Ah, Paris. It's one of the most fawned over cities in the world. Everybody likes to talk about Paris, and some travel to the extreme edges (and beyond) of their thesaurus just to find words to describe it. However, is there any other, darker side? There are a lot of cities that have great culture and become popular travel destinations, but they all have their warts and flaws, too. Paris is no exception.
巴黎作为全球享誉过度的城市之一，总是能引来热议。人们绞尽脑汁试图用合适的词来形容它的美好。然而，它当真如此完美无瑕吗？许多城市因为自身博大精深的文化而成为了旅游胜地，但它们也存在瑕疵，巴黎也不例外。
10.魅力
So, how exactly did Paris gain its status of celebrity in the first place? The Capital City of France is a state of mind more than a city; everybody wants to go to Paris. Oscar Wilde once famously said, "when good Americans die, they go to Paris". It is a beautiful city, but it's like a good yet slightly monotone Hollywood actor that somehow makes more money than other, more expressive actors do. The glamour is almost entirely fabricated. Paris has had one of the most astonishing marketing makeovers in the history of the world.
那么最初，巴黎是如何获得这一美誉的呢？它在法国人民心中所代表的意义绝不仅止于一座首都那么简单。对于这座人们心驰神往的城市，英国大文豪奥斯卡·王尔德曾说过："当美国的好人死了,他们就去巴黎。"的确，巴黎是一座美丽的城市，但它就像演艺圈中一位富有表现力的好莱坞演员一样，确实比其他演员更吸金，可它的美却过于单调乏味，几乎是人们刻意制造出来的。历史上的巴黎曾有过一次华丽的大转身。
Up until 19th century, it was a slum, with widespread famine and plague. Then in a few decades, it became the international capital of style and desire. It was almost completely rebuilt after WWII, and while the poverty may be gone (or at least hidden), some of the decay is still there. Paris is a founding member of the 5-star club. Whichever survey or report you're looking at, Paris is always up there in the top five cities in the world in terms of wealth, competitiveness, global power, and economic power. This is the brochure. The truth is that it isn't that big, it's not very clean and, excuse the crudeness, it's full of…
19世纪以前，巴黎是一个饥饿与瘟疫肆行的贫民窟。几十年后，它摇身一变,成了引领国际潮流的欲望之都。二战后的巴黎几乎被重新修建，虽然原本的贫穷似乎已经无迹可寻（或者只是被掩盖在华丽的外表下），但战后衰败之相还在。巴黎是五星级俱乐部创建成员之一，所有你阅读的调查报告都会显示，就财力、竞争力、全球影响力以及经济实力而言，它始终稳居前五名。但它们都有失偏颇，真实的巴黎并没有宣传中所描写的那么富裕、整洁和文明，它其实满是……
9.流浪汉
Okay, this is a sensible matter. Big cities can be cruel and it's easy to fall and harder to get back on track. Nevertheless, clochards are literally everywhere in Paris. They never write that in brochures, but Paris is overflowing with the homeless. The French term is Clochard, but don't let that sweeten the pill for you. If you associate the French capital city with romance and art and if your favorite foreign expression is Belle Epoque, the sight of some of these unlucky souls will be even more brutal. An innocent light glows in their eyes as they ask for a dime or, as often as not, alcohol. They're everywhere.
这是一个敏感话题。大城市的现实总是残酷的，它很容易衰落并且难以回到正轨。毫不夸张地说，巴黎到处都是无家可归的流浪汉，但这一点却不会被纳入宣传巴黎的小册子里。Clochard(流浪汉)是一个法语单词，可别因此就美化了这个词。如果你由这个词联想到的是充满艺术气息与浪漫风情的法国巴黎，如果你最喜欢的外语表达是Belle Epoque，那么其中一些流浪汉的不幸遭遇将会变得更加不堪入目。他们的眼眸中满是无助，怯怯地乞讨着一毛钱，或是想要一点酒。另外，他们无处不在。
On the mini roundabout as you walk to Montmartre, on the floor in front of the bank where you want to withdraw some cash to have a coffee. They'll be there too. Sometimes, you see them lying on the concrete of a traffic island. Some have no carton boxes to lie on, so they lie down on the big sewer grates that interrupt the cobblestone here and there; the air that comes out of the grates is warm because it comes from the sewers. Clochards literally camp on them with tents. It is a very desperate, very sad, and severely underreported sight.
