尷尬:"豬投江效應"

China captured the world’s attention last week, for all the wrong reasons. The world’s most populous country and potential future superpower inaugurated a new president and premier. But ask the average global television viewer what happened in China last week and they will tell you that the rivers were full of pigs.

上週，中國吸引了全世界的目光，但原因卻令人尷尬。這個全世界人口最多的國家和潛在的未來超級大國，剛剛任命了新的國家主席和國務院總理。不過，如果你問全世界普通電視觀衆“中國上週發生了什麼事情”，他們會告訴你那裏的江面漂滿了死豬。

Maybe the average television viewer has it right: 10,000 pigs clogging the water supply of the Chinese equivalent of New York City makes better TV than Xi Jinping’s inaugural address not just because most viewers are shallow and mindless, but because these pigs are pretty important, politically.

或許，這些普通電視觀衆這樣回答是有道理的。上海在中國的地位相當於紐約在美國，這樣一個城市的水源河上漂着一萬頭死豬，確實比習近平發表就職演說更吸引觀衆眼球——這不僅是因爲大多數觀衆膚淺而沒有頭腦，還因爲這些死豬從政治角度而言其實非常重要。

Their lifeless bodies – plucked dripping from Shanghai’s Huangpu River or rotting in piles along its banks – capture the simple indignity of life in modern China: poisoned water, tainted food and government officials who cannot be trusted to tell the truth about any of it. In this case, the Shanghai government insists the water supply is unaffected and the pigs aren’t sick (apart from one who had the bad form to test positive for a porcine virus). They may even be telling the truth – but those who believe them in Shanghai are about as thin on the ground as those who can spell Li Keqiang in the Bronx.

人們從上海黃浦江江面上和江岸邊拉走死豬。這些開始腐爛的死豬，折射出現代中國生活中一種顯而易見的恥辱：受污染的水，變質的食品，以及無法指望會就任何此類問題講真話的政府官員。在“死豬”事件中，上海市政府堅稱，供水水質沒有受到影響，死豬也不是病豬（除了檢驗樣品中有一頭死豬“狀況不佳”，檢出豬圓環病毒病原陽性）。他們說的沒準真是實情。但在上海，相信這些話的人，差不多就跟紐約布朗克斯(Bronx)能寫出“李克強”漢語拼音拼寫的人一樣少。

So while it’s all well and good to talk about the “Chinese dream” – as President Xi did so eloquently last week – Chinese cyberspace has its own cynical view of the current state of national nirvana: “In Beijing, you open the windows and get free cigarettes; in Shanghai you open the taps and get free pork soup”; that joke went viral during last week’s Beijing conclave. For it is not just the west that is obsessed by Beijing’s air pollution and Shanghai’s pig flotilla. Ordinary Chinese think a country with 5,000 years of history and well over $3tn in the bank ought to be able to do a bit better at delivering the things that matter in life: happy pigs and water without too many of them floating in it.

所以說，你當然可以大談特談“中國夢”（如習主席上週所做的那樣），但中國網民對中國人現階段的“幸福生活”卻有着自己的看法，他們嘲諷地寫道：“在北京，打開窗戶就能抽免費煙；在上海，打開水龍頭就能喝免費肉湯。”這個段子在上週的“兩會”期間瘋狂傳播，因爲對北京的空氣污染和上海的“死豬艦隊”感到困惑的絕不僅僅是西方。中國老百姓認爲，一個有五千年曆史、外匯儲備超過3萬億美元的國家，理應有能力在關乎民生的事情上做得更好一點：比如，讓民衆吃到放心豬肉，喝到沒有泡過無數死豬的水。

Ironically, however, the backstory may be more positive than negative. One reason for the unusually large fleet of porcine corpses this year was because Zhejiang province, where the pigs died, has recently tried to stop farmers selling diseased pigs to illegal traders who make them into dumplings. Without room to bury casualties on their notoriously cramped smallholdings – and without anyone unscrupulous to sell them to – the bereaved farmers had little option but to dump them in a river that provides drinking water to a city of 23m people. Maybe someone should have thought of that beforehand – but I still prefer a sick pig in my river to one in my dumpling bowl.

