嵌件-四色牌
Unit 5
Speaking Chinese in America
在美国说中文
Once,
at
a
dinner
on
the
Monterey
Peninsula,
California,
my
mother
whispered
to
me
confidentially:
(brother's wife) pretends
too hard to be a polite recipient! Why bother with
such nominal courtesy? In the end, she
always takes everything.
有一次，
在加州蒙特雷半岛上用餐时，我母亲私下悄悄地对我说：
“
嫂嫂
想做个彬彬有礼的客人，但是装得
太厉害了！何必费劲讲究形式上的客套呢？到最后她还
是什么都要。
”
My mother
acted like a waixiao, an emigrant, no longer
patient with old taboos and courtesies. To prove
her point,
she reached across the table
to offer
my elderly aunt from Beijing
the
last scallop
from
the garlic seafood dish,
along with the flank steak and the
cucumber salad.
我母亲行事像个
“
外侨
”
，即一个移民国外的侨民，因为她已经不
耐烦老一套的禁忌和礼数了。为了证明她
刚才的观点，她手伸过桌子，把蒜香海鲜拼盘里
的最后一个扇贝，连同牛腩排及黄瓜沙拉一起，递给我从
北京来的年长舅妈。
Sau-sau frowned.
嫂嫂皱起
了眉头，
“
不要，真不要！
”
她一边大声说一边拍着自己已经吃得很饱的肚子。我不要了，真的不
要了
。
“
拿去吧
！拿去吧！
”
我母亲用中文责备道。预料到她就会这样，就像月
亮盈亏周期似的。
“
饱了，我已经饱了，
”
嫂嫂低声嘀咕着，眼睛却瞟着扇
贝。
“
哎！
”
我母亲感叹着说，
“
没人愿意吃，只能让它坏掉了！
”
Sau-sau sighed, acting as if she were
doing my mother a favor by taking the scrap off
the tray and sparing us the
trouble of
wrapping the leftovers in foil.
嫂嫂叹了口气，
从碟子上拿去了那个扇贝，就好像是帮了我母亲一个大忙，并省去了我们用箔纸将剩菜打
包的麻烦似的。
My mother turned to
her brother, an experienced Chinese magistrate,
visiting us for the first time.
Chinese
person could starve to death. If you don't breach
the old rules of etiquette and say you want it,
they won't
ask you again.
我母亲
转头看着她兄长
——
一位经验丰富的中国地方法官，这是他初次
来看我们。她说：
“
在美国，一个中
国
人可能会饿死。要是你不打破老一套的礼数说你要吃，他们就不会再问你了。
”
My uncle nodded and said he
understood fully: Americans take things quickly
because they have no time to be
polite.
我舅舅点点头，说他完全理解：美国人待人接物快速迅捷，因为他们没有时间客气来客气
去。
I read an article in The
New York Times Magazine on changes in New York's
little cultural colony of Chinatown,
where the author mentioned that the
interwoven configuration of Chinese language and
culture renders its speech
indirect and
polite. Chinese people are so
我在《纽约时报杂志》上读到过一篇文章，描述的是纽约市内的中国城这一小块文化聚居地的变迁。作者
在文章中提到，中国语言与文化错综交织，使中文十分委婉和客套。中国人是如此
“
谨慎和谦虚
”
，文章开
头写道，以至于他们都没有词语来表达
“
是
”
和
“
不
是
”
。
Why do people keep fabricating these
rumors? I thought. They describe us as though we
were a tribe of those little
dolls sold
in Chinatown tourist shops, heads moving up and
down in contented agreement!
我思索着，为什么人们
会不断地编造这样的谣言呢？他们把我们描述得就像是唐人街旅游品商店里出售的
一批小
布娃娃。那些布娃娃的头不停地上下晃动，似乎对一切都心满意足，完全赞同。
As any child of immigrant parents
knows, there is a special kind of double bind
attached to knowing two languages.
My
parents, for example, spoke to me in both Chinese
and English; I spoke back to them in English.
