FT2013年度人物评选奖项得主 马云

The sound of 16,000 people chanting “Ali, Alibaba” fills the Yellow Dragon Stadium in Hangzhou, a city on China’s eastern coast. As the theme to The Lion King begins to blare over the sound system, a diminutive figure rises through the stage floor.
在华东城市杭州的黄龙体育馆，16000人有节奏地反复喊着“阿里，阿里巴巴”。接着，《狮子王》的主题曲在音响系统中响起，一个瘦小的身影从舞台中升了起来。

Dressed in leather and sporting a giant spiked Mohawk, black lipstick and a nose ring, Jack Ma begins to belt out an off-key rendition of Elton John’s “Can you Feel the Love Tonight” to his adoring employees.
马云(Jack Ma)身穿皮衣，戴着一顶巨大而有尖顶的莫西干式假发，涂着黑色唇膏并穿了一个鼻环。他拉开嗓门，有点走调地向崇拜他的员工们演唱埃尔顿•约翰(Elton John)的《今夜你能感觉到爱吗》(Can you Feel the Love Tonight)。

It had been 10 years since Mr Ma founded Alibaba, the internet company that made him a billionaire, and it was time to celebrate. Soon, it will be time to celebrate again: Alibaba, the world’s most successful ecommerce company, is preparing to sell shares in a global initial public offering that is expected to be valued at well over $100bn.
这是马云创立阿里巴巴10周年纪念会，这家互联网公司使他成为了亿万富翁，这是一个庆祝的时刻。不久，另一个值得庆祝的时刻又将到来：阿里巴巴这家全球最成功的电子商务公司正准备进行首次公开发行(IPO)，预计其市值将远超1000亿美元。

Mr Ma has been a cult figure in China for years. But he captured the attention of the world this year as excitement built around the impending IPO, which will let investors own a slice of the fastest-growing internet market on the planet.
多年来，马云在中国一直是受人崇拜的偶像人物。但在今年，随着市场对阿里巴巴即将进行的IPO越来越感兴趣，他也吸引了世界的关注。上市将让投资者有机会在全球增长最快的互联网市场持有股份。

Alibaba’s sales now exceed those of eBay and Amazon combined and make up about 2 per cent of China’s gross domestic product. Seventy per cent of all Chinese package deliveries come from Alibaba sales. Roughly 80 per cent of Chinese ecommerce transactions are conducted through Alibaba’s sites. And this is probably just the beginning, considering more than half of China is still offline. With 600m people using the internet and counting, China will soon overtake the US as the world’s biggest ecommerce market.
阿里巴巴的销售额如今超过了eBay和亚马逊(Amazon)之和，占到了中国国内生产总值(GDP)的约2%。中国所有的快递包裹中约有70%来自于阿里巴巴的销售。中国的电商交易中大约有80%是通过阿里巴巴的网站进行的。而这很可能只是一个开始，因为仍有一半以上的中国人不上网。鉴于中国网民人数已经达到6亿，而且还在不断增加，中国将在不久超越美国，成为全球最大的电商市场。

Mr Ma, godfather of China’s scrappy entrepreneurial spirit, is the FT’s 2013 Person of the Year because he personifies the Chinese internet – with all its potential and its contradictions.
身为中国斗志旺盛的企业家精神“教父”的马云，被英国《金融时报》评为2013年度人物，因为他是中国互联网的化身——体现了中国互联网的全部潜力和矛盾。

In a nation whose success has been built largely on business ideas developed elsewhere, Mr Ma is a true innovator. His contemporaries have mostly copied established business models to create “China’s Google”, “China’s Amazon” or “China’s Twitter”. But when Mr Ma started Alibaba in his apartment in 1999, this type of business-to-business ecommerce website did not exist.
在中国，创业成功大多依赖于借鉴海外发展起来的商业理念，但马云是一位真正的创新者。与他同时代的人，大多复制成熟的商业模式，创立“中国的谷歌(Google)”，“中国的亚马逊(Amazon)”以及“中国的推特(Twitter)”。但当马云1999年在自己的公寓里创立阿里巴巴时，企业对企业(B2B)电子商务网站还不存在。

Mr Ma is now setting his eyes on a new goal: shaking up Chinese finance. This has sent shockwaves through the staid, state-dominated financial sector and shows that his ambitions extend well beyond online retail.
马云现已将目光投向新的目标：撼动中国的金融业。这在古板的、公有制为主体的中国金融行业激起了轩然大波，并表明马云的雄心远远超出了在线零售业。

But there is another reason for choosing Mr Ma this year: his decision in May to step down as Alibaba’s chief executive at the age of 48 to devote himself to tackling some of China’s biggest problems – in particular its looming environmental disaster.
但将马云评为今年的年度人物还有另一个原因：今年5月，他决定在年届48岁之际卸任阿里巴巴首席执行官职务，转而投身于应对中国一些最大的问题——尤其是中国日益迫近的环境灾难。

He remains executive chairman of the company but his decision to focus less on the blind pursuit of riches and more on improving the state of the world reflects a profound shift in Chinese society – one that is being facilitated by the rise of the internet. After three decades of double-digit economic growth, the country’s growing and increasingly vocal middle class is no longer content with a myopic focus on GDP growth rates.
马云仍是阿里巴巴的执行董事长，但他决定将更少的精力用于盲目追求财富，而将更多精力用于改善世界面貌，这反映了中国社会的深刻转变——互联网的崛起正使这种转型变得更加容易。在经历了30年的两位数经济增长后，中国不断壮大且越来越愿意表达自身诉求的中产阶层不再满足于短视地关注于GDP增长率。

