我的德國家庭交流記:裸體郊遊,天體家庭
WHEN I WAS 16, I went to Berlin─West Berlin, since at that time a wall still divided the city─to live for three months with a family on an exchange program. They were a nice bunch, the mother a teacher, the father an engineer, a pretty and exuberant daughter who'd recently stayed with my family in Toronto and their son, who was a year or two older than I was. All the family members were also, as it turned out, very active members of a group called the Freik?rperkultur, or FKK, which translates as 'Free Body Culture.' In other words, a nudist club.
我16歲時參加了一個交流項目，在柏林──西柏林，因爲當時仍有一道 將這座城市分隔開──的一個家庭中住了三個月。他們一家人都很好，母親是老師，父親是工程師，漂亮而活力四射的女兒（最近她和我們全家一起待在多倫多），他們的兒子比我大一、兩歲。後來我發現，他們家所有人都是一個叫Freik?rperkultur（FKK，翻譯過來就是“自由身體文化”）的團體的活躍成員。這個團體說白了就是一個天體俱樂部。I hadn't expected this when I signed up for a German cultural exchange through my high school; somehow I hadn't been aware I might have to get naked in public. In fact I knew shamefully little about my host country. Yet nudism, as far as I know, is fairly mainstream in Germany to this day (and not, as it is here, the province of hippies and public radio humorists).
當我在高中報名參加一個德國文化交流活動時，可沒有料到這些，至少沒有意識到我不得不在公共場合赤身裸體。事實上，我對東道國的瞭解少得可憐。然而就我所知，迄今爲止，天體主義在德國都是相當主流的文化（和我們這個盛產嬉皮士和電臺笑星的國家不同）。The nudist outings were going to be pretty much mandatory, my hosts explained to me─much like speaking the language or eating the food. The family felt strongly that, to properly explore their native ways, I needed to join in the nudist activities. If I closed my mind to nudism, I'd prove myself closed to the wonder of life itself. While there would be no punishment if I refused to participate, they implied that such a lapse of courage on my part would signal a deep moral failure─possibly a spiritual one.
主人家向我解釋說，裸體郊遊是非常有必要的──就像說話和吃東西一樣。這家人強烈地感到，爲了正確瞭解本地人的生活方式，我需要加入天體活動。如果我拒絕接受天體主義，就等於拒絕接受生活本身的美妙。儘管我拒絕參與的話不會受到什麼懲罰，但他們暗示，我缺乏勇氣的表現意味着深層的道德缺陷──可能是心靈缺陷。
At 16, I was more resilient and easygoing than I am now. After a few hours of confusion and mild alarm, I shrugged my shoulders, suppressed my panic and acquiesced.
16歲的時候，我比現在更有彈性、更隨和。幾個小時的困惑和輕微的擔心後，我聳聳肩，壓抑住自己的恐慌，默許了。The good news was that the nudity was mostly a weekend gig. We drove to the 'Free Body Culture' property, which involved a body of fresh water, expanses of bedraggled grass richly festooned with goose and duck droppings and a few stunted trees. We passed through the change rooms, where we divested ourselves of our clothes and left them in unlocked lockers. And then among the shrubs, hundreds of free bodies spread out, picnicking and sunning. I came to understand that a German nudist, in 1984, loved little more than to work on his or her tan.
好消息是，這次天體活動基本上就是一次週末小聚。我們駕車前往“自由身體文化”的活動場地，那裏有一片淡水湖，廣闊的草地上滿是鵝和鴨的糞便，還有幾棵矮小的樹木。我們經過更衣室，在那裏脫下衣服，將它們放在未上鎖的儲物櫃裏。然後，數百個一絲不掛的人在灌木叢中伸展四肢，享用野餐、曬日光浴。就在1984年，我開始理解，對於一個德國天體主義者來說，沒有比曬太陽更令他們喜歡的事了。There was a code of eye contact: You didn't ogle people below the neck when you talked to them. You kept your eyes fixed firmly on their faces. But of course you looked later, when you thought no one was paying attention. I remember noticing old and middle-aged bodies and feeling sorry for their owners: how tragic to be so saggy, bulgy and wrinkly. How strange to be apparently proud of the condition, rather than mortified by it.
