种族歧视？爱因斯坦日记曝光，称中国人迟钝肮脏
Einstein the Anti-Racist? Not in His Travel Diaries
YONETTE JOSEPH, TIFFANY MAY
2018年6月15日
LONDON — In 1922, the same year he received the Nobel Prize in Physics, Albert Einstein set out with his wife, Elsa, on a five-and-a-half-month odyssey of discovery of a new world: the Far East and Middle East.
伦敦——1922年，阿尔伯特·爱因斯坦(Albert Einstein)获得了诺贝尔物理学奖，同年，他与妻子艾尔莎(Elsa)开启了长达五个半月的长途旅程，探索新的世界：远东和中东。
Along the way, he was feted by a Japanese empress and had an audience with the king of Spain. He also kept a travel diary, noting in stark, often racist terms his impressions of the people he encountered on stops in Hong Kong and Singapore, China, Japan, India and Palestine.
沿途，他得到了日本皇后的款待，谒见了西班牙国王。他还写了一本旅行日记，使用了时有歧视的极端词汇记下了他对停留香港、新加坡、中国、日本、印度和巴勒斯坦时所见之人的印象。
The personal writings do not only reveal the musings of a man grappling with a jolt to his view of the world. They also expose “Einstein’s stereotyping of members of various nations and raise questions about his attitudes on race,” according to Princeton University Press, which has published the first full English-language edition.
根据出版了首部英文完整版的普林斯顿大学出版社(Princeton University Press)，这样私人的文字不仅揭露了一个人的世界观受到震撼时会如何思索应对，还暴露出了“爱因斯坦对不同国家民众的成见，并让人对他的种族态度产生质疑”。
The first volume in a planned series — his writings were previously available in German — is now available under the title “The Travel Diaries of Albert Einstein.” It complicates the portrait of a man often described as the most brilliant physicist of the modern era.
此前，他的作品只有德文版本。现在，在规划的系列中已出版了第一册题为《The Travel Diaries of Albert Einstein》（阿尔伯特·爱因斯坦的旅行日记）的英文版本。这位常被誉为现代最杰出物理学家的人物的形象，由此显得复杂起来。
Einstein was a German-born Jewish scientist who was targeted by the Nazis and became known as an advocate for human rights. He once said in an interview, “Being a Jew myself, perhaps I can understand and empathize with how black people feel as victims of discrimination.”
爱因斯坦是一名出生于德国的犹太科学家，曾遭纳粹迫害，后成为知名的人权倡导者。他曾在一次采访中说，“黑人作为被歧视者的处境，我作为一名犹太人或许是可以理解的，并且感同身受。”
But in his private writings on that journey from October 1922 to March 1923, “other peoples are portrayed as being biologically inferior, a clear hallmark of racism,” wrote Ze’ev Rosenkranz, assistant director of the Einstein Papers Project at the California Institute of Technology and the editor of the book.
“I think a lot of comments strike us as pretty unpleasant — what he says about the Chinese in particular,” he also told The Guardian. “They’re kind of in contrast to the public image of the great humanitarian icon. I think it’s quite a shock to read those and contrast them with his more public statements,” he added.
“我想，很多言论都会让我们感到十分不快——尤其是他对中国人的评论，”他还告诉《卫报》(The Guardian)说。“这似乎与他作为伟大人道主义楷模的公众形象形成了反差。将本书与他较公开的言论对比，我觉得是十分惊人的，”他补充说。
When Einstein set out on his journey, he was in his 40s, already renowned for his work on the photoelectric effect and on relativity, and developing a second reputation as a progressive public figure.
爱因斯坦开始这段旅程时已经40多岁了，已经因为有关光电效应和相对论的著作闻名，此外，还在树立他作为一名进步人士的另一种名声。
The travel diaries, however, lay bare a different side of a remarkable mind.
但是，这本旅行日记将这个非凡思想者的另外一面展现无余。
In Hong Kong
在香港
• He expresses sympathy for the “stricken people, men and women, who beat stones daily and must heave them for 5 cents a day.” He adds, “The Chinese are severely punished for the fecundity by the insensitive economic machine.”
• 他对“劳苦众生——这些每天为了挣5分钱敲打、搬运石头的男男女女”表达了同情。他还说，“中国人正因为他们的生育能力而受到无情经济机器的严酷处罚。”
• He quotes Portuguese teachers who say, “The Chinese are incapable of being trained to think logically and that they specifically have no talent for mathematics.”
• 他引用葡萄牙语老师的话说：“没法儿培训中国人进行逻辑思考，他们特别没有数学天赋。”
• He adds: “I noticed how little difference there is between men and women; I don’t understand what kind of fatal attraction Chinese women possess which enthralls the corresponding men to such an extent that they are incapable of defending themselves against the formidable blessing of offspring.”
• 他还写道：“我发现这里的男人和女人几乎没什么差别，我不明白中国女性有什么致命吸引力，能让中国男性如此着迷，以至于他们无力抵抗繁衍后代的强大力量。”
Around Mainland China
在中国大陆各地
• He writes of observing “industrious, filthy, obtuse people.”
