经济学人下载:幸灾乐祸用中文怎么讲?

What's Schadenfreude in Chinese?
幸灾乐祸用中文怎么讲？

Disarray in the West generates mixed reactions in Asia
亚洲对西方混乱的不同回应

Aug 20th 2011 | from the print edition

TO ERR is human. To gloat, divinely satisfying. The sequence of bad news from America and Europe has provoked its share of triumphalist commentary in Asia. What the subtitle to a book by Kishore Mahbubani, a Singaporean former diplomat, called “The Irresistible Shift of Global Power to the East” seems to be happening faster than anyone expected. Many Asians, naturally, are inclined to cheer. But many find the shift rather terrifying.

人非圣贤，孰能无过。别人的灾祸却是我们的喜讯。来自大洋彼岸欧美的坏消息让亚洲振奋不已。新加坡前外交官Kishore Mahbubani所著的一本书的副标题《世界强国转向东半球，势不可挡》所映射的，似乎比预想中来得要早。很多亚洲人自然欢呼雀跃。但也有很多人发现这种转变很吓人。

No sooner was America’s credit rating downgraded than China, its biggest creditor, (admittedly by a coincidence of timing) sent its first aircraft-carrier out to sea. For those living in emerging Asia, the memory of the devastating regional financial meltdown of 1997-98 is still fresh, and now they see smug Europeans struck down by their own debt crisis. And although many countries in Asia suffer political instability, none has been reduced in recent months to the sort of anarchy that for a few nights this month afflicted staid old Britain.

美国的信用评级一下降，中国（美国的最大债权国）就将其首只航母送出海。对于那些住在崛起中的亚洲国家的人来说，1997年至1998年的毁灭性地区经济危机依旧记忆犹新，如今他们看着自以为是的欧洲被自己的债务危机缠身。尽管亚洲很多国家政权也不稳，但最近几个月没有一个沦落到像一向沉稳的英国那样——几天内几乎处于无政府状态。

These sundry calamities in the West have provided Asian commentators with an unmissable chance to unveil Western hypocrisy. Many Asian leaders have vivid memories of the lectures they endured in 1997-98 over their thriftless, incompetent economic management, and of the harsh medicine they were forced to swallow in return for IMF assistance. So some must enjoy the reversal of roles: emerging Asia as the model of steady, consistent economic policy and sustained growth; America, Europe and Japan mired in debt and slow growth or even recession. Mr Mahbubani, now dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore, says “every piece of advice that the Asians received has been ignored” in the West.

西方的种种灾难对于亚洲的评论员揭露西方社会的伪善是个不可多得的好机会。很多亚洲领袖们对97-98年那场风暴记忆犹新：他们那种奢侈而低效率的经济管理，以及为了获得IMF（国际货币基金组织）援助他们不得不苦苦吞下的劣质药物。因此有些领袖一定很享受如今这种角色的对调：亚洲是经济持续平稳发展的楷模，而欧美及日本债务缠身，发展缓慢甚至有倒退的迹象。新加坡的李光耀公共政策学院（Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy）的副院长Mahbubani先生说在西方，“亚洲得到的建议一概被置之不理”。