新刊推荐 | 心中有忐忑，归家也难安面对当代社会潜藏的危机

When Chickens Come Home to Roost

By Aaron A. Vessup ∷门椿林注

一次遭受入室偷盗的经历，让作者开始反思当代社会潜藏的社会危机、矛盾以及每个个体面临的安全感缺失的问题。当我们的电视播放着并不“人道”的杀戮动物的节目时，当枪支广告充满着我们的生活时，当我们已经习以为常走在路上戴上耳机与他人冷漠相对时，当我们面对一个看似有威胁但实则脆弱的陌生人时，我们该如何反应？

The noises late one night were unusual. Either an intruder or would-be robber is pressing his luck

. Quietly slipping on my robe and shoes I creep to the front door and flip on the outside light.

Before I can wrench the door open, outside a crashing sound of metal on pavement and feet running away are heard. Immediately I notice the two small, white, foot-high Christmas trees with automatic colorful lights are missing from my porch. Dark, vacant spots on the porch have replaced colorful blinking lights. My bike is also gone. I ease past parked cars lining the front sidewalk area. In the darkness, I see my Wal-Mart mountain bicycle now lying in the middle of the parking lot pavement. The rear wheel is still locked and chained. The thieves have vanished in thin air. This has been a close call

, but is a warning about life in the civilized Wild West. Many people are desperate and people are dying.

I am determined to slowly transition back into the “American Experience”

. My eyes are open wide despite the long, weary three-day cross-country train ride. Community realities witnessed in Philadelphia, Cleveland, Chicago, St. Louis, Kansas City, and Los Angeles are shocking.

Each community reflects sharp contrasts and glaring

gaps between the rich and poor. I am feeling like an alien in my own homeland. Long caravans of homeless people wander and shuffle about.

Many wear unwashed military fatigues

pushing their life belongings in stolen metal supermarket shopping carts. Sunburned, red-necks and dusty brown and black panhandlers are commonly seen working corners at busy traffic intersections.

Overweight pedestrians of mixed ethnicities waddle

on and off public buses. A few instigate unprovoked altercations with other passengers.

Some folk spout loud monologues addressing the general public.

These sights stoke

my alarm and irritation.

1. press one’s luck: 得寸进尺，想再度交好运。也作push one’s luck。

2. creep: 悄悄地缓慢行进，爬行；flip on: 打开。

3. close call: 侥幸脱险。

4. American Experience: 此处借用美国公共电视台节目名称《美国印象》来指代后文中的横跨美国之旅。

5. Philadelphia, Cleveland, Chicago, St. Louis, Kansas City, and Los Angeles: 分别是：费城、克利夫兰、芝加哥、圣路易斯、堪萨斯城和洛杉矶。

6. glaring: 显眼的。

7. caravan:（供居住用的）大篷车；shuffle: 步履蹒跚，拖着脚走。

8. military fatigues: 迷彩服。

9. panhandler : 乞丐；traffic intersection: 交叉路口。

10. waddle: 蹒跚而行，摇摇晃晃地走。

11. 一些人会无缘无故和其他乘客发生口角。instigate: 使发生；unprovoked: 无端的，未受挑衅的；altercation: 口角。

12. spout: 滔滔不绝地说；monologue:一个人的长篇大论。

13. stoke: 激起。

Since returning from China, my “Couch Potato” activities finds me watching outdoor adventure TV shows. These programs highlight ideas regarding how to survive, and also methods of acquiring food while facing challenges of nature. Living in the woods, to “kill or be killed” is the undeniable bottom line. Using vicious Booby-Traps to kill: deep pits with sharp bamboo spikes; throwing metal tipped spears; or bludgeoning helpless animals with stones.

All effective means to necessary ends. Many survivalists feel a particular killing approach is more civil and humane than another. Death inflicted quick or slow is still inevitable. In the end “civility”, no matter how characterized and defined, really does not matter.

On one televised series, The Alaskans: Life Below Zero, a homesteader

teaches her children to kill chickens for their dinner. Funneling this feathered bird upside down into a metal tube that narrows only wide enough for the bird’s head to protrude, death comes silently.

The chicken head is quickly lopped off with the absence of flying feathers and wild squawking.