当你走到蒙马特的小型环行交叉口，想去银行取点现金买杯咖啡时，在银行的门口便能看见他们的身影。有时候你也能看见他们直接躺在交通岛的水泥地上。有些人因为没有可以垫的纸板箱，便直接躺在用来防止鹅卵石掉入下水道的格栅上，所以从格栅里出来的都是热气。流浪汉们把它们当成了自己的住所，然而他们如此绝望和落魄的生活却极少得到社会的关注与报道。
8.It's No Longer Uniquely Grand
8.巴黎不再举世无双
Paris is beautiful. Thing is, many other European cities are beautiful. Rome is beautiful, London is vibrant, Tallinn is interesting, Barcelona is amusing, and Amsterdam is entertaining. Hold on, there's more. Copenhagen is clean and tidy, there's incredible art in Florence, and glamour? Stockholm and Antwerp are catching up quickly. If you want a gorgeous city, check out Prague. That's it in the photo above. This is the harsh and pragmatic reality of the world in the 21st century. The world is there for anyone to see. Everything is more expensive these days except, in many cases, for travel.
诚然，巴黎美不胜收，但事实上欧洲许多城市也毫不逊色。罗马令人着迷，伦敦活力无限，塔林趣味盎然，巴塞罗那令人惊艳，阿姆斯特丹引人入胜……等一下，这还远没有完奥！哥本哈根干净整洁，纤尘不染；佛罗伦萨魅力无穷，令人惊叹的艺术品随处可见；而斯德哥尔摩和安特卫普也不甘人后，正奋起直追。如果你憧憬一个绚烂而美丽的城市，那就去看看布拉格吧！上面就是它的照片奥！世界这么大，谁都能去看看。毕竟在这个时代，虽然很多时候我们身边的一切事物都越来越昂贵了，但旅游却反而越来越便宜了。
The European Union may be in a financial turmoil and a political mishmash, but it's made Europe more accessible. Amazing countries like Slovenia, Croatia, and Hungary would've been difficult to visit just 30 or 40 years ago, yet if you go today you'll find nice people willing to try to speak your language or at least English to you, willing to show you their cities and wanting you to visit their monuments and eat in their restaurants and shop in their malls. It becomes more and more difficult to justify a a wildly overpriced cup of coffee in Paris, when you can have an amazing espresso in Budapest for a fifth the price.
欧盟可能带来了一定程度的经济动荡和政治混乱，但也使得欧洲不再遥不可及。三四十年前，想去斯洛文尼亚、克罗地亚和匈牙利等这些神奇的国度旅行，简直难于上青天。但如今再去这些国家，你会发现热情好客的当地人最次也能跟你用英语交流，甚至可能会讲你的母语！他们迫不及待地想要向你介绍他们的城市、带你去参观名胜古迹、去当地餐厅体验特色美食以及去商场购物。当你在布达佩斯仅用五分之一的价格就能喝到一杯很棒的咖啡时，说服自己为巴黎那贵得离谱的咖啡买单就变得越来越难了。
7.语言障碍
There are opinions and assumptions, and there are clinical, undisputable facts. Fact: most of the world speaks English, and not by chance. It's a simple language to understand and there's no nonsense in the English language. Even though it may be difficult to master, mostly due to complicated and countless phrasal verbs and a wide vocabulary, English is very easy to use at a basic level, since it has fewer tenses and conjugations than most other languages in the world (for example, it's one of the few languages with out a distinct future tense).
