Unit 4_Different Lands,Different Friendships

Unit Four different lands different friendships

第四课国家不同，友谊相异

1．Few Americans stay put for a lifetime. We move from a town to city to suburb, from high school to college in a different state, from a job in one region to a better job elsewhere, from the home where we raise our children to the home where we plan to live in retirement. With each move we are forever making new friends, who become part of our new life at that time.

2．For many of us the summer is special time for forming new friendships. Today millions of Americans vacation abroad, and they go not only to see new sights but also—in those place where they do not feel too strange–with the hope of meeting new people. No one really expects a vacation trip to produce a close friend. But surely the beginning of a friendship is possible. Surely in every country people value friendship.

3．They do. The difficulty when strangers from two countries meet is not a lack of appreciation of friendship, but different expectations about what constitutes friendship and how it comes into being. In those European countries that Americans are most likely to visit, friendship is quite sharply distinguished from other, more casual relations, and it differently related to family life. For a Frenchman, a German or an Englishman friend is usually more particularized and carries a heavier burden of commitment.

4．But as we use the word ―friend‖ can be applied to a wide range of relationships—to someone one has known for a few weeks in a new place, to a close business associate, to a childhood playmate, to a man or woman, to a trusted confidant. There are real differences among these relations for Americans－a friendship may be superficial, casual, situational or deep and enduring. But to a European, who sees only our surface behavior, the differences are not clear.

5．As they see it, people known and accepted temporarily, casually, flow in and out of Americans’ homes with little ceremony and often with little personal commitment. They may be parents of the children’s friends, house guests of neighbors, members of a committee, business associates from another town or even another country. Coming as a guest in to an American home, the European visitor finds no visible landmarks. The atmosphere is relaxed. Most people, old and young, are called by their first name.

6．Who, then, is a friend?

7．Even a simple translation from one language to another is difficult. ―You see,‖a Frenchman explains, ―if I were to say to you in F rance, ―this is my good friend,‖ that person would not be as close to me as some one about whom I only said, ―this is my friend.‖ Anyone about whom I have to say more is really less.‖

8．In France, as in many European countries, friends generally are

of the same sex, and friendship is seen as basically a relationship between men. French women laugh at the idea that women can’t be friends, but they also admit some times that for women it is a different thing. And many French people doubt the possibility if a friendship between a man and a woman. There is also the kind of relationship within a group—men and women who have worked together foe a long time, who may be very close, sharing great loyalty and warmth of feeling. They may call one another copains —a word that in English becomes ―friends‖ but has more the feeling of ―pals ‖ or ―buddies‖. In French eyes this is not friendship, although two members of such a group may well be friends.

9．For the French, friendship is a one-to-one relationship that demands a keen awareness of the other person’s, temperament and particular interests. A friend is someone who draws out your own best qualities, with whom you sparkle and become more of whatever the friendship draws upon. Your political philosophy assumes mire depth, appreciation of a play becomes sharper, taste in food or wine is accentuated and enjoyment of a sport is intensified.

10．And French friendships are compartmentalized. A man may play chess with a friend for thirty years without knowing his political opinions, or he may talk politics with him for as long a time without knowing about his personal life. Different friends fill different niches in each person’s life. These friendships are not made part of family life. A

friend is not expected to spend evenings being nice to children or courteous to a deaf grandmother. These duties, also serious and enjoined, are primarily for relatives. Men who are friends may meet in a café. Intellectual friends may meet in larger groups for evenings of conversation. Working people may meet at the little bistro where they drink and talk, far from the family. Marriage does not affect such friendships; wives do not have to be taken into account.

11．In the past in France, friendships of this kind seldom were open to any but intellectual women. Since most women’s lives centered on their homes, their warmest relations with other women often went back to their girlhood. The special relationship of friendships is based on what the French value most-on the mind, on compatibility of outlook, on vivid awareness of some chosen area of life.

12．Friendship heightens the sense of each person’s individuality. Other relationships commanding great loyalty and devotion have a different meaning. In World War II the first resistance groups formed in Paris were built on the foundation of les copains. But significantly, as time went on these little groups of people, whose lives rested in one another’s hands, called themselves ―families‖. Where each had a total responsibility for all, it was kinship ties that provided the model. And even today such ties, crossing every line of class and personal interest, remain binding on the survivors of these small, secret bands.

13．In Germany, in contrast with France, friendship is much more articulately a matter of feeling. Adolescents, boys and girls, form deeply sentimental attachments, walk and talk together—not so much to polish their wits as to share their hopes and fears and dreams, to form a common front against the world of school and family and to join in a kind of mutual discovery of each other’s and their own inner life. Within the family, the closest relationship over a lifetime is between brothers and sisters. Outside the family, men and women find in their closest friends of the same sex the devotion of a sister, the loyalty of a brother. Appropriately, in Germany friends usually are brought into the family. Children call their father’s and their mother’s friends ―uncles‖and ―aunts‖. Between French friends, who have chosen each other for the congeniality of their point of view, lively disagreement and sharpness of argument are the breath of life. But for Germans, whose friendships are based on mutuality of feeling, deep disagreement on any subject that matters to both is regarded as a tragedy. Like ties of kinship, ties of friendship are meant to be irrevocably binding. Young Germans who come to the United Sates have great difficulty in establishing such friendships with Americans. We view friendship mote tentatively, subject to changes in intensity as people move, change their jobs, marry, or discover new interests.

