原文：Fear Of Dragons 余华

发表：2011年10月7

本文由独立译者”kinglee”提供初译，”译者”的志愿者为本文作了二次校对

　　北京――曾闻，有叶公者，好龙成癖，钩以写龙，凿以写龙，屋室雕文以写龙。于是天龙闻而下之，窥头于牖，施尾于堂。叶公见之，弃而还走。失其魂魄，五色无主。

　　当我观察中国的”辛亥百年”纪念活动时，不由得想起了这个”叶公好龙”的故事。辛亥革命是指1911年爆发的一系列起义。它最终颠覆了清廷，一举建立起了民主共和制；这次纪念活动已于本周一结束。政府喜欢搞这种盛大庆典，前提是这必须由它发起，并由它掌控。而一旦任何真实状况浮出水面，哪怕只显出了丝毫端倪，它就恐慌了。

　　结果，庆祝活动与其说展现了1911年的辛亥革命，不如说表现出了北京政府如何惧怕改变。被阉割的纪念试图分散人们的视线，而闭口不谈辛亥革命带来的脱胎换骨的影响。

　　“中山装”的回归便是一个例子――在西方更多的人称之为”毛式夹克”；而这种服装实则由辛亥革命的领袖孙中山先生设计。不过这件特殊的中山装有14英尺高，扣子就有5英寸之巨。时值百年纪念，这套中山装在全国各地巡展；同时这套衣服也会递交给吉尼斯世界纪录大全，供其收录。另一个例子是郑州一尊高达80英尺的石雕，雕刻的是孙中山的妻子宋庆龄。其基座就占了8000平方英尺的面积，会被用来作为可容纳600人开会的会议大厅。

　　还有纽约联合国总部的图片展，名为”中国在发展，1911-2011”。本次展览声称反映了中国在过去100年的发展轨迹，却没有”大跃进”，没有”文化大革命”，没有”田俺们事件”。

　　也许，我们不应感到意外。中国的历史从未对民主主动敞开过大门。正如辛亥革命表明的那样，民主只有在砸开了大门之后才得以进入中国。知识界的启蒙接踵而至。1912到1927年也许打上了20世纪中国最自由时代的烙印。在那属于社会运动和言的论自的由的时代，百花齐放的政党和组织在社会中各展身手。而今天，所谓的八个”民主”党派，不过是共产党的帮衬而已。

　　早期的民国时代的自由没能持续多久。在襁褓之时，它们便遭扼杀。随着孙中山的去逝，其主张的指导纲领和分权思想也随之而去。在1911年，中国甩掉了”家天下”的帽子。但是，经历了日本侵华战争和内战之后，中国又在1949年披上了”党的天下”的新装。

　　随着百年纪念的临近，许多中国人不禁遥想，假若那处于萌芽期的民的主得以生根发芽，时至今日，中国又会是一副怎样的景象呢？回想晚清的腐败，还有辛亥前夜的紧张气氛，他们看见的仿佛是今日中国的腐败和不平等的镜像。

　　更有甚者，在网上发出这样大胆的评论：”值此百年纪念之际，我们期待另一次彻底改变现状的革命。”北京政府意识到了危险，加之近些年来一系列社会冲突不断出现，它于是采取了强力措施避免任何有关民主或革命的讨论，不论涉及到的是席卷中东的自的由浪潮，还是关于中国自身的评论。当今年春天，在北京召开”两会”的时候，政府增强了警力部署，警察们昼夜不停地在十字路口和主要商业大街巡逻。政府不惜财力，动员了75万人进行社区监视活动。

　　19世纪末”改良派”的核心人物梁启超曾经说过，清廷防卫动乱的措施绝对比任何一个发达国家都高明。一个世纪过去了，中国政府依然是防范公众抗议方面的集大成者。所以，我们的官员只是在表面上纪念辛亥革命。他们声称庆祝的是1911年的辛亥革命，实则庆祝的是1949年中华人民共和国的成立。

　　在辛亥革命的诞生之地――武汉，警察得到指示，在8月27日到10月10日之间，要加强巡逻的力度。除了几千执行巡逻任务的官兵之外，100名武的警和200名配有冲锋枪的特的警也被分配了巡逻任务。二十五万个摄像头不分昼夜，24小时不停地监视着每一个角落――这些都在”为百年纪念创造和谐环境”的名义下发生。

　　我不怀疑叶公真的爱龙，只要它们仅仅是装饰而已。我也不怀疑我们的政府真的想纪念辛亥革命，只要这些颂词仅限于装饰，或不过是让屋内显得器宇不凡就好。

　　余华的最新作品《十个词汇里的中国》将于下月出版发行。此文由Allan Barr译自中文版。

翻译：

Fear of Dragons

By YU HUA        Published: October 7, 2011

BEIJING — Lord Ye, it is said, loved dragons so much that he had them carved on his wine vessels and personal accessories and even made them the theme of his interior decoration. One day a real dragon came down to check things out, pressing its nose up against Lord Ye’s window while its tail swished about outside. Lord Ye, scared out of his wits, turned around and fled.