生于移民家庭的孩子都清楚，有一种特殊的两难境地与说两种语言的生活联系在一起。比如我父母
，他们
和我说话时中文和英文都用，但我和他们说话时只用英文。
“
艾米啊！
”
他们会这样责备我。
“
怎么啦？
”
我会回问道
。
“
我们叫
你时，不要对我们反问，
”
他们会用中文训斥道。
“
这是不礼貌的！
”
“
你们什么意思？
”
Didn't
we
just
tell
you
not
to
question?
is
If
I
consider
my
upbringing
carefully,
I
find
there
was
nothing
discreet
about
the Chinese
language
I
grew
up
with,
no
censorship
for
the
sake of politeness.
My
parents
made
everything
abundantly
clear
in
their
consecutive
demands:
course
you
will
become
a
famous
aerospace
engineer, they prodded.
仔细想想自
己的成长过程，我发现，我从小到大所接触到的中文并不是什么特别谨慎的语言，也不存在出
于客气而对所说的话进行仔细检查的现象。
我父母向我提一连串的要求时，
总是把一切都表述得清清楚楚：
“
你当然会成为
著名的航空工程师，
”
他们会鼓励我说，
“
对了，你业余时间还要做音乐会的钢琴师。
”
It seems that the more forceful
proceedings always spilled over into Chinese:
not a single grain is lost.
似
乎更加强硬的事情总是通过中文倾泻出来：
“
不能那样！你淘米
的时候，必须一粒都不漏。
”
Having listened to both Chinese and
English, I'm suspicious of comparisons between the
two languages, as I notice
the
reciprocal challenges they each present. English
speakers say Chinese is extremely difficult
because different
words can be denoted
by very subtle variations in tone. English is
often bracketed with the label of inconsistency, a
language of too many broken rules.
由于一直同时听着中英文两种语言，故而我对它们之间的任何对比总是心存怀疑，因为我注意到它
们各自
都有对方所没有的难点。说英文的人会认为中文极其难，因为中文用非常微妙的声
调变化就可以表示不同
的词语。而英文则常常被认为缺乏一致性，因为英文具有太多不合
规则的用法。
Even more dangerous,
in my view, is the temptation to view the gulf
between different languages and behavior in
translation. To listen to my mother
speak English, an outside spectator might make the
deduction that she has no
concept of
the temporal differences of past and future or
that she is gender blind because she refers to my
husband
as
the point. It is,
rather, my mother's individual tendency to
ornament her language and wander around a bit.
在我看来，更危险的做法是，人们往往倾向于通过翻译来理解不同语言和行为之间的差异。如果
一个旁观
的外人听我母亲说英语，可能会得出结论，说她对过去和将来这样的时间区别没
有概念，或者认为她对人
的性别不加区分，
因为她提到我丈夫时
总是说
“
她
”
。
如果一个人对此类现象不假思虑，
他也许还会概括说，
所有中国人都是通过委婉迂回的方式才能说到话题重点的。而实际上喜欢修饰和绕弯子只是我母
亲个人的
说话风格。
I
worry
that
the
dominant
society
may
see
Chinese
people
from
a
limited
perspective,
hedging
us
in
with
the
stereotype. I worry that the seemingly
innocent stereotype may lead to actual intolerance
and be part of the reason
why there are
few Chinese in top management positions, or in the
main judiciary or political sectors. I worry about
the power of language: If one says
anything enough times, it might become true, with
or without malicious intent.
我担心主流社会可能会
从一个狭隘的角度、以一种成见看待中国人。我担心这种看似无害的成见实际会导
致人们
对中国人难以容忍，并成为中国人在高层管理职位或主要的司法及政府部门寥寥无几的部分原因。
我担心语言的力量，即如果一个人将一件事说了很多遍，无论其是否有恶意，这件事都会变成事实。
Could this be why the Chinese
friends of my parents' generation are willing to
accept the generalization?
这会不会就是我父母辈的中
国朋友愿意接受那些对中国人的简单概括的原因呢？
Wouldn't Americans
appreciate such an honorary description?
