【英语语言学习】我的移民故事

How can I speak in 10 minutes about the bonds of women over three generations, about how the astonishing strength of those bonds took hold in the life of a four-year-old girl huddled¹ with her young sister, her mother and her grandmother for five days and nights in a small boat in the China Sea more than 30 years ago, bonds that took hold in the life of that small girl and never let go -- that small girl now living in San Francisco and speaking to you today? This is not a finished story. It is a jigsaw² puzzle still being put together. Let me tell you about some of the pieces.

 

Imagine the first piece: a man burning his life's work. He is a poet, a playwright³, a man whose whole life had been balanced on the single hope of his country's unity⁴ and freedom. Imagine him as the communists enter Saigon, confronting the fact that his life had been a complete waste. Words, for so long his friends, now mocked him. He retreated into silence. He died broken by history. He is my grandfather. I never knew him in real life. But our lives are much more than our memories. My grandmother never let me forget his life. My duty was not to allow it to have been in vain, and my lesson was to learn that, yes, history tried to crush us, but we endured.

 

The next piece of the jigsaw is of a boat in the early dawn slipping silently out to sea. My mother, Mai, was 18 when her father died -- already in an arranged marriage, already with two small girls. For her, life had distilled⁵ itself into one task: the escape of her family and a new life in Australia. It was inconceivable to her that she would not succeed. So after a four-year saga⁶ that defies fiction, a boat slipped out to sea disguised as a fishing vessel⁷. All the adults knew the risks. The greatest fear was of pirates, rape⁸ and death. Like most adults on the boat, my mother carried a small bottle of poison. If we were captured, first my sister and I, then she and my grandmother would drink.

 

My first memories are from the boat -- the steady beat of the engine, the bow dipping into each wave, the vast and empty horizon. I don't remember the pirates who came many times, but were bluffed⁹ by the bravado¹⁰ of the men on our boat, or the engine dying and failing to start for six hours. But I do remember the lights on the oil rig off the Malaysian coast and the young man who collapsed¹¹ and died, the journey's end too much for him, and the first apple I tasted, given to me by the men on the rig. No apple has ever tasted the same.

 

After three months in a refugee camp, we landed in Melbourne. And the next piece of the jigsaw is about four women across three generations shaping a new life together. We settled in Footscray, a working-class suburb whose demographic is layers of immigrants. Unlike the settled middle-class suburbs, whose existence I was oblivious¹² of, there was no sense of entitlement in Footscray. The smells from shop doors were from the rest of the world. And the snippets of halting English were exchanged between people who had one thing in common, they were starting again.

 

My mother worked on farms, then on a car assembly line, working six days, double shifts. Somehow she found time to study English and gain IT qualifications. We were poor. All the dollars were allocated¹³ and extra tuition in English and mathematics was budgeted for regardless of what missed out, which was usually new clothes; they were always secondhand. Two pairs of stockings for school, each to hide the holes in the other. A school uniform down to the ankles, because it had to last for six years. And there were rare but searing chants of "slit-eye" and the occasional graffiti: "Asian, go home." Go home to where? Something stiffened¹⁴ inside me. There was a gathering¹⁵ of resolve and a quiet voice saying, "I will bypass you."

 

My mother, my sister and I slept in the same bed. My mother was exhausted¹⁶ each night, but we told one another about our day and listened to the movements of my grandmother around the house. My mother suffered from nightmares all about the boat. And my job was to stay awake until her nightmares came so I could wake her. She opened a computer store then studied to be a beautician and opened another business. And the women came with their stories about men who could not make the transition, angry and inflexible¹⁷, and troubled children caught between two worlds.

 

Grants and sponsors were sought. Centers were established. I lived in parallel worlds. In one, I was the classic Asian student, relentless¹⁸ in the demands that I made on myself. In the other, I was enmeshed in lives that were precarious¹⁹, tragically²⁰ scarred by violence, drug abuse and isolation²¹. But so many over the years were helped. And for that work, when I was a final year law student, I was chosen as the young Australian of the year. And I was catapulted from one piece of the jigsaw to another, and their edges didn't fit.

 

Tan Le, anonymous²² Footscray resident, was now Tan Le, refugee and social activist²³, invited to speak in venues²⁴ she had never heard of and into homes whose existence she could never have imagined. I didn't know the protocols²⁵. I didn't know how to use the cutlery. I didn't know how to talk about wine. I didn't know how to talk about anything. I wanted to retreat to the routines and comfort of life in an unsung suburb -- a grandmother, a mother and two daughters ending each day as they had for almost 20 years, telling one another the story of their day and falling asleep, the three of us still in the same bed. I told my mother I couldn't do it. She reminded me that I was now the same age she had been when we boarded the boat. No had never been an option. "Just do it," she said, "and don't be what you're not."

