大学英语综合教程 第四册 Unit 3B

[00:00.00]Han Suyin was born in Beijing in 1917.Her father was a Chinese raiway engineer and her mother a Dutch lady.
[00:10.03]She is a physician and the author of many works,including A Mortal Flower,
[00:16.54]which tells of the experiences of the author and her family,both in and out of China.
[00:23.85]this excerpt describes the author'sexperience of looking for her first job in the early 1930s.
[00:32.10]A MORTAL FLOWER                                          by Han Suyin
[00:36.81]The day after meeting Hildal I wrote a letter to the Rockefeller Foundation,applying for a job.
[00:44.12](1) Neither Father nor Mother thoughyt I would get in. "You have to have pull.It's an American thing.
[00:52.92]Rockefeller Foundation.Youmust have pull."
[00:57.57]Mother said: "That's where they do all those experiments on dogs and people.
[01:04.05]All the Big Shots of the Nanking government also came here to have medical treatment,
[01:10.50]and sometimes took away a nurse to become a new wife."
[01:15.44]It made sense to me ,typing in a hospital;I would learn about medicine,since I wanted to study medicine.
[01:23.98]And as there was money at home for me to study,I would earn money,and prepare myself to enter medical school.
[01:32.45]I had already discovered that a convent-school education was not at all adequate,
[01:39.37]and that it would take me at least three more years of hard study before being able to enter any college at all.
[01:48.09]Science,mathematics,Chinese literateure and the classics…with the poor schooling given to me,
[01:56.48]it would take me years to get ready for a university.
[02:01.08]"I will do it,"But clenched teeth,decision tearing my bowels,were not enough;there was no money,no money,
[02:13.64]my mother said it,said it until Ifelt as if every scrap of food I ate was wrenched off my father's body.
[02:22.47]"No one is going to feed you doing nothing at home."(2)Of course,
[02:28.79]one who does not work must not eat unless one can get mrried,which is called:"being settled at last ."
[02:37.36]But with my looks I would never get married ;I was too thin,too sharp,too ugly.Mother said it,
[02:47.08]Elder Brother had said it.Everyone agreed that I should work,because marriage would be difficult for me.
[02:54.92]Within a week a reply came.The morning postman brought it,and I choked over my milk and coffee.
[03:03.33]"I'm to go for aninterview.At the Peking Union Medical College.To the Comptroller's office."
[03:11.84]Father and Mother were pleased.Mother put the coffee pot down and took the letter. "What good paper,so thick."
[03:21.43]But how could we disguese the fact that I was not[even]fifteen years old?
[03:27.60]I had claimed to be sixteen in the letter.In fact,said Papa,it was not a lie
[03:34.99]since Chinese are a year old when born,and if one added the New Year as an extra year,
[03:42.48]as do the Cantonese and the Hakkas,who became two years old when they reach their first New Year
[03:50.92](so that a baby born on December31 st would be reckoned two years old on the following January 2nd),
[03:59.20]I could claim to being sixteen.
[04:02.89]"You look sixteen,"said Mama; "all you have to do is to stop hopping and picking your pimples.And lengten yourskirt."
[04:11.87]What dress should I wear?I had two school uniforms,a green dress,a brown dress,a brown dress,
[04:19.97]and one dress with three rows of frills for Sunday,too dressy for an interview.I had no shoes
[04:28.56]except flat-heeled school shoes,and tennis shoes.There was no time to made a dress
[04:35.96]and in those years no ready-make clothes existed,so Mother lengthened the green dress.
[04:43.40]I squeezed two pimples on my forehead,then went to the East market and bought some face powder,
[04:51.00]Butterfly brand,pink,make in Shanghai by a Japanese firm.