The mother then tells her on looking children, whose ages are around 5 and 6 year olds, “Now, this is the humane way to kill your food. The chicken will not needlessly suffer.”

Living in suburban Vegas is not visually like living in the barely civilized woods. Yet, surprisingly in only a few ways, Vegas represents opposing lifestyles to life in, say, Beijing, China. In the most USA cities, daily life-ending events seem to be common semi-tragic events. This particular callousness

represents a major part of civilized American culture taken for granted by Americans. Money and Conveniences rule in both countries. In China, a preponderance of Dry Cleaners, Footbaths and KTV establishments in the East, contrasts to the plethora of gas stations and churches on virtually every street corner in the West.

However, as I watch American television, one unforgettable experience in China comes to mind. Years ago, I had an opportunity to tour Shaoshan, the hometown of the late Chairman Mao. A restaurant owner offered to prepare our small group of VIPs a fresh chicken meal.

14. booby trap: 陷阱；pit: 深坑；spike: 尖刺；tipped spear: 尖矛；bludgeon: 用重物连击。

15. 说到底，无论我们怎样定义和理解“文明”，这个概念真的已经不重要了。

16. homesteader:（按照宅地法获得土地的）定居移民。

17. 把鸡倒过来放入一个漏斗状的金属管中，管道的宽度只能让鸡的头钻出去，死亡会悄悄地来临。funnel:（使）流经狭窄空间，经过漏斗形口子；protrude: 突出，伸出。

18. lop off: 砍掉；squawk: 发出刺耳的尖叫声。

19. callousness: 麻木不仁，冷漠。

20. preponderance: 数量上的优势；

plethora: 过多，过量。

In Hunan we watched the Chef hypnotize a plump chicken by simply using one forefinger.

While the bird was in a trance a knife blade was applied to smoothly slit the bird’s throat.

The poor feathered creature slowly became lifeless as a wire thin trickle

of fluid stopped dripping. The shiny red puddle of blood on the dusty ground seeped into the earth.

The chicken had become weaker and weaker, its death came without alarm or surprise. Many will argue this is a more humane way to present death to any living being. Applicable to humans for a “civilized” philosophy for population control. The resulting chicken feast on that special day in China, however, was voted most delicious by everyone.

This talk about desperation, survival, and death, has much relevance to any society.

Achieving harmony and advancing civilization through education, and applying the conveniences of technology, now forces me to focus on the essence of personal survival. In the U.S. it is impossible to dismiss the issue of personal security. In fact, as I write this, I have spent the past few hours in process of actually shopping to better “arm” myself. I am not sure whether my ultimate weapon will be a larger deadly blade, or a sexy state of the art firearm. Perhaps becoming a gun-owner. It is really scary here and increasingly impossible to ignore Gun Show TV adverts, billboards, and local firearms conventions.

Today, I’m at Wal-Mart searching for a whet stone to sharpen the blunt souvenir pocket knife purchased in Alaska last summer.

In an aisle between hunting knives and guns, a Chinese husband and wife, quietly debate which particular leather holster

would be best for their gun choice. I can only imagine their motivation and fears.

…

21. hypnotize: 对……实施催眠；plump:（供食用的动物）多肉的。

22. trance: 昏睡状态；slit: 切开，划破。

23. trickle: 细流。

24. puddle: 水坑；seep: 渗透。

25. 这种关于绝望、生存和死亡的讨论，与任何社会都息息相关。

26. 这里真的很可怕，并且忽视枪支秀电视广告、广告牌和当地枪支公约是越来越不可能的事情。

27. whet stone: 磨刀石；blunt: 钝的，不锋利的。

28. holster: 手枪皮套

以上内容节选自《英语学习》杂志2018年第4期，阅读完整文章，请关注《英语学习》2018年第4期~

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《英语学习》杂志创刊于1958年，由北京外国语大学主办，是一本集知识、学习和趣味于一体的英语文化综合性刊物，被评为“全国优秀外语教辅期刊”，一贯以“学习英语的终身益友，了解世界的精彩橱窗”为宗旨，在突出人文旨趣、深入介绍西方社会文化、增进阅读者的英语修养的理念指导下，坚持严谨而不失活泼、品位与趣味并重的办刊风格，凸显杂志的高等教育气质。

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