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Cutting Across Cultures
跨文化理发
Mike Tidwell
迈克·蒂德韦尔
Against a worn strip of water buffalo leather, the Vietnamese barber slapped his straight razor back and forth. He paused to tilt my head back, leaving my Adam's apple fully exposed to the blade. Looking up now, I saw the flowers of a flaming mimosa tree, its branches forming the delicate ceiling of this one-man outdoor barber shop. I smelled the incense of a nine-hundred-year-old Confucian temple a hundred feet away. I heard the bright bells of bicycles gliding down the wide Hanoi boulevard.
越南理发师在一条旧水牛皮带上来来回回地磨他的剃刀，然后停下来把我的头向后扳，我的喉结完全暴露在了他的刀刃之下。我仰头看见了含羞草怒放的花，花枝搭成了这个理发店精致的天花板，理发店是室外的，且只有一个理发师。我嗅着百尺外九百年孔子庙的焚香，听着河内宽阔的林荫道上自行车铃清脆地响过。
Yet we'd gotten off to a bad start, this barber and I. I figured he was trying to fleece me when, after I asked how much he charged, he didn't tell me. But he was just being polite in Vietnamese fashion, saying I would pay afterward, as much as I wanted, only if I was happy. When I pressed the issue, he just waved me into his wooden chair. I got in, huffing, our cultures colliding as we attempted to communicate.
但我们，这个理发师和我，开始的交流并不顺利。我问他修脸理发多少钱，他没有回答我，我猜他是想敲我一笔。但他说理完以后再付，到时候满意的话，愿意给多少就给多少——这只是越南方式的礼貌。我再追问时，他只是挥手示意我坐到木制椅子上。我坐在上面怒气冲冲。在试图沟通的过程中，我们的文化发生了碰撞。
"How many fallen yellow leaves do you have?" the barber asked me, still whacking his long, gleaming razor against the leather strap. He was asking my age.
“你有多少片落下的黄叶子啦？”理发师一边问我,一边还在皮带上使劲磨他的又长又亮的剃刀。他是在问我的年龄。
"Thirty-three," I answered.
“三十三。”我答道。
He asked what country I was from. "America," I said.
他问我从哪个国家来的。“美国。”我说。
