单身男女租个伴侣回家过年

导读：年关将至，租友风潮(rent a girlfriend)再度盛行。单身男女纷纷网上发帖高薪租赁异性朋友，带回家应付盼儿女成家心切的父母们。就让我们一起看看这些应对春节的难关的奇招吧！
 
Money can`t buy you love, but it can let you rent a girlfriend to take home for Chinese New Year.
虽然金钱买不到爱情，但你可以租个女友回家过年。

It seems modern Chinese parents still make old-world demands on their adult offspring to hurry up and marry and produce offspring. The pressure is greater in rural areas than it is in urban cities.
当今的中国父母似乎仍会将传统观念加在下一代身上，催促他们早点结婚生子。而在农村地区，这一压力要往往大于城市。

So, the pressure is on to arrive home for the holiday with a girlfriend in tow. I say girlfriend because, statistically, marriageable-age men now outnumber women of that age here.
所以，当务之急就是要带个女朋友回家过节。我之所以用“女朋友”这个词，是因为，据统计，适婚男性的数量远远超过了适婚女性的数量。

For much of the past decade, the media each year has reported on who rents girlfriends, how much it costs to rent a girlfriend and how they carry off their holiday-only charades in small towns and big cities across the country.
在过去的十多年里，媒体每年都会针对那些租用女友的人及其费用做大幅报道，还会追踪身在国内各地的他们是如何在重重伪装下欢度节日的。

There was the story about the fake girlfriend who refused to return the money from "red envelope" gifts handed out at a Chinese New Year party in Zhengzhou. The police broke up their argument and persuaded the couple to split the money.
曾经有过这样一则事例，郑州市的一名假冒女友因拒绝交出新年聚会上获得的红包而引起纠纷。最终警方调解并说服他们平分钱财。

There was the story about an engineer in Shanghai who rented a girlfriend, but whose parents found out at the family reunion. There was the story from Changsha about a "girlfriend" who kept forgetting her lines, to the consternation of the young man who had hired her and trained her what to say to his parents.
另一则故事讲的是，上海某工程师租女友回家，可是男方父母却在家庭聚会中发现破绽。还有一则事例发生在长沙，冒牌女友竟忘了男生教她应付父母的话，令这位年轻雇主一阵错愕。

One fellow told the media he attracted 400 applicants in three days when he advertised on his Internet blog for a girl to take home to Xuzhou. Daily pay rates, according to a variety of media reports, can range from 80 yuan to 3,000 yuan.
一位读者向媒体透露，自己曾在网络博客上发帖招女友回徐州老家，三天内就吸引了400名申请者。据各大媒体报道称，这一租赁的日收入从800到3000元不等。

There are professional men in their 20s and 30s who tell the media they`re too busy to find a real girlfriend, or who can`t afford a girlfriend because they just graduated from college. Other young men in search of a fake girlfriend tell the media they just broke up with their real girlfriend and haven`t found a replacement in time, or that their real girlfriends refused to go home with them to meet the parents. One young man told the media he`s gay, but isn`t ready to tell his family yet.
这些男性雇主大都为20—30岁之间的职业精英，他们或是太忙，没有时间在现实生活中找寻正牌女友；或是认为自己刚刚毕业，无法负担一个女友。而另外一些需求冒牌女友的年轻人则告诉媒体，他们刚刚和正牌女友分手，一时之间找不到合适的人来代替，又或是他们的正牌女友拒绝一起回家见家长。其中也有一位年轻人表示自己是同性恋，但是还不准备告知家人。

If I were a Chinese mom I might say, "Welcome home, dear. Is this your real girlfriend or your fake girlfriend" when your son arrives home with a good-looking girlfriend of just the right age who has the perfect answers for all the anticipated questions.
如果你儿子带女朋友回家，女孩长相漂亮且年龄相仿，并且能完美地回答可以预料到的所有问题，换做我是这位中国母亲的话，我就会说：“亲爱的，欢迎回家。这位女孩是正牌还是冒牌？”

If I were a Chinese mother, I might say, "Dear, I`d like a 50-50 share of the fee you paid your fake girlfriend, because I`m the one who also has to pretend she`s real in front of your father, uncles and cousins."
如果我是一名中国母亲，我会问：“儿子，你付给她的酬金是不是也要分我一半？因为我也要在你父亲、叔叔以及表兄妹面前假装她是你的正牌女友。”

I`m a mom, too, and I suspect that our lie-detector skills are universal. We start by learning what our babies` faces look like when they need to burp. After more than 20 or 30 years of practice, most of us have come to know what our children`s faces look like when they tell a lie.
同样身为母亲，我想我们的测谎技巧大同小异。从孩子刚刚会打饱嗝时起，我们便开始观察他们的面部表情。经过了二三十年的实践，大多数母亲都渐渐懂得看破孩子说谎时的表情。

But then, there`s dad. This is the 21st century, and the whole world has changed. No one expects young people in a tough global economy with a high cost of living to find a mate and get married right away.
但爸爸们就另当别论了。当下是二十一世纪，整个世界都发生着变化。世界经济发展受阻，生活成本居高不下，在这样的背景下没有人指望年轻人能够迅速找到对象并结婚。

Isn`t it time to tell fathers the truth about fake girlfriends and mothers who pretend to believe it? I suspect I might say, "No, not this year."
那到底要不要向那些信以为真的爸爸们以及假装毫不知情的妈妈们坦白，告诉他们事实的真相？我想如果换做是我，我可能会说：“不，今年还不是时候。”

【词汇解释】

CASIO辞海拾贝
 
offspring 子孙
 
in tow 一起
 
outnumber 数目超过
 
red envelope 红包，压岁钱
 
lines 台词
 
consternation 惊慌失措
 
gay 同性恋
 
lie-detector 测谎
 
burp 打嗝
 
mate 配偶