世界上多数国家都说英语绝非偶然。不仅有观点和假设这样认为，更有一些经过考证的、无可辩驳的证据都能证明这一事实。英语简单易懂且没有废话。尽管庞大的词汇量和数不胜数又复杂多变的动词短语使得英语难以掌握，但要是只用英语做一些简单的交流就很容易，因为英语里的时态和动词变化比世界上其他语言里的都要少（举例来说，英语是少数几门没有特殊将来时态的语言之一）。
These days you can go to Štúrovo, which is a very pretty town in Slovakia near the border with Hungary, order an espresso in a random bar, and the barman will speak some English to you. You can go to Kaunas in Lithuania, a former USSR member, buy a local soccer jersey and the shop assistant will speak some English to you. Go to Paris, and you're probably not getting anything but French and, if you're really lucky, condescension. Some will actually make a point and speak French if they understand you're a foreigner and you can't speak the language out of spite. Some say it's because they value their national identity, some say it's because Parisians are the sort of people who would put a tortoise on its back for fun.
如今你可以去什图罗沃——一个非常漂亮的小镇，隶属斯洛伐克，靠近斯洛伐克与匈牙利边境——随便找一家酒吧坐下，点上一杯咖啡，酒保一定会跟你讲上几句英语。你也可以到位于立陶宛的考纳斯去买当地的足球服，商店的售货员也一定会用英语跟你交流。但在巴黎，除去一堆听不懂的法语，你将一无所获，要是你足够"走运"，还能见识到法国人的傲慢无礼。有些人得知你是外国人且不会说法语时，反而故意使坏说法语，让你听得云里雾里。有些人讲法语是因为他们珍视自己的民族特质，而有些人如此，仅仅是因为巴黎人就是喜欢欺生，并以此为乐。
6.Everybody is Rushing, but Nothing Gets Done
6.往来行人俱匆匆，怎料实乃事无成
There are 35 working hours in the Parisian week, and workers appear to spend the remaining 133 doing nothing. Ah, they're good. They are masters at doing nothing. They do it very well. Montmartre is an urban labyrinth of bars and hangouts. A concert of clinking teaspoons, hysterical laughter, and coffee. The streets are an adagio of sounds. This is all very good but there are drawbacks.
在巴黎，人们每周工作35小时，剩下的133小时都无所事事。啊，其实巴黎人很优秀——他们可是无所事事的个中好手，这是他们的长项。蒙马特区是一座酒吧和住所交错的迷宫，伴随着咖啡扑鼻的香气和茶匙叮咚作响的声音，人们在这里狂欢作乐，放声大笑，真真是场音乐盛会。这一切自有它的闪光点，但也有其缺点。
Paris is laid back and relaxed to the point of laziness. In most restaurants, for instance, waiters are like geological strata, in the sense that you have to wait eons for one to show up and assist you. Then the whole process of getting a table and actually ordering food begins, and you'll feel your own hair grow. Paris can have a spectacularly slow service and yet everybody is always in a hurry. You'll see cars parking on mini roundabouts and running red lights and on the sidewalk, and as often as not, people will simply walk into you. Everybody's in a hurry except the people you're supposed to meet. They'll be late, of course.
巴黎轻松悠闲的表面下其实弥漫着怠惰的气息。比方说，在巴黎的大多数餐厅里，等服务员来为你服务要等上好久，那速度简直和地质层的运动速度有得一拼。然后找到座位坐下，开始点餐，整个过程无比漫长，你都能感受到自己的头发长长了。巴黎的服务速度异常缓慢，但人们却又都是一副匆匆忙忙的样子。你总能看到车辆停在小型环形交叉口，或者闯红灯，有的甚至还停在人行道上，你走在路上还时常会被匆匆的行人撞到。每个人都在赶时间，除了和你有约的人，毫无疑问他们会迟到。
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