“In China, because of problems in water, air and food safety, in 10 or 20 years we will face a lot of health problems, like increased cancer. So that is one area where I will invest my money and time,” Mr Ma said in a telephone interview last week. “My second focus is people’s culture and education – if we don’t do this then young Chinese people will grow up with deep pockets but shallow minds.”
马云上周在接受电话采访时表示：“在中国，因为水源、空气质量以及食品安全等方面的问题，10至20年后我们将面临大量健康问题，例如癌症发病率上升。因此我将在这个领域投入我的资金和时间。我的第二大关注领域是民众的文化和教育——如果我们无所作为，中国的年轻人将成长为富裕但浅薄的一代。”

Mr Ma’s energy and optimism inspire many. But that does not mean he is a saint. Some former colleagues and confidants say his incredible success and the adulation it has brought has made him overconfident in his ability to change the world.
马云的活力和乐观精神鼓舞了很多人。但这并不意味着他是个圣人。一些前同事和密友表示，马云惊人的成功以及由此带来的过度美誉，使他对自己改变世界的能力过于自信。

In almost the same breath, he will say the internet is going to make China more open and transparent, while also vowing to hand over to the authorities information on any netizen who dares criticise the authoritarian Communist party.
他会在几乎同一句话里表示，互联网将使中国变得更加开放透明，而他将继续向当局提供任何敢于批评威权的共产党的网民的信息。

His own authoritarian tendencies, and his sometimes dizzying reversals in business strategy, have bred resentment among a minority at Alibaba. But his cult-like following ensures even disgruntled former employees do not dare criticise him openly.
马云自己的专断倾向，以及他有时令人眩晕的商业战略逆转，使阿里巴巴的少数人产生反感。但他近乎偶像人物的光环意味着，即便是心怀不满的前员工也不敢公开批评他。

“Anybody who wants to do anything in the Chinese tech industry in future has to be careful what they say about Jack Ma because he is just so powerful,” says a former employee who asks not to be named.
一位要求匿名的前员工表示：“任何未来想在中国科技行业中做点什么的人，在谈到马云时都必须慎言，因为他的影响力太过强大。”

“But even people like me who don’t buy into his cult of personality recognise that he epitomises the entrepreneurial new China, where a person from a very poor background can become huge through pure perseverance and by rallying people around him.”
“但即便像我这种不吃他的个人崇拜那一套的人也承认，他是中国新一代企业家的代表，一个背景很穷的人通过坚持不懈和笼络人才成长为巨头。”

Born in the southeastern Chinese city of Hangzhou in 1964, Ma Yun (his Chinese name) inherited a gift for showmanship from his parents, who earned their living as performers of “ping tan”, a traditional musical storytelling technique.
马云1964年出生于杭州，他从父母那里继承了表演的天赋。马云的父母靠表演评弹（一种传统曲艺形式）为生。

Mr Ma’s early life cannot have been easy: traditional ping tan was banned during the Cultural Revolution, the catastrophic decade-long political campaign launched by Mao Zedong in 1966 in which millions were persecuted, killed or banished to remote parts of the country.
马云的早年生活肯定不容易：评弹在文化大革命期间遭禁，这场由毛泽东在1966年发动的灾难性政治运动持续了整整十年，其间数百万人受到迫害、被杀死或下放到中国的偏远地区。

As a child, Mr Ma was bad at maths but fascinated by English. As China emerged from the trauma of Maoism and began opening up to the world, he decided he would devote himself to learning the language.
马云小时候数学较差，但他对英语很有兴趣。随着中国渐渐抚平毛时代的创伤，开始向世界开放，他决定全身心投入英语学习。

For nine years he got up early every morning and rode his bike to the Hangzhou Hotel, where he befriended foreign tourists and worked for free as a tour guide in order to practise English.
有整整九年时间，他每天都早早起床，骑上他的自行车奔向杭州大酒店(Hangzhou Hotel)，他在那里和外国游客交上朋友，免费充当导游，以练习自己的英语。

After twice failing China’s national university entrance exam he was eventually admitted to Hangzhou Teacher’s Institute, where he graduated in 1988.
在参加高考两次落第之后，他最终进入了杭州师范学院，并于1988年毕业。

He worked as an English teacher at a local university making $12 a month but in 1994 he started a translation business that took him to the US, where he was introduced to the internet. At the time, China’s state media were not allowed even to mention its existence.
此后他在杭州当地的一所高校担任英语老师，每月的工资相当于12美元。但1994年他成立了一家翻译公司，这使他有机会去美国出差，在那里接触到了互联网。那时中国的官方媒体甚至不能提及互联网的存在。

After a failed attempt to start an online Chinese version of the Yellow Pages, Mr Ma went to work for the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation, where one day he was assigned to take an American visitor on a tour of the Great Wall.
在创办中国黄页(China Yellow Pages)失败之后，马云进入中国对外经济贸易部工作。有一天，他被指派陪同一位美国游客游览长城。

The visitor was Jerry Yang, co-founder of Yahoo. The meeting would turn out to be transformative for both men.
这位游客就是雅虎(Yahoo)的联合创始人杨致远(Jerry Yang)。事实证明，这次的见面将成为两人事业生涯的转折点。