美副總統拜登大放厥詞自取其辱,無法自圓其說

Chinese students and parents are demanding an apology from US Vice-President Joe Biden for "insensitive" comments, weeks after he referred to China as the nation that cannot “think different” or “breathe free” during a commencement speech at the University of Pennsylvania.

5月13日，美國副總統喬·拜登在美國賓夕法尼亞大學畢業典禮上發表演說，稱中國是不能“自由思考”或“自由呼吸”的國度，這樣的言論引起了在場中國學生和家長的不滿，要求其進行道歉。

“I believe Biden should apologise over his inappropriate comments made at my commencement in the face of at least hundreds of Chinese people,” Zhang Tianpu, a graduating Wharton senior and Chinese citizen, told the South China Morning Post on Wednesday.

賓夕法尼亞大學沃頓商學院畢業班的中國學生張天璞週三對香港《南華早報》表示，“我認爲拜登應該爲他的不恰當評論道歉，當時畢業典禮上至少有數百名中國人。”

“It was a humiliating experience,” he said. “And how can a graduation speech be this political?”

“這是一次羞辱的經歷，一場畢業演說爲何會變得這麼政治化?”

Zhang and his peers have already drafted a letter to Biden demanding an official apology. The letter has 343 signatures as of Wednesday and will be sent to the university’s president before reaching Biden's desk. Requests for comment from Biden's office have not been returned.

張天璞和他的同學已經起草一封信，要求拜登做出正式道歉。到22日爲止已有343人簽名，信件將先被呈遞給該校校長，然後轉交到拜登辦公室。拜登辦公室暫未就此事做出答覆。

Biden’s comments, which were called "inappropriate", hugely disappointed the Chinese in his audience. They were delivered in the middle of his May 13 speech, reported by the Guardian as “by far the funniest of the recent commencement addresses”.

拜登在5月13日的畢業典禮上的“不當言論” 讓在場的中國聽衆非常失望。而正是這場演說，被英國《衛報》評爲“目前爲止近來最有趣的畢業典禮演說”。

But not everyone appreciated his jokes. Touching on the concern that “the Chinese are going to eat our lunch”, Biden assured his audience that they had nothing to fear.

但不是所有的人都欣賞他的玩笑話。在談到對“中國會吃掉我們的午餐”的擔憂時，拜登向他的聽衆保證，沒有什麼值得害怕的。

“Their problems are immense, and they lack much of what we have,” he said, citing America’s universities, its “open and fair legal” system, vibrant venture capital markets and innovative minds.

“中國的問題很多，他們缺少我們所擁有的很多東西”，拜登引用美國的大學舉例說，如“開放和公平” 的法律體系、充滿活力的風險資本市場以及創新思維。

The key to all these, Biden argued, was the ability to “think different”, in a reference to Steve Jobs' slogan for Apple.

拜登說道，這些的關鍵是“自由思想”的能力，這裏他提到的是史蒂夫·喬布斯爲蘋果公司設計的口號(“不同凡響”)。

“You cannot think different in a nation where you cannot breathe free; you cannot think different in a nation where you aren’t able to challenge orthodoxy, because change only comes from challenging orthodoxy.”

“在無法自由呼吸的國家，你無法自由思考;在無法挑戰正統觀念的國家，你無法自由思考，因爲改變只能來源於挑戰正統”。

To which Zhang argued: “Come on, my ancestors were challenging orthodoxy even before his ancestors got to America.”

對此張反駁說：“拜託，我們的祖先在他的祖先到美洲之前就開始挑戰正統觀念了。”