“
你为什么要抱怨呢？
”
他们中有人
问我。
“
如果人们认为我们谦虚礼让，就让他们那样想好了。难
道美国人
不喜欢这种赞誉性的话吗？
And I do believe that anyone would take
the description as a compliment - at first. But
after a while, it annoys, as if
the
only things that people heard one say were what
had been filtered through the sieve of social
niceties: I'm so
pleased to meet you.
I've heard many wonderful things about you.
我当然相信每个人在一开始都会把这种描述的话当成称赞。但过了一段时间，这种话就会让人恼怒，就
好
像所听到的只是些经过细微的社交区别过滤后的言辞，诸如
“
很高兴认识你，我听到许多人都夸奖你
”
之类
的话。
These
remarks are not representative of new ideas,
honest emotions, or considered thought. Like a
piece of bread,
they
are
only
the
crust
of
the
interaction,
or
what
is
said
from
the
polite
distance
of
social
contexts:
greetings,
farewells,
convenient
excuses,
and
the
like.
This
generalization,
therefore,
is
not
a
true
composite
of
Chinese
culture but only a stereotype of our
exterior behavior.
这些话不能表达什么新观点，也不能传达什么
真实的情感或深思熟虑的想法。它们就像一片面包，只是人
们交往中最表层的东西，或社
交场合下出于礼貌而说的一些话：问候、道别、顺口的托词，诸如此类。由
此看来，那些
对中国人的概括性评价并非是对中国文化成分的真实描述，而仅仅是对我们外在行为的一种
成见而已。
“
那么中文究竟怎么表达
?
是
?
和
?
不是
?
呢？
”
我的朋友也许会小心翼翼地问。
At this junction, I do agree
in part with The New York Times Magazine article.
There is no one word for
在这一点上，我的确在某种程度上同意《纽约时报杂志》的那篇文章。在中文里，没有哪一个字
专门用于
表达
“
是
”
或
“
不是
”
，但这并非是因为需要保持谨慎。若的确有什么不同的话，那我会说中文里对应的<
/p>
“
是
”
或
“
不是
”
的表达通常
是针对所问的具体内容而定的。
Ask a Chinese
person if he or she has eaten, and he or she might
say chrle (eaten already) or meiyou (have not).
如果你问一个中国人是否吃饭了，他（或她）会说
“
吃了
”
（已经吃过）或
“
没有
”
（没有吃过）
。
Ask,
you
stopped
beating
your
wife?
and
the
answer
refers
directly
to
the
proposition
being
asserted
or
denied: stopped already, still have
not, never beat, have no wife.
你若问：
“
你停止打老婆了吗？
”
他会直接就所断定或所否认的假设进行回答：已经停止了，还没有，从来
不打，没有老
婆。
What could be clearer?
还有什么能比这更明了的呢？
Unit 4
Achieving sustainable environmentalism
实现可持续性发展的环保主义
Environmental
sensitivity
is
now
as
required
an
attitude
in
polite
society
as
is,
say,
belief
in
democracy
or
disapproval of plastic surgery. But now
that everyone from Ted Turner to George H. W. Bush
has claimed love for
Mother Earth, how
are we to choose among the dozens of conflicting
proposals, regulations and laws advanced by
congressmen and constituents alike in
the name of the environment? Clearly, not
everything with an environmental
claim
is worth doing. How do we segregate the best
options and consolidate our varying interests into
a
single,
sound policy?
在上流社会，对环境的敏感就如同信仰民主、反对整容一样，是一种不可或缺的态度。然而，既然
从泰德
?
特纳到乔治
?W.H.
布什，每个人都声称自己热爱地球母亲，那么，在由议员、选民之类的人以环境名义而提
出的众多的相互矛盾的提案、规章和法规中，我们又该如何做出选择呢？显而易见，并不是每一
项冠以环
境保护名义的事情都值得去做。我们怎样才能分离出最佳选择，并且把我们各自
不同的兴趣统一在同一个
合理的政策当中呢？
There is a simple way. First,
differentiate between environmental luxuries and
environmental necessities. Luxuries
are
those things that would be nice to have if
costless. Necessities are those things we must
have regardless. Call
this distinction
the definitive rule of sane environmentalism,
which stipulates that combating ecological change
that
directly threatens the health and
safety of people is an environmental necessity.