 

So I spoke²⁶ out on youth unemployment and education and the neglect of the marginalized and the disenfranchised. And the more candidly²⁷ I spoke, the more I was asked to speak. I met people from all walks of life, so many of them doing the thing they loved, living on the frontiers of possibility. And even though I finished my degree, I realized I could not settle into a career in law. There had to be another piece of the jigsaw. And I realized at the same time that it is okay to be an outsider, a recent arrival, new on the scene -- and not just okay, but something to be thankful for, perhaps a gift from the boat. Because being an insider can so easily mean collapsing²⁸ the horizons, can so easily mean accepting the presumptions²⁹ of your province. I have stepped outside my comfort zone enough now to know that, yes, the world does fall apart, but not in the way that you fear.

 

Possibilities that would not have been allowed were outrageously³⁰ encouraged. There was an energy there, an implacable optimism, a strange mixture of humility³¹ and daring. So I followed my hunches³². I gathered around me a small team of people for whom the label "It can't be done" was an irresistible³³ challenge. For a year we were penniless. At the end of each day, I made a huge pot of soup which we all shared. We worked well into each night. Most of our ideas were crazy, but a few were brilliant, and we broke through. I made the decision to move to the U.S. after only one trip. My hunches again. Three months later I had relocated, and the adventure has continued.

 

Before I close though, let me tell you about my grandmother. She grew up at a time when Confucianism was the social norm and the local Mandarin³⁴ was the person who mattered. Life hadn't changed for centuries. Her father died soon after she was born. Her mother raised her alone. At 17 she became the second wife of a Mandarin whose mother beat her. With no support from her husband, she caused a sensation by taking him to court and prosecuting³⁵ her own case, and a far greater sensation when she won. (Laughter) (Applause) "It can't be done" was shown to be wrong.

 

I was taking a shower in a hotel room in Sydney the moment she died 600 miles away in Melbourne. I looked through the shower screen and saw her standing³⁶ on the other side. I knew she had come to say goodbye. My mother phoned minutes later. A few days later, we went to a Buddhist³⁷ temple in Footscray and sat around her casket. We told her stories and assured her that we were still with her. At midnight the monk³⁸ came and told us he had to close the casket. My mother asked us to feel her hand. She asked the monk, "Why is it that her hand is so warm and the rest of her is so cold?" "Because you have been holding it since this morning," he said. "You have not let it go."

 

If there is a sinew in our family, it runs through the women. Given who we were and how life had shaped us, we can now see that the men who might have come into our lives would have thwarted³⁹ us. Defeat would have come too easily. Now I would like to have my own children, and I wonder about the boat. Who could ever wish it on their own? Yet I am afraid of privilege, of ease, of entitlement. Can I give them a bow in their lives, dipping bravely into each wave, the unperturbed and steady beat of the engine, the vast horizon that guarantees nothing? I don't know. But if I could give it and still see them safely through, I would.

 

(Applause)

 

Trevor Neilson: And also, Tan's mother is here today in the fourth or fifth row.

1 huddled   

挤在一起（huddle的过去式与过去分词形式）

参考例句：

• We huddled together for warmth. 我们挤在一块取暖。
• We huddled together to keep warm. 我们挤在一起来保暖。

2 jigsaw   

n.缕花锯，竖锯，拼图游戏；vt.用竖锯锯，使互相交错搭接

参考例句：

• A jigsaw puzzle can keep me absorbed for hours.一副拼图就能让我沉醉几个小时。
• Tom likes to work on jigsaw puzzles,too.汤姆也喜欢玩拼图游戏。

3 playwright   

n.剧作家，编写剧本的人

参考例句：

• Gwyn Thomas was a famous playwright.格温·托马斯是著名的剧作家。
• The playwright was slaughtered by the press.这位剧作家受到新闻界的无情批判。

4 unity   

n.团结，联合，统一；和睦，协调

参考例句：

• When we speak of unity,we do not mean unprincipled peace.所谓团结，并非一团和气。
• We must strengthen our unity in the face of powerful enemies.大敌当前，我们必须加强团结。

5 distilled   

adj.由蒸馏得来的v.蒸馏( distil的过去式和过去分词 )；从…提取精华

参考例句：

• The televised interview was distilled from 16 hours of film. 那次电视采访是从16个小时的影片中选出的精华。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Gasoline is distilled from crude oil. 汽油是从原油中提炼出来的。 来自《简明英汉词典》

