很多大学生过去常常对暑期实地调查作业草草了事。心想干嘛把宝贵的假期浪费在看似无聊的作业上面呢？

 

　　This summer some students have found exciting, challenging and rewarding projects. They probed topical issues such as food safety and prices.

 

　　这个夏天，有些同学找到了一些惊喜与挑战并存，且收获颇丰的实地调查项目。他们探索诸如食品安全以及价格此类时下热点事件。

 

　　21st Century reporter Xu Jingxi interviewed three teams whose fieldwork projects were memorable.

 

　　《21世纪英文报》记者许靖烯采访了三个学生小组，他们的实地调查作业给人留下深刻的印象。

 

　　Food safety

 

　　食品安全

 

　　Shanghai International Studies University

 

　　上海外国语大学

 

　　Chen Yanzhe, 19, was bold to quiz market traders about dodgy practices.

 

　　19岁的陈燕喆（音译）十分大胆，他去考察了商贩的不法行为。

 

　　Some unscrupulous vendors use a swelling agent on ginger and potatoes and bleach lotus-roots with sulfur.

 

　　一些不良商贩在生姜和土豆上使用膨化剂，用硫磺熏莲藕。

 

　　Chen secretly took pictures of poisoned vegetables. She even managed to get past door guards in order to interview staff of the local bureau of quality and technical supervision in Huangshan city, Anhui province.

 

　　陈燕喆暗中拍下这些“毒蔬菜”的照片。为了能够采访到安徽省黄山市质量技术监督局的工作人员，她甚至还千方百计地应付后门保安。

 

　　Chen is not an investigative journalist. She’s a student working on her summer project. But she wants to find out the truth. Chen is a freshman majoring in Spanish.

 

　　陈燕喆并非一位调查记者。她只是一个潜心于暑期实践作业的学生。但她想弄清真相。陈燕喆是西班牙语专业的大一新生。

 

　　While many of her peers chose mundane topics for their fieldwork projects, Chen’s team picked the controversial issue of food safety.

 

　　当很多同学为自己的暑期实践作业选择平淡的课题时，陈燕喆的团队选择了食物安全这一具备争议的话题。

 

　　Chen said: “It would require less work to study a boring topic. But we wanted to develop our critical and independent thinking.

 

　　她说：“去研究无聊话题确实会轻松很多，但我们想培养自己批判和独立思考的能力。

 

　　“You feel motivated if you work on a hot issue and get a lot of attention and responses.”

 

　　“当你在研究一个热门事件，获得许多关注和回应时，你会感到很有动力。”

 

　　Local residents responded to Chen’s team’s questionnaires. Experts from the Science Squirrels Club followed the team’s Sina Weibo micro blog and answered students’ questions about food safety.

 

　　陈燕喆团队的调查问卷得到了当地居民的回应。科学松鼠会的专家也一直支持着该团队的新浪微博，回答了学生们对于食品安全的疑问。

 

　　The new generation of migrant workers

 

　　新生代农民工

 

　　Nanjing University

 

　　南京大学

 

　　A young construction site worker became upset when he answered a questionnaire about his living conditions. He said: “Why do city dwellers look down upon us?”

 

　　一位年轻的建筑工人在回答一份有关他生活条件的调查问卷时很郁闷。他说：“为什么城里人看不起我们？”

 

　　Meng Xianghao, 20, the student who was doing the survey, tried to reassure the young worker. Meng told him he hoped their survey of migrant workers’ living conditions would make a difference.

 

　　从事该调查的孟翔浩（音译）今年20岁，他试图鼓励这位年轻的工人。孟翔浩对这位工人说，希望他们所做的民工生活条件调查可以发挥作用。

 

　　But the worker replied: “What do you want to achieve from handing out questionnaires?”

 

　　而这位工人回答道：“你希望通过提交问卷达到什么目标呢？”

 

　　It wasn’t the first time Meng got the cold shoulder. But Meng, a sophomore majoring in international economics and trade, didn’t give up.

 

　　这不是孟翔浩第一次受到冷遇。但就读于国际经贸专业大二年级的孟翔浩没有放弃。

 

　　“I believe that summer projects can be influential,” said Meng. He told migrant workers interviewed about a previous survey on 2,000 post-80s migrant workers in 2008, done by six students from Nanjing Normal University.

 

　　“我相信这个暑期实习会有十足的影响力。”孟翔浩说道。他告诉那些受访的民工们，早在2008年，来自南京师范大学的六位学生针对2000位80后民工做了一项调查。

 

　　Their survey caught the attention of the central authorities, to many students’ surprise. To some extent, it helped in making the central government more aware of the migrant workers phenomenon and addressing the issue seriously. A key official document issued in 2010 by the State Council proposed using the term “the new generation of migrant workers” for the first time.

 

　　令很多同学惊讶的是，他们的调查获得了中央政府的关注。从某种程度上来说，该调查帮助中央政府更清楚地意识到农民工现象，开始严肃对待该问题。国务院于2010年发布的一个头号官方文件首次采用“新生代农民工”这个术语。

 

　　Meng mentioned this story to gain the workers’ trust. But it wasn’t enough.

 

　　孟翔浩提到这个故事是想要获得工人们的信任。但这还不够。

 

　　Meng’s instructor Sun Wujun advised more efforts to get to know their interviewees. “If possible, work and live with migrant workers beforehand,” said Sun.

 

　　孟翔浩的指导老师孙武俊（音译）建议他们多下工夫了解受访对象本身。“如果可能的话，事先可以和这些农民工一起工作生活一段时间。”他说。

 

　　Vegetable prices

 

　　蔬菜价格

 

　　Shanghai Institute of Foreign Trade

 

　　上海外贸学院

 

　　The idea for the research came from a puzzling question: why are vegetables in city markets so expensive while in Shandong province a farmer commits suicide because he has to sell his produce at a loss?

 

　　这个调查的点子来源于一个令人困惑的问题：为什么城市蔬菜价格如此昂贵而山东某菜农却因不得不贱卖蔬菜而自杀呢？

 

　　The project took two weeks in Zhejiang, Fujian and Shanghai. Team members interviewed farmers, wholesalers, market managers and vendors, and officials at the Shanghai Municipal Agricultural Commission.

 

　　该研究覆盖浙江，福建和上海三地，耗时两周的时间。小组成员采访了菜农，批发商，市场经理，商贩和上海市农业委员会的官员们。

 

　　The team members are all sophomores majoring in economics. They discovered there are complicated reasons for price differences.

 

　　该小组成员都是经济专业的大二学生。他们发现引起价差的因素十分复杂。

 

　　Vegetable prices rise during the journey from producer to consumer. The final selling price reflects the cost of packaging, transport and cold storage and traders’ rents for market stalls.

 

　　在由菜农到消费者的环节中，蔬菜价格水涨船高。最终的售价体现了包装、运输、冷藏和街市摊位租金成本。

 

　　Team member Su Jianqun, 20, said: “We are exposed to abundant information from media. We discussed the issue in class. But we wouldn’t have known about these factors without our field trips and interviews.”

 

　　该小组成员，20岁的苏建群（音译）表示：“我们可以从媒体那里获得大量信息，并在课堂上讨论这一事件，但我们如果没有亲自实地考察与采访的话，就永远不会知道这些因素。”