All else is luxury.
有一种简便的方法。首先要区分什么是环境
奢侈品，什么是环境必需品。奢侈品是指那些无需人类付出代
价就能拥有的给人美好感受
的东西。必需品则是指那些无论付出什么代价，都一定要去拥有的东西。这一
区分原则可
以被称为理性环保主义的至高原则。它规定，对那些直接威胁人类健康与安全的生态变化采取
应对措施是环境保护的必需品，而其他则都属于奢侈品
。
For example, preserving the atmosphere
- stopping ozone depletion and the greenhouse
effect - is an environmental
necessity.
Recently, scientists reported that ozone damage is
far worse than previously thought. Ozone depletion
has a correlation not only with skin
cancer and eye problems, it also destroys the
ocean's ecology, the beginning of
the
food chain atop which we humans sit.
例如
，保护大气层
——
阻止臭氧损耗及控制温室效应
——
是环境保护的必需品。近来，科学家报告说臭氧
层
遭受破坏的程度远比我们先前认为的要严重得多。臭氧损耗不仅与皮肤癌及眼疾有关，而且它还会破坏
海洋生态。而海洋生态是食物链的起点，人类则位于该食物链的顶端。
The possible thermal consequences of
the greenhouse effect are far deadlier: melting
ice caps, flooded coastlines,
disrupted
climate,
dry
plains
and,
ultimately,
empty
breadbaskets.
The
American
Midwest
feeds
people
at
all
corners of the atlas.
With the planetary climate changes, are we
prepared to see Iowa take on New Mexico's desert
climate, or Siberia take on Iowa's
moderate climate?
温室效应所可能引发的热效应是非常具有毁灭性
的：
冰川融化、
海岸线被淹没、
气候遭
受破坏、
平原干涸，
最终食物消失殆尽。美国中西部地区的粮食
供养着全世界。随着全球气候的变化，我们难道准备看到衣阿
华州变成新墨西哥州的沙漠
气候，而西伯利亚变成衣阿华州的温和气候吗？
Ozone
depletion and the greenhouse effect are human
disasters, and they are urgent because they
directly threaten
humanity and are not
easily reversible. A sane environmentalism, the
only kind of environmentalism that will strike
a
chord
with
the
general
public,
begins
by
openly
declaring
that
nature
is
here
to
serve
human
beings.
A
sane
environmentalism is
entirely a human focused regime: It calls upon
humanity to preserve nature, but merely within
the parameters of self-survival.
臭氧损耗和温室效应是人类的灾难，而且是需要紧急处理的灾难，因为它们直接威胁到人类，且后果很
难
扭转。理性环保主义
——
唯一能够引
起公众共鸣的环保主张
——
首先公开声明，自然是服务于人类的
。理
性环保主义是一种完全以人类为中心的思想。它号召人类保护自然，但是是在人类自
我生存得到保证的前
提之下。
Of
course, this human focus runs against the grain of
a contemporary environmentalism that indulges in
overt earth
worship.
Some
people
even
allege
that
the
earth
is
a
living
organism.
This
kind
of
environmentalism
likes
to
consider itself
spiritual. It is nothing more than sentimental. It
takes, for example, a highly selective view of the
kindness of nature, one that is
incompatible with the reality of natural
disasters. My nature worship stops with the
twister
that
came
through
Kansas
or
the
dreadful
rains
in
Bangladesh
that
eradicated
whole
villages
and
left
millions homeless.
当然，
这种以人类为中心的主张与当下盛行的环保主义是格格不入的，
后者已经沉溺
于对地球的公然崇拜。
有的人甚至声称地球是一个活的生物体。这种环保主义喜欢把自己
看作是神圣的，其实它只是感情用事而
已。比如，在自然是否友善的问题上，当下的环保
主义采取了高度选择性的片面的观点，而这种观点与自
然造成的灾难这一现实是不相协调
的。当龙卷风肆虐堪萨斯州，当瓢泼大雨袭击孟加拉国，毁灭了整座整
座的村庄，使几百
万人失去家园的时候，我对自然的崇拜便停止了
。
A non-sentimental environmentalism is
one founded on Protagoras's idea that
establishing the sovereignty of man,
such a principle helps us through the dense forest
of environmental arguments.