• 他写道，他看到了“勤劳、肮脏、迟钝的人”。
• “Chinese don’t sit on benches while eating but squat like Europeans do when they relieve themselves out in the leafy woods. All this occurs quietly and demurely. Even the children are spiritless and look obtuse.”
• “中国人吃饭时不坐在长凳上，而是像欧洲人在茂密的树林里大小便时那样蹲着。一切都安静、肃穆。连孩子也无精打采，看起来很迟钝。”
• “It would be a pity if these Chinese supplant all other races. For the likes of us, the mere thought is unspeakably dreary.”
• “如果中国人取代所有其他种族，那就太遗憾了。对我们这样的人来说，光是这样想想，就觉得特别沮丧。”
In Shanghai
在上海
• A Chinese funeral is described as “barbaric for our taste,” the streets “swarming with pedestrians.”
• 中国的葬礼“在我们看来很野蛮”，街上“挤满了行人”。
• “In the air there is a stench of never-ending manifold variety.”
• “空气中永远弥漫着各种恶臭。”
• “Even those reduced to working like horses never give the impression of conscious suffering. A peculiar herd-like nation,” he writes, “often more like automatons than people.”
• “就连那些沦落到像马一样工作的人似乎也没有意识到自己的痛苦。特别像畜群的民族，”他写道，“他们往往更像机器人，而不像人。”
In Japan
在日本
• “Japanese unostentatious, decent, altogether very appealing,” Einstein writes, adopting a more flattering tone, though in some instances it veers into eugenic territory.
• “日本人朴实、得体，总的来说很有吸引力，”爱因斯坦写道。他采用了一种更欣赏的口吻，尽管在某些情况下，带有人种改良的色彩。
• “Pure souls as nowhere else among people. One has to love and admire this country.”
• “这里的人有着其他地方的人所没有的纯净灵魂。这个国家值得喜爱和钦佩。”
• “Intellectual needs of this nation seem to be weaker than their artistic ones — natural disposition?”
• “这个国家对智识的需求似乎没有对艺术的需求强烈——天生的性情？”
While many may insist on dismissing the diary entries as merely reflecting the attitudes of the era, Mr. Rosenkranz told The Guardian, the xenophobia and prejudice they revealed had been far from universal. “That’s usually the reaction I get: ‘We have to understand, he was of the zeitgeist, part of the time,’” he said. “But I think I tried here and there to give a broader context. There were other views out there, more tolerant views.”
罗森克兰茨在接受《卫报》采访时表示，尽管许多人可能坚持认为，这些日记仅仅反映了那个时代的态度，但它们暴露的仇外情绪和偏见远非普遍。“我得到的反应通常是这样的：‘我们必须明白，他是时代思潮的一部分，是那个时代的一部分，’”他说。“但我在想，我尽力四处寻找到了更广阔的背景。当时还有其他更宽容的观点。”
In China, however, many social media users seemed willing to give Einstein the benefit of the doubt, or even to agree with him.
不过，在中国，许多社交媒体用户似乎更愿意把爱因斯坦往好处想，甚至同意他的观点。
“That was the impression China gave to the world back then,” wrote one user of Weibo, a Twitter-like social network. “If it were now, Einstein wouldn’t say such things.”
“那时的中国人，给世界就是这样的印象，”一位微博（类似Twitter的社交网络）用户写道。“要是现在，爱因斯坦也不会说这样的话。”
“Diaries are extension of private thought, and there’s no sin in thought,” a Weibo user said. “No matter what he thinks, as long as he doesn’t speak or act in a racist way, then you cannot implicate him. Not to mention the racial climate back then and the limitations of his own youth.”
“私人日记是个人思想的延伸，思想是无罪的，”一位微博用户写道，“无论他怎么想的，只要没有种族歧视的行为和言论，就不能推及有罪，更不要说当时的历史环境和他年轻时的个人局限了。”
A few pushed back. “With what you’re saying, you’re acknowledging Einstein’s racism toward the Chinese and making excuses for him,” one person wrote in a blog post.
也有些人进行了反驳。“你这么说等于你已经承认爱因斯坦歧视了中国人，现在用别的理由找补呢，”有个人在自己的博客中写道。
Einstein’s shifting views may be most powerfully illustrated by the way he put his scientific fame at the service of the American civil rights movement. According to Smithsonian Magazine, in 1931 he joined a committee to protest the injustice of the Scottsboro Boys trial in Alabama, in which nine African-American youths were falsely accused of raping two white women.
爱因斯坦观点的转变可能最有力地反映在他利用自己的科学声誉为美国的民权运动服务。据《史密森杂志》(Smithsonian Magazine)称，1931年，他加入了一个委员会，抗议亚拉巴马州斯科茨伯勒男孩案(Scottsboro Boys)的不公正审判。在该案中，有九名非裔美国青年被错误地指控强奸了两名白人女性。
And in a 1946 commencement speech at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, he declared: “There is separation of colored people from white people in the United States. It is a disease of white people. I do not intend to be quiet about it.”
1946年，爱因斯坦在宾夕法尼亚州林肯大学(Lincoln University)的毕业典礼上发表演讲时称：“在美国，有色人种和白人是隔离的。这是白人的一种病。我不打算对此保持沉默。”
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