但具有諷刺意味的是，死豬事件背後故事的積極因素可能大過消極因素。今年“死豬艦隊”格外龐大的原因之一在於，死豬的來源地浙江省最近採取了措施阻止農戶向不法商販出售病死豬。這些不法商販收購病死豬，是爲了將死豬肉做成餃子餡。因爲沒地方埋（浙江農戶的農地出了名的狹小），也沒有喪盡天良的商販來收購，這些“痛失愛豬”的農戶別無選擇，只能將死豬倒進爲上海市2300萬居民提供飲水的黃浦江。這樣處理或許有欠考慮，但我寧願看到病死豬漂在江面上，也不願看到它們出現在我裝餃子的碗裏。

And of course the pig armada may have other unintended consequences, like boosting the nascent “green” pork industry. Mr Xi wants citizens to spend more on domestic consumption. What better way to achieve that than by scaring ordinary consumers into the arms of organic farmers who promise pork that was, at the very least, alive just before it was butchered.

當然，“死豬艦隊”還可能產生其他出人意料的結果，比如提振新興的“綠色”豬肉產業。習近平希望民衆擴大國內消費。還有什麼比這更好的方法，能把普通消費者嚇得紛紛投入有機農戶的懷抱？有機農戶承諾，至少他們的豬在屠宰之前是活的。

Anyone who can afford it will now be looking for a safer pork source. And they could well end up at the Aohua wet market in Shanghai, where recent university graduate Sun Xia has decided to make her career behind a butcher’s block rather than a desktop. Ms Sun’s family is none too pleased to find her trading a white collar for a butcher’s apron. “They often complain to me, how can you end up as a butcher when you are a university graduate?” she says, adding that her father says she can sell pork “but let’s not talk about it”.

任何有經濟能力的人，現在都會開始尋找更安全的豬肉源。他們很可能最終會來到上海澳華菜市場。在這裏，新近畢業的大學生孫夏已決定把自己的事業建立在切豬肉的砧板、而不是寫字檯上。她放棄了白領工作、選擇系起圍裙作個賣豬肉的，家裏人都不太贊成。孫夏說：“他們常向我抱怨，說你是個大學畢業生，怎麼能最後去賣豬肉呢？”她還說，父親告訴她，賣豬肉可以，但別跟別人提這個。

But Ms Sun is not just any old butcher: she works for the brand Yihao Tuzhu, literally “No 1 Local Pig”, a vertically integrated sty-to-table pork brand that prides itself on raising “happy pigs” – and charges 30-40 per cent more for it. “Our pigs have longer tails, as you can see, because they can run around a lot instead of being raised in captivity,” says Hao Chengbing, Shanghai regional manager, who waves a pig tail in my face to illustrate his point. Ms Sun thinks her career prospects are better at No 1 Local Pig, where half the butchers are graduates, than in her parents’ reverie of white-collar bliss.

不過，孫夏可不是普通的肉販，她是爲“壹號土豬”這個品牌工作的。這個品牌對豬肉實行從豬圈到餐桌的縱向一體化質量監控，標榜自己的豬是在無公害的環境中“快樂生長”。因此，這個品牌的豬肉價格也比一般品牌高出30%至40%。壹號土豬上海區經理郝承兵一邊向我揮舞一根豬尾巴，一邊說道：“你看，我們的豬的尾巴比一般豬要長，因爲它們很多時候都在外面跑來跑去，而不是關在圈裏養大的。”孫夏覺得，比起像父母期望的那樣當白領，她在壹號土豬的職業前景要更加光明。壹號土豬的一半肉販都是大學畢業生。

Like the American dream before it, the Chinese dream is about creating a world where every child earns more than their parents – however they choose to earn it. But that dream can only come true in a world of pigless rivers and smokeless skylines. Mr Xi might want to deliver those first – and leave porcine bliss as a goal for later generations.

如以前的美國夢一樣，中國夢的要旨也在於，每個孩子都能比父母掙得多——無論他們選擇以何種方式來掙。但只有在一個江裏不漂死豬、天空中沒有霧霾的世界裏，這樣的夢想才能實現。習近平或許可以考慮先創造一個這樣的世界，而將有機豬肉販們的夢想留給未來幾代人去實現。