书城外语流行文化篇(老外最想和你聊的101个英语话题)
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第70章 Marriage and Family 家庭两性(2)

萨拉:是啊,但是我挺鄙视那些和外国人在一起的女人的。

Nancy: Oh, why?

南希:啊?为什么啊?

Sara: I think some Chinese women marry foreigners for money while others just want to live abroad。 There is no true love between them。

萨拉:我觉得有些人嫁给外国人是为了钱,有些人是为了去国外定居,反正他们之间没有真爱。

Nancy: I wouldn’t say that’s totally true。 I’ve met many happy intercultural couples。

南希:也不全是吧。我见过很多幸福的跨国夫妻。

Sara: Well, then why aren’t there many East-West couples where the man is a Chinese and the woman is a Westerner?

萨拉:那为什么没有多少夫妻,男方是中国人,女方是西方人的呢?

Nancy: I guess it’s because the Chinese women are more attractive to Western men。

南希:可能是因为中国女人对西方男人更有吸引力吧。

Sara: Or because they are less attractive to Chinese men。

萨拉:或者这些女人对中国男人没那么有吸引力吧。

Nancy: What do you mean?

南希:怎么说?

Sara: You know, usually the woman is in her thirties and she is a left girl。

萨拉:这些女人大约三十多岁,是剩女。

Nancy: A left girl? What’s that?

南希:剩女?什么意思啊?

Sara: They’re called that because they’re left behind on the shelf。 They’re also known by their three H’s—high diploma, high salary, and high degree。

萨拉:这么说,因为他们是别人挑剩下的。她们有三高:高文凭,高工资,高学位。

Nancy: And they’re also known as the three S’s—single, stuck, and born in the seventies。

南希:还有人说她们有三难:单身,高不成低不就,出生在70年代后。

Sara: Definitely! So most of these women go for Western men。

萨拉:的确!所以这些人就把目标转向了西方人。

Nancy: You have a point here, but I believe some mixed marriages are based on true love。

南希:也许吧。但有些跨国婚姻还是有真爱的。

Sara: That’ for sure but very few。

萨拉:那是,不过很少。

Childless Couples

丁克一族

最合理的定义是:双职业,有生育能力但选择不生育,并且主观上认为自己是丁克的夫妇或个体,称之为丁克。成为丁克的首要标准是:具有生育能力而选择不生育,除了主动不生育,也可能是主观或者客观原因而被动选择不生育。其次,主观上对自己的丁克身份接纳和认可——他们认为丁克是一种生活方式——这是非常重要的因素。

Realize DINK Fashion

认识丁克潮流

1为什么有如此多的丁克家庭?

Mr。 Buchanan lists six factors that contribute to the DINK lifestyle and explain why today’s culture mocks “the old idea that the good life for a woman means a husband and a houseful of kids。” He says that powerful collateral forces are “pulling American women away from the maternity ward forever。” Here are the six factors:

1。 The new economy。 Industry offers pay and benefits to lure talented women who compete with men in the marketplace。 Many choose careers or one-time motherhood and love the work challenge。 They stay。 With women working, poor families get richer and begin to downsize。 And as nations get richer, history shows, they begin to die。 Meanwhile, poor families are growing。 Jesus said, “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth。” (Mt。 5:5 KJV)2。 End of the “family wage”。 As women’s pay soared, men’s dropped, and marriage and family size suffered。 Young men earned too little for marriage and a family。 Young women found independence and delayed marriage, or just didn’t marry at all。 Some settled for the DINK role and the end of the “family wage” was a factor。

3。 The “population bomb” hysteria。 Heading up another of his Chicken Little operations was former U。S。 Secretary of Defense Robert Strange McNamara, the man who micromanaged the Vietnam War into disaster。 This time, he was warning that population growth would cause poverty, crowding and frustration that would threaten social, economic and military stability。 And this time he was wrong again, as the poor continued to multiply。

4。 Feminism。 “Women’s liberation” has become the rage。 It would free women of their roles of wife, mother and homemaker。 Feminists have had successes: a tenfold increase in unmarried couples living together since 1970。 Husband-wife families are now only one in four。 Singles living alone are now 26 percent of the adult population。

5。 The popular culture puts the joys of sex far above the happiness of motherhood。 Indeed, sex, career and the single woman dominate in advertising and entertainment。 Marriage and family are downplayed, and the DINKs are helping。

6。 The collapse of the moral order。 Today, “shacking up” is just a “relationship”, half of all marriages end in divorce, and abortion is a “fallback” position and women will vote against any politician or party that threatens to take it away。

2丁克派生词汇的表达方式

Whit DINK/ pseudo dink(白丁): Once aspiring to be a dink, but after a certain age, they regret and give birth to a baby。 This kind of man is often called pseudo dink, or “White DINK”。

Dinking(丁克进行时): It refers to those people who still insist on dink。

Dinked: “forced” dink(被迫丁克)—a dink family which actually really hopes that they can have children, but because of the infertility, economic difficulties, they are forced not to give birth to a kid, suffering from knee without son。 This is not true dink。

Dinkwad(丁宠): They are a bunch of people having vowed to put a dink to develop acme state who married and both parties do not raise children but pets。 They are dink family of the highest level, so also someone called hardcore dink。

Iron DINK(铁丁): Firmly dink consistent of iron heart, namely determination。

丁克:亦即DINK,是英语Double Incomes No Kids的缩写,直译过来就是有双份的收入而没有孩子的家庭,说白了就是两个人吃饱了全家不饿的一种组合。据说一些汉语词典已经吸纳了这个外来的名词。这些词汇有:“白丁”,意思就是“白白地丁克了一回”;丁克ing:仍然在坚持丁克的人;丁克ed:“被迫”丁克;丁宠指结婚双方改养小孩为养宠物。他们是丁克的最高级别,因此也有人称之为骨灰级丁克;铁丁:斩钉截铁的丁克。

Key words & Sentences

关键词句全知道

What’s a DINKWAD? A DINKWAD is an acronym which stands for “double income, no kids, with a dog”。 It’s an extension of a DINK (double income, no kids), not to be confused with a DINKY (double income, no kids yet) or a DINKEM (double income, no kids, excessive mortgage)。

“丁狗族”是什么意思呢?“丁狗族”是来源于DINKWAD这个英文缩写,代表的是“双收入,没孩子,养宠物狗”的家庭。这个说法是在“丁克”(双收入,没孩子)这个概念的基础上延伸出来的。不要和“丁期”(双收入,还没孩子)以及“丁啃”(双收入,没孩子,高按揭)混淆。

The acronym DINK—double income, no kids—originated in the US in the 1960s。

丁克家庭(夫妻二人都工作但没有孩子的英文缩写)源于上个世纪六十年代的美国。

DINK family phenomenon has been widespread throughout metropolis in china。

“丁克”这种家庭现象在中国的大都市已经相当普遍。

As a new style of family, “DINK” brings great impact to Chinese traditional opinions of procreation and affects society deeply。

作为一种新型的家庭形式,“丁克”家庭的出现极大地冲击了中国传统的生育观,并对当今社会产生了深远影响。

Fearing that children might constrain their freedom, married working women began to avoid pregnancy; the result was that there arose many busy, prosperous young DINK couples。

由于担心孩子会限制自己的自由,结了婚的职业女性开始避孕,结果是出现了许多忙忙碌碌而事业成功的丁克夫妇。

On the other hand, in the society the old people live alone and “the pure old family” composes only the old persons already in fact form the fact of lack the next generation or one after next generation, thus constituted “the old age DINK”。