Take
the
current
debate
raging
over
oil
drilling
in
a
corner
of
the
Arctic
National
Wildlife
Refuge
(ANWR).
Environmentalist coalitions, mobilizing
against a legislative action working its way
through the US Congress for
the
legalization
of
such
exploration,
propagate
that
Americans
should
be
preserving
and
economizing
energy
instead
of
drilling
for
it.
This
is
a
false
either-or
proposition.
The
US
does
need
a
sizable
energy
tax
to
reduce
consumption.
But
it
needs
more
production
too.
Government
estimates
indicate
a
nearly
fifty-fifty
chance
that
under the ANWR rests
one of the five largest oil fields ever discovered
in America. It seems illogical that we are
not finding safe ways to drill for oil
in the ANWR.
非感情用事的环保主义是建立在普罗泰哥拉的格言
“
人是万物的尺度
”
的
基础上的。在建立人类权威的过程
中，这条原则会帮助我们梳理各种错综复杂的关于环境
保护的争议。就以当前关于是否在北极国家野生动
物保护区的某一角落开采石油的激烈争
论为例吧。环保主义者联盟动员人们反对目前正在试图通过美国国
会审议、使这一开采行
为变得合法化的一项立法行动。他们散布说美国应该保护并且节约能源而不是开采
能源。
这其实是一个错误的非此即彼的主张。美国确实需要征收高额的能源税以减少能源消耗，但同时也
需要生产更多的能源。政府的估测表明，在北极国家野生动物保护区的地下蕴藏着美国五大油田之一的可
能性几乎到达
50%
。我们没有寻找安全的方法开采北极国家野生动物保护区地下的石油，这看上去是不符
< br>合情理的。
The US has just
come through a war fought in part over oil. Energy
dependence costs Americans not just dollars
but lives. It is a bizarre
sentimentalism that would deny oil that is
peacefully attainable because it risks disrupting
the birthing grounds of Arctic caribou.
美国刚刚经历了一场战争，其部分原因就是为了获取石油。对能源的依赖使美国不但付出
了金钱的代价，
而且也付出了生命的代价。就因为可能破坏北美驯鹿的繁衍地而放弃能够
以和平手段获得的石油，这是一
种十分怪异的感情用事。
I like the caribou as much as the next
person. And I would be rather sorry if their
mating patterns were disturbed.
But you
can't have your cake and eat it too. And in the
standoff of the welfare of caribou versus reducing
an oil
reliance that gets people killed
in wars, I choose people over caribou every time.
我像别人一样喜欢驯鹿。如果他们的交配模式受到干扰，我会感到非常遗憾。但是，鱼和
熊掌不能兼得。
是要保护驯鹿，还是要为了避免人们在战争中丧生而减少对石油的依赖，
面对这一僵局，我每次都会选择
人类而不是驯鹿。
I feel similarly about the spotted owl
in Oregon. I am no enemy of the owl. If it could
be preserved at a negligible
cost, I
would agree that it should be - biodiversity is
after all necessary to the ecosystem. But we must
remember
that not every species is
needed to keep that diversity. Sometimes aesthetic
aspects of life have to be sacrificed to
more
fundamental
ones.
If
the
cost
of
preserving
the
spotted
owl
is
the
loss
of
livelihood
for
30,000
logging
families, I choose the families (with
their saws and chopped timber) over the owl.
