己最适合从事商业职业,因为他喜欢与各种各样的人打交道。 他开始为房东尼克·凯法洛斯(Nick Kefalos)工作,后者在匹兹堡周边管理房地产。 一天早上,文森特来到凯法洛斯的办公室,送一张房客的支票,我陪着他。

Kefalos was a wiry, energetic man of around seventy. He told me that on a couple of occasions a roommate had left an apartment and Vincent was able to find a replacement. At one point, he persuaded a Japanese American, a Serbian, and a Dane to share a unit, and all of them had got along ever since. “We could see that he had a knack,” Kefalos said. “He was able to find unrelated people and make good matches.” Kefalos also liked having a Chinese speaker on staff. “We think a diverse population is ideal,” he said. Vincent was currently studying for his real-estate license, and he hoped to start his own business someday.
凯法洛斯是一位七十岁左右的男人,身材精瘦,精力充沛。 他告诉我,有几次室友离开了公寓,文森特找到了替代者。 有一次,他说服了一名日裔美国人、一名塞尔维亚人和一名丹麦人共用一个单位,从那以后他们所有人都和睦相处。 “我们可以看出他有诀窍,”凯法洛斯说。 “他能够找到不相关的人并进行良好的匹配。” 凯法洛斯还喜欢有一位会说中文的员工。 “我们认为多元化的人口是理想的,”他说。 文森特目前正在学习房地产执照,他希望有一天能够自己创业。

Kefalos’s grandfather had come from Greece, and his father had worked as an electrical engineer in the steel industry. Many of his current tenants were immigrants. “My personal experience is that they are relatively hardworking,” he said. “And I think that’s true with most immigrants who come into the country. Whether it’s for education or a better life.” He looked up at Vincent and said, “My sense is that most U.S. citizens born in the United States don’t have any idea how fortunate they are.” ♦
凯法洛斯的祖父来自希腊,他的父亲曾在钢铁行业担任电气工程师。 他目前的许多租户都是移民。 “我个人的经验是,他们比较勤奋,”他说。 “我认为大多数进入这个国家的移民都是如此。 无论是为了教育,还是为了更好的生活。” 他抬头看着文森特,说道:“我的感觉是,大多数出生在美国的美国公民根本不知道自己有多么幸运。” ❖