14．English friendships follow still a different pattern. Their basis

is shared activity. Activities at different staged of life may be of very different kinds—discovering a common interest in school, serving together in the armed forces, taking part in a foreign mission, staying in the same country house during a crisis. In the midst of the activity, whatever it maybe, people fall into step—some times two men or two women, sometimes two couples, sometimes three people—and find that they walk or play a game or tell stories or serve on a tiresome and exacting committee with the same easy anticipation of what each will do day by day or in some critical situation. Americans who have mad English friends comment that, even years latter, ―you can take up just where you left off.‖ Meeting after a long interval, friends are like a couple who begin to dance again when the orchestra strikes up after a pause. English friendships are formed outside the family circle, but they are not, as in Germany, contrapuntal to the family. And a break in an English friendship comes not necessarily as a result of some irreconcilable difference of viewpoint or feeling but instead as a result of misjudgment, where one friend seriously misjudges how the other will think or feel or act, so that suddenly they are out of step.

15．What, then, is friendship? Looking at these different styles, including our own, each of which is related to a whole way of life, are there common kinship, invokes freedom of choice. A friend is someone who chooses and is chosen. Related to this is the sense each friend gives

the other of being a special individual, on whatever grounds this recognition is based. And between friends there is inevitably a kind of equality of give-and-take. These similarities make the bridge between societies possible, and the American’s characteristic openness to different styles of relationship makes it possible for him to find new friends abroad with whom he feels at home.

美国人很少一辈子呆在一个地方的。我们从乡村搬到城市再搬到郊区，从高中到别的州上大学，从一个地方的工作到其它地方的一个更好的工作，从我们抚养孩子的家到我们退休时计划生活的家。每一次的搬迁我们都不断地交新朋友，新朋友变成我们在那段时间新生活的一部分。

对我们大多数人来说，夏天是我们建立新友谊的特别时期。如今，数以百万的美国人出国旅游，他们不仅是去看风景而且——在这些地方他们并不感觉陌生——带着希望去认识新朋友。没有人真的期望一次假期旅行能够结交到亲密的朋友。但是展开新的一份友谊是可能的。当然任何国家的人们都重视友谊。

的确如此。当来自两个国家的人相遇，困难的不是缺乏对友谊的欣赏，而是对于组成友谊的内容以及如何形成友谊的期望不同。在这些美国人最可能去旅游的欧洲国家，友谊和其他关系--更随意的关系是决然不同,和家庭关系也不一样。对于法国人，德国人或者英国人来说，友谊常常更具体并且所承担的责任更重。

但是当我们使用“朋友”这个单词时，它可以适用于很广的关系范围——适用于一个新地方刚刚认识几周的某个人，适用于一个亲密的商业伙伴，适用于一个孩童时期的玩伴，适用于男人或女人，适用于一个信任的朋友。对美国人来说，这些关系明显不同——友谊可能是表面的，随意的，时过境迁的，深厚和持久的。但是对于欧洲人来说，他们看到的只是我们表面的行为，不同友谊之前的区别并不明显。

正如他们所看到的那样，临时认识或者偶然相识的人随便进进出出美国的家庭，并且几乎不带什么责任。他们有可能是孩子朋友的父母，邻居家的客人，委员会的成员，来自别的乡镇或国家的商业伙伴。作为客人进入美国家里，欧洲访客无法找到差别。这里的气氛放松的，大部分人，老的或者年轻的，都被直呼其名。

那么，谁是朋友？

从一种语言到另一种语言简单的翻译甚至都是困难的。“你看，”一个法国人解释道，“如果我在法国对你说，‘这是我的好朋友，’那个人可能并不是和我很亲密，可能还不如我只是说，‘这是我的朋友’的那个人。我不得不多说的人并不是真的那么亲密。”

在法国，和许多欧洲国家一样，朋友通常是同性别的，且友谊基本上被看做是男人之间的关系。虽然法国女性对关于女人和女人不能成为朋友的观点嗤之以鼻，但是她们也承认有时候友谊对于女人来说是另外一回事。并且一些法国人怀疑男人和女人之间友谊的可能性。在一个群体中也有这样的关系——男人和女人

一起工作很长时间，他们可能非常密切，分享着巨大的忠诚和温暖的情感。他们能称呼其搭档——这个词在英文中也译成“朋友”但是有更多“伙伴”和“同伴”的感觉。在法国人看来这不是友谊，虽然两个人在这样的一个单位可能会成为朋友。