我对俄勒冈州的斑点猫头鹰的态度也是一样。
我绝不是仇视猫头鹰。
如果花很少的代价就可以保护猫头鹰，
我会赞同它应受保护
——
毕竟，生物多样性对生态系统是非常必要的。但是，我们必须记住，保
持生物多
样性并不意味着要留住每一种物种。有时候，为了更加根本的利益，我们不得不
牺牲一部分生活中美的东
西。如果为了保护斑点猫头鹰而让三万伐木工家庭失去生计，我
会选择伐木工家庭（包括他们的锯子和砍
伐的木材）
，而不是猫
头鹰。
11 The
important
distinction
is
between
those
environmental
goods
that
are
fundamental
and
those
that
are
not.
Nature
is
our
ward,
not
our
master.
It
is
to
be
respected
and
even
cultivated.
But
when
humans
have
to
choose
between their own well-being and that
of nature, nature will have to accommodate.
重要的是，我们要区分哪些东西对环境保护是根本性的，哪些是非根本性的。自然受我们的监护，而不
是
我们的主人。我们应该尊重自然，也可以开发利用自然。但是，如果人类必须在自身的
福利和自然的福利
之间作出选择，自然则必须作出让步。
12 Humanity should accommodate only
when its fate and that of nature are inseparably
bound up. The most urgent
maneuver must
be undertaken when the very integrity of
humanity's habitat, e.g., the atmosphere or the
essential
geology that sustains the
core of the earth, is threatened. When the threat
to humanity is lower in the hierarchy of
necessity, a more modest accommodation
that balances economic against health concerns is
in order. But in either
case the
principle is the same: protect the environment -
because it is humanity's environment.
只
有当人类的命运与自然的命运密不可分时，人类才应该作出让步。当人类栖息地的完整性（比如大气层
或维持地球核心的基本地质状况）受到威胁时，人类就必须立即调整自己的行为。而当人类受到的威 胁不
大，不太需要对自己的行为进行调整时，恰当的做法是平衡考虑经济方面和与之相对
的健康方面的因素，
以便作出适度的调整。但是，无论是哪种情况，其遵循的原则是一致
的：保护环境，因为这是我们人类的
环境。
13 The sentimental environmentalists
will call this saving nature with a totally wrong
frame of mind. Exactly. A
sane and
intelligible environmentalism does it not for
nature's sake but for our own.
感情用事的环保主
义者会说这种拯救自然的思路是完全错误的。的确是这样。理性、明确的环保主义保护
环
境是为了人类自身，而不是为了自然。
Unit3
Fred Smith and FedEx:
The vision that changed the world
弗雷德
·
史密斯与联邦快递：一个改变了世界的创想
Every night several hundred planes
bearing a purple, white, and orange design touch
down at Memphis Airport, in
Tennessee.
What precedes this landing are package pickups
from locations all over the United States earlier
in the
day. Crews unload the planes'
cargo of more than half a million parcels and
letters. The rectangular packages and
envelopes are rapidly reshuffled and
sorted according to address, then loaded onto
other aircraft, and flown to their
destinations to be dispersed by hand -
many within 24 hours of leaving their senders.
This is the culmination of a
dream
of
Frederick
W.
Smith,
the
founder,
president,
chief
executive
officer,
and
chairman
of
the
board
of
the
FedEx Corp. - known originally as
Federal Express - the largest and most successful
overnight delivery service in
the
world. Conceived when he was in college and now in
its 28th year of operation, Smith's exquisite
brainchild has
become the standard for
door-to-door package delivery.
每天夜晚，在田纳
西州的孟菲斯机场，都有几百架带着白、紫、桔色图案的飞机降落。而在每天此前的早
些
时候，这些飞机都在美国各地收集包裹。工作人员从飞机上卸下的包裹及信件数量超过五十万之巨。长
方形的包裹和信封又在这里依据收件地址被迅速整理分拣，然后装载上其他飞机，飞往各自的目的地 ，在
那儿再由人工投递
——
到这时很多
邮件离开寄件人之手还不到
24
小
时。
这是弗雷德里克
·
W·
史密斯的终极
梦想，他就是联邦快递集团（最初为联邦快递）这一全球最大
、最成功的隔夜送达服务企业的创始人、总
裁、
首席执行官及董
事会主席。
如今，
史密斯这一源于大学时代的妙想已在现实中经
营到了第
28
个年头，
并已成为包裹快递入户行业的标杆。
Recognized as an outstanding
entrepreneur with an agreeable and winning
personality, Smith is held in high regard
by his competitors as well as his
employees and stockholders. Fred Smith was just 27
when he founded FedEx.
