美国国家公共电台 NPR Japanese Lawmaker's Baby Gets Booted From The Floor

 

ELISE HU, HOST:

A Japanese lawmaker did something shocking earlier this week. She brought her baby to work. Yuka Ogata took her seat in the front row of the Kumamoto Municipal Assembly and held her 7-month-old in her lap. The baby quietly sucked his thumb. He seemed content. And the male politicians seated in the chamber¹ around him, they looked pained. They stared at him and his mother, murmuring to each other with furrowed² brows. Then four of them confronted the assemblywoman at her desk.

NATHALIE-KYOKO STUCKY: The action of Ogata is very unusual and maybe provocative³. She did it because she had no other choice.

HU: That's Nathalie-Kyoko Stucky, a freelance journalist in Tokyo. She talked to us about this via Skype while holding her 6-month-old daughter.

STUCKY: So according to the rules, as Japanese people like to follow the rules, a baby is considered as a guest.

HU: A guest. Guests are barred from sitting with or on lawmakers at their desks in the chamber.

STUCKY: So they asked the mother to bring the child in another section of the assembly, where she had to leave her baby there.

HU: Was there somebody to care for the baby?

STUCKY: Usually, there's - we never leave a baby by itself. It's something that Ogata said was inappropriate.

HU: Yuka Ogata eventually got a friend to watch her baby. There actually is no rule against lawmakers being accompanied by a young child in the chamber. It was Ogata's colleagues who instead insisted that her baby was a guest. The majority of them were men.

STUCKY: I was absolutely not surprised.

HU: Nathalie-Kyoko Stucky says Japanese society still expects men to work and women to give up working when they have children. Women who don't have a difficult time of it, a condition Yuka Ogata wanted to emphasize on her first day back on the job since having her baby.

STUCKY: It is very hard for women at work to find day care or nannies. And I, myself sometimes had to attend meetings and interviews with my baby. And the reaction of people even in the metro⁴ when you take a baby in a stroller, you look like you're working women, it is like I am doing something offensive. The eyes of the people around is very difficult to bear.

HU: More Japanese women are working these days, and the country's prime minister has pledged to boost opportunities for women as a way to help Japan's slumping⁵ economy. Changing attitudes about working mothers may be a harder task, but it's one that Assemblywoman Ogata says she's determined⁶ to take on.

1 chamber   

n.房间，寝室；会议厅；议院；会所

参考例句：

• For many,the dentist's surgery remains a torture chamber.对许多人来说，牙医的治疗室一直是间受刑室。
• The chamber was ablaze with light.会议厅里灯火辉煌。

2 furrowed   

v.犁田，开沟( furrow的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• Overhead hung a summer sky furrowed with the rash of rockets. 头顶上的夏日夜空纵横着急疾而过的焰火。 来自辞典例句
• The car furrowed the loose sand as it crossed the desert. 车子横过沙漠，在松软的沙土上犁出了一道车辙。 来自辞典例句

3 provocative   

adj.挑衅的，煽动的，刺激的，挑逗的

参考例句：

• She wore a very provocative dress.她穿了一件非常性感的裙子。
• His provocative words only fueled the argument further.他的挑衅性讲话只能使争论进一步激化。

4 metro   

n.地铁；adj.大都市的；(METRO)麦德隆(财富500强公司之一总部所在地德国，主要经营零售)

参考例句：

• Can you reach the park by metro?你可以乘地铁到达那个公园吗？
• The metro flood gate system is a disaster prevention equipment.地铁防淹门系统是一种防灾设备。

5 slumping   

大幅度下降，暴跌( slump的现在分词 )； 沉重或突然地落下[倒下]

参考例句：

• Hong Kong's slumping economy also caused a rise in bankruptcy applications. 香港经济低迷，破产申请个案随之上升。
• And as with slumping, over-arching can also be a simple postural habit. 就像弯腰驼背，过度挺直也可能只是一种习惯性姿势。

6 determined   

adj.坚定的；有决心的

参考例句：

• I have determined on going to Tibet after graduation.我已决定毕业后去西藏。
• He determined to view the rooms behind the office.他决定查看一下办公室后面的房间。