6 saga   

n.(尤指中世纪北欧海盗的)故事，英雄传奇

参考例句：

• The saga of Flight 19 is probably the most repeated story about the Bermuda Triangle.飞行19中队的传说或许是有关百慕大三角最重复的故事。
• The novel depicts the saga of a family.小说描绘了一个家族的传奇故事。

7 vessel   

n.船舶；容器，器皿；管，导管，血管

参考例句：

• The vessel is fully loaded with cargo for Shanghai.这艘船满载货物驶往上海。
• You should put the water into a vessel.你应该把水装入容器中。

8 rape   

n.抢夺，掠夺，强奸；vt.掠夺，抢夺，强奸

参考例句：

• The rape of the countryside had a profound ravage on them.对乡村的掠夺给他们造成严重创伤。
• He was brought to court and charged with rape.他被带到法庭并被指控犯有强奸罪。

9 bluffed   

以假象欺骗，吹牛( bluff的过去式和过去分词 )； 以虚张声势找出或达成

参考例句：

• Hung-chien bluffed, "You know perfectly well yourself without my telling you." 鸿渐摆空城计道：“你心里明白，不用我说。”
• In each case the hijackers bluffed the crew using fake grenades. 每一个案例中，劫机者都用了假手榴弹吓唬机组人员。

10 bravado   

n.虚张声势，故作勇敢，逞能

参考例句：

• Their behaviour was just sheer bravado. 他们的行为完全是虚张声势。
• He flourished the weapon in an attempt at bravado. 他挥舞武器意在虚张声势。

11 collapsed   

adj.倒塌的

参考例句：

• Jack collapsed in agony on the floor. 杰克十分痛苦地瘫倒在地板上。
• The roof collapsed under the weight of snow. 房顶在雪的重压下突然坍塌下来。

12 oblivious   

adj.易忘的，遗忘的，忘却的，健忘的

参考例句：

• Mother has become quite oblivious after the illness.这次病后，妈妈变得特别健忘。
• He was quite oblivious of the danger.他完全没有察觉到危险。

13 allocated   

adj. 分配的 动词allocate的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• The Ford Foundation allocated millions of dollars for cancer research. 福特基金会拨款数百万美元用于癌症研究。
• More funds will now be allocated to charitable organizations. 现在会拨更多的资金给慈善组织。

14 stiffened   

加强的

参考例句：

• He leaned towards her and she stiffened at this invasion of her personal space. 他向她俯过身去，这种侵犯她个人空间的举动让她绷紧了身子。
• She stiffened with fear. 她吓呆了。

15 gathering   

n.集会，聚会，聚集

参考例句：

• He called on Mr. White to speak at the gathering.他请怀特先生在集会上讲话。
• He is on the wing gathering material for his novels.他正忙于为他的小说收集资料。

16 exhausted   

adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的

参考例句：

• It was a long haul home and we arrived exhausted.搬运回家的这段路程特别长，到家时我们已筋疲力尽。
• Jenny was exhausted by the hustle of city life.珍妮被城市生活的忙乱弄得筋疲力尽。

17 inflexible   

adj.不可改变的，不受影响的，不屈服的

参考例句：

• Charles was a man of settled habits and inflexible routine.查尔斯是一个恪守习惯、生活规律不容打乱的人。
• The new plastic is completely inflexible.这种新塑料是完全不可弯曲的。

18 relentless   

adj.残酷的，不留情的，无怜悯心的

参考例句：

• The traffic noise is relentless.交通车辆的噪音一刻也不停止。
• Their training has to be relentless.他们的训练必须是无情的。

19 precarious   

adj.不安定的，靠不住的；根据不足的

参考例句：

• Our financial situation had become precarious.我们的财务状况已变得不稳定了。
• He earned a precarious living as an artist.作为一个艺术家，他过得是朝不保夕的生活。

20 tragically   

adv. 悲剧地，悲惨地

参考例句：

• Their daughter was tragically killed in a road accident. 他们的女儿不幸死于车祸。
• Her father died tragically in a car crash. 她父亲在一场车祸中惨死。

21 isolation   

n.隔离，孤立，分解，分离

参考例句：

• The millionaire lived in complete isolation from the outside world.这位富翁过着与世隔绝的生活。
• He retired and lived in relative isolation.他退休后，生活比较孤寂。

22 anonymous   

adj.无名的；匿名的；无特色的

参考例句：

• Sending anonymous letters is a cowardly act.寄匿名信是懦夫的行为。
• The author wishes to remain anonymous.作者希望姓名不公开。

