农民收藏家

例文三　农民收藏家

陈孝荣

原文:

我的家乡云南有一个农民，过去是县属国营酒厂的职工，因企业不景气被“精简”回了乡。可这个农民是个小个子，才一米五几，不适合在大山里生存。他只好背着一个老式120相机走村串寨给人照相混口饭吃。

可那时农民穷得很，没人舍得花钱照什么相。那农民的脑子很活，说照相不给钱也行，给点他们用不着的老家具、旧衣服就可以。这样的交换条件，村民自然乐不可支，因为那些旧东西早不时兴了，摆在家里还占地方。

那农民从此就干起了文物收藏。那时的山里人谁也不知道这就叫文物收藏，他们都把那农民叫做“怪物”、“傻子”、“不务正业的人”。就连他妻子也是如此，见到家里的破烂越来越多，没少跟他大吵大闹，为这夫妻俩差点离了婚。

后来我们县大办旅游，他的机遇来了。听说有个少数民族文物收藏家，来他家参观的人络绎不绝，他一下子就出了名。省市县镇几级领导高度重视，拨出专款让他把那个鸡笼似的小屋换成了宽敞明亮的平房。

——《卫生与生活》周刊，2006-1-2

译文:

From Junk to Cultural Artifacts

This is a story of how a laid-off factory worker became a well-known collector of cultural artifacts.

When he left the factory，a bankrupt state-run brewery in the city，this man went back to his home village in the mountainous Yunnan Province.But he was physically unfit for farm work in the mountains，being only a little over 1.5m in height.To eke out a living，he became a traveling photographer with an old camera，going from house to house，looking for customers.

He didn't have much luck.Having their pictures taken was a luxury the farmers could not afford.But that did not stop him.He told them that if they didn't have the money to pay him，he would accept for his service whatever they could give him such as run-down furniture or clothes that they had no use for and wanted to get rid of.It worked.The farmers took his offer as a windfall，thinking he must be an eccentric，a fool or trash.And his wife，who hated what he was doing，would from time to time throw a tantrum，even threaten divorce，over the ever-expanding piles of junk her husband collected.They did not know that the throwaways could be of cultural value.

A few years later，life began to smile at him.With tourism becoming a booming industry in the county，he became known as a collector of ethnic cultural artifacts.Legions of visitors flocked to his home，and when the local authorities learned of this，they had his chicken-coop-like shanty converted into a shining，spacious one-story house.

【分析】这是一篇介绍中国改革开放初期的传奇人物的文章，重点是他如何从一个收破烂的成为民俗收藏家的过程。汉语原文比较啰嗦，冗余成分很多，英译时必须做必要的删减。

1)我的家乡云南有一个农民，过去是县属国营酒厂的职工，因企业不景气被“精简”回了乡。——这是典型的汉语叙事方式，像说书一样:“一切从头说起……”。英译文读者关心的是事情的经过和结果，其他细节并不重要，没有必要翻译。一句引导语就足够了:This is a story of how a laid-off factory worker became a well-known collector of cultural artifacts。

2)那农民的脑子很活，村民自然乐不可支。——这是典型的中文表达方式，英译必须变通:The farmers took his offer as a windfall。windfall是人们得到了“没想到的好事”，表示“惊奇”。

3)那些旧东西早不时兴了，摆在家里还占地方。——这是老百姓的惯用语，指的是“破烂儿”，译成something that they had no use for and wanted to get rid of即可。

4)他的机遇来了——这句话也是套话，不能直译为His opportunity has come，应该译作life began to smile at him，意指“他时来运转了”。

5)省市县镇几级领导高度重视——中国人言必称“各级领导高度重视”，是典型的套话，没必要译成leaders at various levels，译为the local authorities即可。