I am reminded of the story as I observe the centennial of China’s 1911 revolution, the series of uprisings that brought down the Qing dynasty and established a democratic republic. The government loves the hoopla, which culminates Monday, as long as it can invent it and control it. But when the real thing shows any sign of approaching, it panics.

In the end, the celebration has revealed less about 1911 than about Beijing’s fear of change. Sanctioned commemorative displays tend to be showy distractions that avoid any reference to the transformative effects of the revolution.

One example is the return of the Zhongshan jacket — better known in the West as a “Mao jacket” but introduced by Sun Yat-sen, the hero of 1911. Only this one is 14-feet tall with buttons 5-inches wide. The jacket was designed for display all around the country in the centennial year and will be submitted to the Guinness Book of World Records. Another example is the 80-foot-high stone sculpture of Sun Yat-sen’s wife, Soong Ching-ling, in Zhengzhou. Its base, which covers an area of 8,000 square feet, is intended to serve as a conference hall that can accommodate 600 people.

Then there’s the photo exhibition at the United Nations headquarters in New York titled “China in Development 1911-2011.” The show claims to reflect the course of China’s development over the last 100 years — but there is no Great Leap Forward, no Cultural Revolution, no Tiananmen protests.

Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised. Chinese history has never opened its door to democracy. As 1911 demonstrated, democracy enters China only by smashing down the door. The years of intellectual ferment that followed, from 1912 to 1927, marked perhaps the period of greatest freedom in 20th-century China. In that era of social activism and freedom of speech, an immense variety of political parties and organizations played a role in society. Today, the eight so-called “democratic” parties are just helpmates to the Communist Party.

The freedoms of the early Republican period did not last. They were strangled in the cradle, and the guiding principles and separation of powers that Sun Yat-sen espoused perished with his passing. China removed its imperial autocrat’s hat in 1911, but after civil war and war with Japan, it donned the new costume of state dictatorship in 1949.

As the centennial approached, many Chinese people wondered out loud how things might be today if that infant democracy had been allowed to grow up. Thinking back to the corruption at the end of the Qing dynasty and the heightened tensions on the eve of the 1911 revolution, they saw a mirror image of the realities of China today, with its corruption and inequity.

Some went so far as to post such blunt statements on the Internet: “On the 100th anniversary, we await a revolution that will overturn the status quo.”

Realizing the danger, and rattled by a string of social conflicts in recent years, the Beijing government has clamped down on any discussion of democracy or revolution, whether it be references to the liberalizing wave sweeping the Middle East or comments about China itself. When the National People’s Congress and the National Political Consultative Conference met in Beijing this spring, police surveillance was elevated, with round-the-clock patrols at intersections and on major shopping streets. At great expense, three-quarters of a million people were mobilized in community-watch activities.

Liang Qichao, a key reform figure in the late-19th century, once said that the measures taken by the Qing government to guard against popular unrest were infinitely more elaborate than those of advanced countries. Over a hundred years later, China remains the leader in efforts to forestall popular protest.

So it is with only superficial gestures that our officials commemorate 1911. They claim to be celebrating 1911, but in fact they are hailing 1949, when the People’s Republic of China was proclaimed.

In Wuhan, the birthplace of the 1911 uprising, police were directed to reinforce their patrols between Aug. 27 and Oct. 10. Apart from the several thousand officers conducting patrols each day, 100 paramilitary police and 200 special police armed with submachine guns have been assigned to street duty. A quarter of a million surveillance cameras watch every corner 24 hours a day — all in the name of “creating a peaceful environment for the centennial.”

I have no doubt that Lord Ye loved dragons — so long as they were purely ornamental. Nor do I doubt that our government wants to commemorate the 1911 revolution — so long as the tributes are confined to decorative knickknacks, or to flights of fancy in interior design.

Yu Hua’s latest book, “China in Ten Words,” will be published next month. This article was translated from the Chinese by Allan Barr.