Places and People
鄉土與人
Where you are dropped, as the saying is, is who you are, at least in a certain limited sense. If you are dropped in Bitlis but are soon taken to New York, Bitlis is less who you are than New York is. But the place you knew first is at least a large part of who you are. Places make people. They very definitely do, almost physically. Places procreate. They are part of the human procreation process. There are many men and women who wouldn’t think of engaging in the procreative act in certain places of the world, and there are other places in which nothing seems more right and pleasant. There are places that are all business, and places that are all fun and frolic, and still other places that are all light and song and the senses and love.
正如古語所言，你出生的地方將會為你打上烙印，至少在某種有限的意義上是這樣的。如果你出生在比特里斯，之後又遷去了紐約，那麼你可以更多地成為紐約人而不是比特里斯人。但是你第一次結識的那個地方至少在很大程度上決定了你會成為什麼樣的人。地域可以造就人。它們確實有這樣的功能，大多是形體上的。環境可以養育人。它們是人類繁育過程的一部分。在世界上的某些地方，那裡許多的男男女女都不想參與到後代的生育中來；也有一些地方，在那裡，沒有什麼讓人覺得更加舒適與愜意。有些地方遍佈焦慮，有些地方充滿歡樂與嬉戲，也有些地方洋溢著歡樂與歌聲，盪漾著理智與熱情。
After the World, after being anywhere at all, my place was Fresno, and as far as I am concerned it was the very best possible place for me to be----and for this reason: that’s where I was dropped. The minute we met, that was it. We belonged to each other. Forever, It was a fact.
在我來到這個世界，去過其他地方之後，我發現，最適合我的地方是弗雷斯諾------因為我出生在那裡------這是在我和它相遇的那一刻就註定好的。我們屬於彼此，永遠屬於。我出生在弗雷斯諾，而不是出生在比特里斯，馬賽，倫敦，紐約或其他的地方，這是事實。
I was born there. I wasn’t born in Bitils, Marseilles, London, New York, or anywhere else. I was born in Fresno. It was my place. I loved it. I hated it. But had I been born in Paris, I would have loved Paris, and I would have hated it. Fresno had great early appeal for me. It had a fine smell of dust, of the desert, of rocks baking in the sun, of sand with cactus growing out of it, of water flowing in rivers and ditches, of leaf and blossom and fruit. It also had all of the smells of rot, decay, and ferment: the great heaps of grape pulp and skin at the wineries sent a smell all through the town if there was a little wind stirring. There were also the magnificent smells in the house in which one did one’s early time: the very walls themselves, the people who lived in the house, and the things they cooked or baked: Armenian bread, for instance, in the three popular forms prepared by the Saroyan family: the round, wafer-thin flat bread, the oval loaf bread only an inch or two thick, and the diamond-shaped little loaves of butter bread. There was also always the smell of various green things, or growing things----parsley, mint, basil, onions, bell peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers, and so on and so forth.
弗雷斯諾是我的出生地，那裡是我的歸宿。我愛它，我也恨它。但即使我出生在巴黎，也會對巴黎既愛又恨。弗雷斯諾深深地吸引著我：那裡有泥土的清香，沙漠的廣袤，有烈日烘烤下的岩石的炙熱，有長出了仙人掌的沙土地的粗糙，有奔騰在小溪水渠中的浪花的歡愉，有搭建成幾何形框架的果園和葡萄園的綠蔭，還有落葉，花蕾和果實的馨香。當然，那裡也有腐爛、變質、發酵的氣息：微風吹過， 釀酒廠旁邊的一堆堆果肉和果皮散發出的臭味便會飄滿全鎮。那裡也有從早年修建的房屋裡散發出的溫馨的氣息：自家築起的牆壁、住在屋裡的人們、還有他們烹飪烘烤的食物：比如薩洛陽家族準備的三種流行的亞美尼亞麵包：圓形薄脆麵包、只有一兩寸厚的橢圓形麵包、方片形的黃油小麵包。那裡也總是有各種綠色植物，或著說是正在茁壯生長的植物的氣息------歐芹，薄荷，羅勒，洋蔥，青椒，番茄，黃瓜等等。
All of these things were a part of the place, and very quickly a part of me. Fresno was my place, and my family was my place
所有的這些事物都是弗雷斯諾的一部分，也正是我的一部分。弗雷斯諾就是我的家，而我的家庭就在弗雷斯諾。
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