Now,
so
many
years
later,
he's
still
the
of
the
ship
He
attributes
the
success
the
company
simply
to
leadership, something he deduced from
his years in the military, and from his family.
史密斯被公认为是一位和蔼可亲、性格迷人的杰出企业家。无论是他的竞争者、员工，还是他
公司股票的
持有人，都对他十分敬重。弗雷德
·
史密斯创建
“
联邦快递
”
时只有
27
岁
。现在多年过去了，他仍然坐在
“
掌
门
人
”
的位置上。
他将公司的成功简单地
归因于领导力，
而这一推论则来自于他的军旅生涯及其家庭的影响。
Frederick Wallace Smith was born
into a wealthy family clan on August 11, 1944 in
Mississippi. His father died
when he
was just four years old. As a juvenile, Smith was
an invalid, suffering from a disease that left him
unable
to walk normally. He was picked
on by bullies, and he learned to defend himself by
swinging at them with his alloy
walking
stick.
Cured
of
the
disease
by
the
age
of
10,
he
became
a
star
athlete
in
high
school,
playing
football,
basketball, and baseball.
弗雷
德里克
·
华莱士
·
史密斯
1944
年
8
月
11
日
出生于密西西比州一个富裕的家族。他四岁时父亲就离世
了。史密斯年少时被视为病残者
，因为他得了一种病，使他无法正常行走。为此他常遭受坏孩子的侮辱捉
弄，他学会了挥
舞合金拐杖来保护自己。十岁时他的病治好了，到了高中他则成了学校里的体育明星，足
球、篮球、棒球样样能行。
Smith's passion
was flying. At 15, he was operating a crop-duster
over the skyline of the Mississippi Delta, a
terrain
so flat that there was little
need for radar navigation. As a student at Yale
University, he helped revive the Yale
flying club; its alumni had populated
naval aviation history, including the famous
I. Smith administrated the club's
business end and ran a small charter operation in
New Haven.
史密斯对飞行充满了激情。
15
岁时，他就曾驾驶一架作物喷粉飞机在密西西比三角洲的天际翱翔，三角洲
< br>的地形平坦开阔，甚至都不需要雷达导航。在耶鲁大学上学时，他参与重建了耶鲁飞行倶乐部，在美国海< /p>
军航空史的每个时期都有这一俱乐部出来的校友的身影，包括一战时期著名的
“
百万富翁飞行队
”
。史密
斯
负责管理俱乐部的事务，同时还在纽黑文经营一项小规模的租赁业务。
With his study time disrupted by
flying, his academic performance suffered, but
Smith never stopped looking for
his own
prototype
for
a
transportation
company
that
would
guarantee
overnight
delivery
of
small,
time-sensitive
goods,
such
as
replacement
parts
and
medical
supplies,
to
major
US
regions.
The
professor
wasn't
impressed
and
told
Smith he
couldn't quantify the idea and clearly it wasn't
feasible.
由于飞行打乱了学习时间，他的学业受到了影响，但史密斯从未停
止寻找自己的
“
伟大想法
”
。在撰写一门
经济学课程的学期论文时，他认为自己已经找到了它。他设计
了一份运输企业的经营草案，该运输企业可
以确保连夜递送小型或时间紧迫的货品到达美
国的主要地区，如替换零件、医药用品等等。教授对这篇论
文未予重视，他告诉史密斯说
，他无法量化他的想法，并说这一想法明显不切合实际。
However, Smith was certain he was onto
something, even though several more years elapsed
before he could turn
his idea into
reality. In the interim, he graduated from Yale in
1966, just as America's involvement in the Vietnam
War was deepening. Since he was a
patriot and had attended officers' training
classes, he joined the Marines.
然而，
史密斯确信自己已经发现了些什么，
尽管又过了好几年他才得以把自己的
想法付诸实施。
在此期间，