這裏有一條目光接觸守則：當你和別人聊天時，不應注視對方脖子以下的部位。你應將目光牢牢固定在他們臉上。當然，當你認爲沒人注意時，會趁機偷看。我記得我注意到中老年人的身體很難看：如此皮膚鬆弛、身材臃腫、皺紋遍佈是多麼可悲。爲此感到驕傲而不是窘迫可真奇怪。It was a little odd to be naked in the company of the teenage son, whom I'd only met days before. But he was so casual and good-natured that I almost forgot how freakish it would have been to blithely disrobe among the boys I knew back home.
和主人家十幾歲的兒子一起裸露着身體有點奇怪，我可是幾天前才認識他的。但是他狀態很放鬆，脾氣很好，我幾乎忘掉了在我認識的這些男孩中輕率地脫掉衣服有多奇怪。My main complaint about the sunbathing afternoons proved not to be self-consciousness. It was simple boredom. I wondered what these people were doing, sitting around naked, chitchatting now and then. Were they waiting for something to happen?
事實證明，對於在下午曬日光浴，我主要的不滿不是難爲情，而是覺得這樣做很無聊。我奇怪這些人赤身裸體地坐着閒聊要幹什麼。他們是等待着什麼事情發生嗎？I was definitely waiting for something, especially when I felt a chill breeze sweep up from the water. I was waiting to be allowed to put my clothes back on. The tan-giving sun was all very well; actual comfort was far better. 'I'm cold,' I plaintively expressed, more than once, but each time my obvious constitutional weakness was met with strict disapproval.
我絕對是在等待着什麼，尤其是當我感到一陣寒冷的微風從水面上吹來時。我等待着可以穿上衣服的那一刻。能曬黑皮膚的陽光很好，不過實實在在的舒適感更好。“我冷”，我不止一次哀怨地表示，但弱不禁風的我每次都遭到了嚴辭拒絕。It wasn't all sunbathing and small talk. We also swam naked─I remember an actual swim meet─and played basketball. The basketball was the worst.
那天也不全是日光浴和閒聊。我們還裸泳──我記得有一次真正的游泳比賽──並打了籃球。打籃球的經歷是最糟糕的。We wore nothing but sneakers. No brassieres, no jockstraps. There was flopping, and there was pain. There was the sight of nude people, bouncing and swinging above bulky white athletic shoes. Could this be the wonder my German family had talked about, the beauty of the unclad human form? Was this jiggling, dangling dance with a large, orange ball indeed our highest, purest identity?
我們除了運動鞋什麼都沒穿。沒戴胸罩，也沒穿彈力護身。我們笨重地摔倒，痛苦不已。你所看到的就是赤裸的人們穿着笨重的白色運動鞋跳來轉去。這就是我的德國交換家庭所說的赤裸人類形態的美妙之處嗎？這種拍着一個橙色大球、搖搖晃晃的舞蹈真的是我們至高至純的特性嗎？I tried to open my mind as I jumped and flopped. I'd jam it open if I could. Open, O Mind! Open right now! I'll prise you open with a clawhammer!
我一邊蹦蹦跳跳，一邊試圖敞開心扉。如果我可以，我會盡全力打開它的。快打開！我的心靈！現在就打開！我會用木工錘把你撬開的！And yet, in the end, the Germans were absolutely right. The Free Body Culture gave me a gift I might never have received had I refused to play along. It left me with an acute sense of the absurd─one I still cherish─to be there among my fellow apes, awkward and less than half-willing, aiming and missing, leaping, landing and wincing.
結果證明，這些德國人是絕對正確的。“自由身體文化”給了我一份如果我拒絕參與就可能永遠得不到的禮物。它讓我有一種強烈的荒誕感──與猿類同伴共處的荒誕感──至今我仍珍視這種感覺，這種尷尬而不情願、瞄準又錯過、跳起、着地和閃避的感覺。