对于法国人来讲，友情是一种一对一的关系，要求一方能清楚地认识到另一方的才智、性情以及特别的兴趣爱好。朋友能够激发你最好的品性，友谊能使你变得才华横溢,成为更有才能的人。你的政治哲学观点更有深度，对戏剧的鉴赏变得更深刻，对食物和酒的品味得到升华，且对运动的爱好更为强烈。

法国人的友谊是分类的，一个人和朋友玩了近三十年的国际象棋却并不知道他的政治观点，或者他和他的朋友讨论政治很长时间却并不知道他的个人生活。在每个人的生活中，不同的朋友填补了不同的位置。这些友谊并不是家庭生活的组成部分。法国人不会期盼朋友花费傍晚时光去友好的对待孩子和谦恭有礼的对待一个耳聋的祖母。这些职责，也很重要,需要尽责,但是主要应该由亲戚来承担（enjoined要求）。男性朋友可能在咖啡馆聚会。知识分子的朋友可能在晚间通过大型的聚会来交谈。工友可能在小酒吧聚会，他们在那里喝酒和聊天，远离家庭。婚姻并不影响友谊，妻子们并不会被考虑进来。

在过去的法国，这样的友谊很少包括女性，除非是知识女性。因为许多女人的生活以她们的家庭为中心，她们和其他女人最亲密的关系常常是追溯她们的少女时代。友谊这种特殊关系是建立在法国人最珍视的东西上--思想上，观点相容，对生活中的某些特定方面有共同的兴趣。

友谊增强了每个人要有个性的意识。其他的关系需要伟大的忠诚和奉献，这种关系具有不同的含义）。第二次世界大战，在巴黎形成的第一批抵抗组织是建立在les copains的基础上。值得注意的是，随着时间的流逝，这些人的小团体，他们称自己的这种组织为‖家庭‖，组织中每个人的生命掌握在组织中其他人的手上，这个抵抗组织的成员都要对其他成员付全部责任，这样一种关系就象一个家庭的血缘关系模式。时至今日，在这些神秘组织的幸存者中这种关系依然将他们维系在一起，无论他们现在是否属于不同的社会阶层，是否有不同的兴趣爱好――依然一样。

德国和法国不同，友谊更多是一种明确的感情。青少年，男孩和女孩，产生了深深的爱慕之情，一起散步，聊天——其目的并不是为了增加自己的智慧，而是为了分享彼此的愿望、忧虑与梦想，去形成一个共同的阵线去抵抗学校和家庭以及一道去探索自己和彼此的内心世界。在家庭内部，一生中最亲密的关系存在于兄弟姐妹之间。在家庭以外，男人和女人在同性间最亲密的朋友身上发现如姐妹般的奉献，如兄弟般的忠诚。在德国，朋友常常被带入家庭，这种做法是适当的。孩子们叫他们爸爸和妈妈的朋友为“叔叔”和“阿姨”。在法国朋友之间，他们选择选择朋友是要么因为观点一致，要么因为分歧鲜明和要么因为观点相左.法国人认为这些对于友谊而言至关重要。但对于德国人来说，他们的友谊是基于一个共同的感受，对双方都很重要的话题上的深层的分歧被看做是一个悲剧。就如亲情的纽带，友谊的纽带也意味着不可拆散。刚来到美国的年轻德国人和美国人建立这样的友谊是非常困难的。我们认为友谊更为暂时性，会随着人们搬家，更换工作，结婚或发现新的兴趣而变淡。

英国友谊遵循另外一个不同的模式。他们友谊的基础是共享活动。在人生的不同阶段有不同种类的活动——在学校发现一个共同的兴趣，在武装部队一起

尽职，参与一个外交任务，在危机中待在同一个乡村。无论是在何种活动中，人们都步调一致——有时候两男或两女，有时候两对夫妇，有时候三个人——可以发现他们或散步或玩一个游戏或讲故事或在一个无聊且严格的委员会任职，无论是在平淡的時刻还是在嚴峻的时刻,他们做什么都是很容易预料的。交过英国朋友的美国人对英国朋友是这样评论的，“即使多年以后，你在哪中断的友谊都可以在哪拣起。”朋友们相隔多年后再见面，就象在乐队停顿一会儿开始演奏时又开始起舞的一对舞伴。英国人的友谊建立在家庭的圈子之外，但他们既不像德国人和家庭相互联系，也不像法国人和家庭分隔开来。导致英国人友谊破裂的原因不是观点或是情感不可调和的矛盾，而是错误判断，在一方严重的错误判断对方的想法、感觉或是行为时他们的友谊突然就出现了不协调。

那么，什么是友谊呢？看看这些不同的类型，包括我们自己，每一种都和整个的生活方式有关，有共同的元素吗？有这样一种认识，和血缘关系相比，友谊有自由选择的余地。朋友是在选择他人时也被他人选择。与此相关的是这样一种认识,即每个朋友都使对方觉得他非同一般，不管这种认识的依据是什么。同时朋友之间等同的互谅互让是不可缺少的。这种相似之处使得各个地区的沟通成为可能，正是美国人所具有的对不同关系所具有的特性的包容性，使得他们在国外也能交到与之相处自在的新朋友。