伤害中国人民的感情

Hurting the Feelings of the Chinese People

If you believe what Chinese government spokespeople tell you, the Chinese people are a delicate, sensitive lot; picture 1.4 billion Lin Daiyu’s and you’ll get the general idea. It seems they are constantly having their feelings hurt by cloddish and ill-intentioned foreigners. Yet who are the worst offenders? This critically important empirical question has finally received the attention it deserves; the results are reported here (in Chinese only; sorry).

根据中国政府发言人的说法，中国人民就如同纯情少女般脆弱而敏感（想像一下14亿的林黛玉在你面前，你就会明白我的意思）。粗暴而用心险恶的外国人似乎总在伤害中国人民的感情。而其中哪些国家最为穷凶极恶呢？这个极其重要的实证问题终于得到它应有的重视；这里有一篇博文，记录了关于该问题的实证研究成果。

The study, by a young Chinese journalist, examines an electronic database of the People’s Daily for the years from 1946 to 2006. If the study is accurate, the feelings of the Chinese people were hurt only once before 1978 – by Indonesia, way back in 1959 – but since then all continents have pitched in, with the sole exceptions of Australia and Antarctica. (I believe the Aussies sullied their record of inoffensiveness after 2006.) The worst offenders? The Japanese, of course, at 47 instances. The Ugly Americans are a distant second at 23, and even if you credit all of NATO’s offenses to them don’t manage to get more than another 10. The Indians come next at 7 instances, while the French and Germans belie their national stereotypes with a mere 5 and 3 instances respectively.

一名年轻的中国记者通过《人民日报》电子数据库，对该报自1946年到2006年的文章作了实证研究。如果其研究结果准确无误，那么在1978年以前，中国人民的感情只受到过一次伤害（1959年，加害者是印度尼西亚），但1978年以后，除澳大利亚和南极洲外，各大洲都有国家跻身到加害者的行列中来（据我所知2006年后澳大利亚也玷污了此前的清白记录）。上榜者中哪些国家“名列前茅”？第一名自然是日本，47次伤害了中国人民的感情。丑陋的美国人排名第二，23次，差了日本一大截，而且即便把北约干的好事也算作美国的功劳，你也不要指望能给美国再加10次以上。印度以7次伤害排名第三。而法国和德国虽一贯以傲慢无礼著称，却分别只有3次和4次，倒是令人颇感意外。

For a map of offensiveness, check out this blog post. 还有一张“伤害地图”，请点击此处。