经济学人:珍惜女儿 有其父必有其女

 　　International

　　国际

　　Prizing Girls: Like Father, like daughter

　　珍惜女儿：有其父必有其女

　　How South Korea learnt to love baby girls.

　　韩国是怎么学会爱女婴的。

　　“I cried when I heard,” writes one blogger, recalling the moment she learned that her baby was a boy.

　　一个博主回忆当她知道她怀的是个男孩儿的时候，写道:“当我听到这个消息的时候我哭了”。

　　Those were bitter tears.

　　这是苦涩的泪水。

　　The woman was “so envious” of a mother who had just given birth to a daughter.

　　这个妈妈嫉妒那些刚刚生了女儿的母亲。

　　She was not at all unusual.

　　这并不是特例。

　　South Koreans of reproductive age now prefer girls to boys.

　　现在韩国生育年龄阶段的人们喜欢女孩多过于男孩。

　　They have created a new term, “ddalbabo”—“daughter crazy”—for men who go loopy over their female offspring.

　　他们创造了一个新词，"ddalbabo"——女儿狂——那些疯狂喜欢女儿的父亲们。

　　Until the early 20th century failure to bear a son was grounds for divorce.

　　直到20世纪初，未能生育男丁还是离婚的理由之一。

　　Koreans greatly preferred boys, who could not only support their parents financially but also carry out ancestral rites¹.

　　朝鲜民族非常偏爱男孩，男丁不但可以经济上赡养父母，还能延续先祖的宗法。

　　When ultrasound technology became widespread in the 1980s, many South Koreans used it to detect female fetuses³ and then have them aborted⁴.

　　当超声波技术在20世纪八十年代广泛应用时，许多韩国家庭借此检查胎儿的性别，打掉女孩。

　　Sex ratios became skewed.

　　因此性别比率出现了倾斜。

　　In 1992 twice as many fourth babies were boys as were girls.

　　1992年的时候，男孩是女孩的两到四倍之多。

　　In response to these trends the South Korean government made it illegal for doctors to reveal the sex of a fetus².

　　韩国政府为了应对这些趋势，将医生向准父母告知胎儿性别列为非法行为。

　　It produced pro-girl slogans: “There is no envy for ten sons when you have one well-raised daughter.”

　　并提出了支持女孩的口号：“养好一个女儿，胜过十个男孩”。

　　That may have helped, but not as much as economic change.

　　那或许有些帮助，却不如经济变化的作用大。

　　Following the Asian financial crisis of 1997, many women took part-time jobs to supplement the family income.

　　随着1997年亚洲金融危机的到来，许多妇女通过做兼职工作来补贴家用。

　　Parents noticed, and began to invest more heavily in educating girls.

　　父母们都意识到了，并且加大对女孩们在教育方面的投资。

　　In 2015 three-quarters of South Korean female secondary-schoolers went to university, compared with two-thirds of their male peers.

　　到2015年，已经有四分之三的中学女生进入大学深造，相比较而言中学男生大学升学率是三分之二。

　　Aborting⁵ girls simply because they are girls has become so unthinkable that the law has been relaxed.

　　仅仅因为怀的是女孩而堕胎，已经变得无法想象，因此上述法律也被放宽了。

　　Since 2009 expectant parents have been allowed to know the sex of their baby after 32 weeks’ gestation⁶.

　　自2009年，准父母在怀孕32周后可以知道他们孩子的性别。

　　Many will have found out before, from doctors who trust that parents’ attitudes have changed.

　　许多准父母也能更早的从医生那里得知，这些医生相信父母们的观点已经改变。

　　1.as much as 差不多

　　例句:I enjoy pleasure as much as the next person.

　　我和别人一样愉快。

　　2.compared with 与...相比较

　　例句:He's a pygmy when compared with great musicians.

　　他和伟大的音乐家相比就成了侏儒。

　　3.found out 发现

　　例句:I found out my phone was bugged⁷.

　　我发现我的电话被窃听了。

　　4.give birth to 生产

　　例句:My mother just came back to Jiangsu to give birth to me, and then returned.

　　我母亲只是回到江苏生下了我，就又回新疆去了。

1 rites   

仪式，典礼( rite的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• to administer the last rites to sb 给某人举行临终圣事
• He is interested in mystic rites and ceremonies. 他对神秘的仪式感兴趣。

2 fetus   

n.胎，胎儿

参考例句：

• In the fetus,blood cells are formed in different sites at different ages.胎儿的血细胞在不同时期生成在不同的部位。
• No one knows why a fetus is not automatically rejected by the mother's immune system. 没有人知道为什么母亲的免疫系统不会自动排斥胎儿。

3 fetuses   

n.胎，胎儿( fetus的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• DNA was extracted from fetuses at mid-gestation, about 10 days past conception. DNA从受孕大约10天后的中期妊娠胚胎中提取。 来自互联网
• Brucellosis is a disease that causes fetuses to abort in cattle. 普鲁士菌病是一种可以导致牲畜胎儿夭折的疾病。 来自互联网

4 aborted   

adj.流产的，失败的v.（使）流产( abort的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）（某事物）中止；（因故障等而）（使）（飞机、宇宙飞船、导弹等）中断飞行；（使）（飞行任务等）中途失败

参考例句：

• The rocket flight had to be aborted because of difficulties with computer. 因电脑出故障，这次火箭飞行只好中辍。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• They aborted the space flight finally. 他们最后中止了这次宇航飞行。 来自《简明英汉词典》

5 aborting   

v.（使）流产( abort的现在分词 )；（使）（某事物）中止；（因故障等而）（使）（飞机、宇宙飞船、导弹等）中断飞行；（使）（飞行任务等）中途失败

参考例句：

• Target machine is rebooting due to a different deployment task. Aborting deployment. 由于有另一个部署任务，目标计算机正在重新启动。正在中止部署。 来自互联网
• The number of seconds elapsed before aborting a connection attempt. 在中止连接尝试之前经过的秒数。 来自互联网

6 gestation   

n.怀孕；酝酿

参考例句：

• The gestation period can be anything between 95 and 150 days.妊娠期从95天至150天不等。
• This film was two years in gestation.这部电影酝酿了两年。

7 bugged   

vt.在…装窃听器（bug的过去式与过去分词形式）

参考例句：

• The police have bugged his office. 警察在他的办公室装了窃听器。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He had bugged off before I had a chance to get a word in. 我还没来得及讲话，他已经走了。 来自《简明英汉词典》