奥巴马在上海与中国青年对话

[奥巴马]好吧，我想现在轮到男士。

All right, it's a -- I think it must be a boy's turn now. Right? So I'll call on this young man right here.

[现场提问]我是同济大学黄立赫（音）。首先我想引用"有朋自远方来不亦乐乎"这句话来欢迎您，在《论语子路》中有一句话叫和而不同，我们中国人民的理想就是在世界构建一个文化多元化的和谐世界。我们知道美国文化本身是在历史沉淀当中由不同的文化元素所积淀而成的多元混合型文化，请问在您的这届政府中会采取哪些措施来共同构建这个世界向着文化多元化发展？在您的外交政策中会有哪些措施去尊重各国的不同的历史文化？我们中美两国在此方面会有哪些合作？谢谢您。

Q   (As translated.) Mr. President, good afternoon. I'm from Tongji University. I want to cite a saying from Confucius: "It is always good to have a friend coming from afar." In Confucius books, there is a great saying which says that harmony is good, but also we uphold differences. China advocates a harmonious world. We know that the United States develops a culture that features diversity. I want to know, what will your government do to build a diversified world with different cultures? What would you do to respect the different cultures and histories of other countries? And what kinds of cooperation we can conduct in the future?

[奥巴马]我认为这是非常好的一点，美国的优势之一就是我们是一个非常多元化的文化，我们那有来自世界各地的人，因此，这对于美国人长什么样，你确实不能一言以蔽之，比如像我家我父亲来自肯尼亚，我母亲来自中西部的堪萨斯州，我妹妹是半个印度尼西亚人，她又嫁了一位加拿大的华裔人。因此当你看到我们奥巴马全家聚会的时候我们就像联合国一样，什么人都有。

PRESIDENT OBAMA:  This is an excellent point. The United States, one of our strengths is that we are a very diverse culture. We have people coming from all around the world. And so there's no one definition of what an American looks like. In my own family, I have a father who was from Kenya; I have a mother who was from Kansas, in the Midwest of the United States; my sister is half-Indonesian; she's married to a Chinese person from Canada. So when you see family gatherings in the Obama household, it looks like the United Nations. (Laughter.)

而这就是我们美国的力量所在，因为它意味着我们从不同的文化、从不同的饮食，从不同的想法中相互学习，这使得我们社会变得更加富有活力。

And that is a great strength of the United States, because it means that we learn from different cultures and different foods and different ideas, and that has made us a much more dynamic society.

同时每个国家在你中有我我中有你的世界中，每个国家有着自己的历史传统和文化，因此我认为对于美国来讲重要的一点就是不能推断说，我们有好的做法适用到别人身上的时候也可以带来好处。实际上这方面我们要虚心一点才行，对别的国家这种态度要虚心一点才行。

Now, what is also true is that each country in this interconnected world has its own culture and its own history and its own traditions. And I think it's very important for the United States not to assume that what is good for us is automatically good for somebody else. And we have to have some modesty about our attitudes towards other countries.

如果要说正如我在开场白中所说的一样，我们确实认为一些基本的原则是所有人不管你是什么样的文化，对所有人都应该是共有的共性，比如在联合国我们非常活跃于联合国来努力确保世界各地的儿童都能够得到某些基本权利的待遇。当然，有些地方儿童受到剥削、压榨，强迫他们做童工，尽管以前不同的国家包括美国发生过这样的事情，但是世界上所有的国家都应当有一个共同的标准，就是要以比过去更好的方式来对待我们的儿童，这是一个普世的价值观。

I have to say, though, as I said in my opening remarks, that we do believe that there are certain fundamental principles that are common to all people, regardless of culture. So, for example, in the United Nations we are very active in trying to make sure that children all around the world are treated with certain basic rights -- that if children are being exploited, if there's forced labor for children, that despite the fact that that may have taken place in the past in many different countries, including the United States, that all countries of the world now should have developed to the point where we are treating children better than we did in the past. That's a universal value.

我相信对妇女的问题上情况也是如此，我跟上海的韩市长在吃午餐的时候进行了很有趣的讨论，他跟我说现在有很多专业人士，在中国的专业人士中，比如在大学生中女生比男生还多，而且她们的表现非常的好。我认为这是一个取得进展的很好的、很小的指标，因为你看看世界各地的发展，一个最好的指标就是一个国家是不是成就斐然的一个最好的指标就是他的教育以及妇女所受的教育。而那些能够发挥妇女的潜力的国家，那些做得好的国家他们得到好处就比那些不发挥妇女潜力的国家要大。

I believe, for example, the same thing holds true when it comes to the treatment of women. I had a very interesting discussion with the Mayor of Shanghai during lunch right before I came, and he informed me that in many professions now here in China, there are actually more women enrolled in college than there are men, and that they are doing very well. I think that is an excellent indicator of progress, because it turns out that if you look at development around the world, one of thebest indicators of whether or not a country does well is how well it educates its girls and how it treats its women. And countries that are tapping into the talents and the energy of women and giving them educations typically do better economically than countries that don't.

当然，男女关系中不同的文化有不同的做法，不过我认为在美国，我们很重要的一点是要确认世界各地妇女的权利，当然，有些社会中妇女受到压迫，她们不能得到足够的机会，还有妇女受到暴力的影响等等，见到这些情况的时候我们都会直言不讳地提出来的。

So, now, obviously difficult cultures may have different attitudes about the relationship between men and women, but I think it is the view of the United States that it is important for us to affirm the rights of women all around the world. And if we see certain societies in which women are oppressed, or they are not getting opportunities, or there is violence towards women, we will speak out.

当然，有些人可能不同意我们的观点，我们可以就此展开对话，但是我们能够实现我们的理想才行。当然，我们在做这个事情的过程中，我们要虚心，我们并不是十全十美的，我们在很多问题上也要取得进展，你跟美国的妇女讲的时候，她们会跟你说：很多男人对于妇女在社会中的地位还有一些成见。因此我们绝不声称我们解决了这些问题，但是我们认为就这些问题，普世的原则我们还是要谈的。

Now, there may be some people who disagree with us, and we can have a dialogue about that. But we think it's important, nevertheless, to be true to our ideals and our values. And we -- and when we do so, though, we will always do so with the humility and understanding that we are not perfect and that we still have much progress to make. If you talk to women in America, they will tell you that there are still men who have a lot of old-fashioned ideas about the role of women in society. And so we don't claim that we have solved all these problems, but we do think that it's important for us to speak out on behalf of these universal ideals and these universal values.Okay?