23 activist   

n.活动分子，积极分子

参考例句：

• He's been a trade union activist for many years.多年来他一直是工会的积极分子。
• He is a social activist in our factory.他是我厂的社会活动积极分子。

24 venues   

n.聚集地点( venue的名词复数 )；会场；（尤指）体育比赛场所；犯罪地点

参考例句：

• The band will be playing at 20 different venues on their UK tour. 这个乐队在英国巡回演出期间将在20个不同的地点演出。
• Farmers market corner, 800 meters long, 60 meters wide livestock trading venues. 农牧市场东北角，有长800米，宽60米的牲畜交易场地。 来自互联网

25 protocols   

n.礼仪( protocol的名词复数 )；（外交条约的）草案；（数据传递的）协议；科学实验报告（或计划）

参考例句：

• There are also protocols on the testing of nuclear weapons. 也有关于核武器试验的协议。 来自辞典例句
• Hardware components and software design of network transport protocols are separately introduced. 介绍系统硬件组成及网络传输协议的软件设计。 来自互联网

26 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

27 candidly   

adv.坦率地，直率而诚恳地

参考例句：

• He has stopped taking heroin now,but admits candidly that he will always be a drug addict.他眼下已经不再吸食海洛因了,不过他坦言自己永远都是个瘾君子。
• Candidly,David,I think you're being unreasonable.大卫，说实话我认为你不讲道理。

28 collapsing   

压扁[平]，毁坏，断裂

参考例句：

• Rescuers used props to stop the roof of the tunnel collapsing. 救援人员用支柱防止隧道顶塌陷。
• The rocks were folded by collapsing into the center of the trough. 岩石由于坍陷进入凹槽的中心而发生褶皱。

29 presumptions   

n.假定( presumption的名词复数 )；认定；推定；放肆

参考例句：

• Much modern technological advance is based on these presumptions of legal security. 许多现代技术的发展都是基于这些法律安全设想的考虑。 来自互联网
• What visions, what expectations and what presumptions can outsoar that flight? 那一种想象，那一种期望和推测能超越他之上呢？ 来自互联网

30 outrageously   

凶残地； 肆无忌惮地； 令人不能容忍地； 不寻常地

参考例句：

• Leila kept smiling her outrageously cute smile. 莱拉脸上始终挂着非常可爱的笑容。
• He flirts outrageously. 他肆无忌惮地调情。

31 humility   

n.谦逊，谦恭

参考例句：

• Humility often gains more than pride.谦逊往往比骄傲收益更多。
• His voice was still soft and filled with specious humility.他的声音还是那么温和，甚至有点谦卑。

32 hunches   

预感，直觉( hunch的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• A technical sergeant hunches in a cubicle. 一位技术军士在一间小屋里弯腰坐着。
• We often test our hunches on each other. 我们经常互相检验我们的第六感觉。

33 irresistible   

adj.非常诱人的，无法拒绝的，无法抗拒的

参考例句：

• The wheel of history rolls forward with an irresistible force.历史车轮滚滚向前，势不可挡。
• She saw an irresistible skirt in the store window.她看见商店的橱窗里有一条叫人着迷的裙子。

34 Mandarin   

n.中国官话，国语，满清官吏；adj.华丽辞藻的

参考例句：

• Just over one billion people speak Mandarin as their native tongue.大约有十亿以上的人口以华语为母语。
• Mandarin will be the new official language of the European Union.普通话会变成欧盟新的官方语言。

35 prosecuting   

检举、告发某人( prosecute的现在分词 )； 对某人提起公诉； 继续从事（某事物）； 担任控方律师

参考例句：

• The witness was cross-examined by the prosecuting counsel. 证人接受控方律师的盘问。
• Every point made by the prosecuting attorney was telling. 检查官提出的每一点都是有力的。

36 standing   

n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的

参考例句：

• After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
• They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。

37 Buddhist   

adj./n.佛教的，佛教徒

参考例句：

• The old lady fell down in adoration before Buddhist images.那老太太在佛像面前顶礼膜拜。
• In the eye of the Buddhist,every worldly affair is vain.在佛教徒的眼里，人世上一切事情都是空的。

38 monk   

n.和尚，僧侣，修道士

参考例句：

• The man was a monk from Emei Mountain.那人是峨眉山下来的和尚。
• Buddhist monk sat with folded palms.和尚合掌打坐。

39 thwarted   

阻挠( thwart的过去式和过去分词 )； 使受挫折； 挫败； 横过

参考例句：

• The guards thwarted his attempt to escape from prison. 警卫阻扰了他越狱的企图。
• Our plans for a picnic were thwarted by the rain. 我们的野餐计划因雨受挫。