I thought it useless to explain that we borrowed the word "marmalade" from French, and that it means, in that language, any kind of jam. So I said, "But didn't you eat any of the famous French food?" "What? Me?" he said. "Of course not! Give me good old English food every time! None of those fancy bits for me!" Clearly, traveling had not broadened his mind. He had gone to France determined to live there exactly as if he were in England and had judged it entirely from his own English viewpoints.
“marmalade”一词是我们从法语中借来的,它在法语中指的是任意一种果酱。我觉得和他解释这个是没用的。所以我说:“你难道没有吃任何著名的法国美食吗?”他说:“什么?我吗?当然没有!我每次都吃传统英式食物!那些花哨的不适合我!”显然,旅游并没有开阔他的眼界。他去法国住的时候就好像他在英国似的,做评价时也是完全从英国人的观点出发。
This does not, of course, happen only to Englishmen in France. People of all different races, in all foreign countries, can be found judging what they see, hear, taste, and smell according to their own habits and customs. People who are better educated and who have read a lot about foreign countries tend to be more ready to accept and adjust to foreign things, but this is because their minds have already been broadened before they start traveling. In fact, it is easier to be broad-minded about foreign habits and customs if one's acquaintance with these things is limited to books and films. The Americans smile tolerantly over the absence of central heating in most English homes when they are themselves comfortably seated in armchairs in their centrally heated houses in Chicago; the Englishmen read about the sanitary arrangements in a certain tropical country, and the inhabitants of the latter read about the London fogs, and each side manages to be detached and broad-minded. But actual physical contact with things one is not used to is much more difficult to bear.
这当然不止发生在去法国旅游的英国人身上。我们可以发现,不同国家、不同种族的人都是根据自己的风俗习惯来评判自己看到的、听到的、尝到的、闻到的东西。受过良好教育的人和读过很多关于外国的书籍的人更易于接受和适应外国事物,但这是因为他们的眼界在开始旅游以前就已经拓宽了。事实上,如果一个人对外国风俗习惯的了解只停留在书本和电影上,那么他对这些风俗习惯就比较容易做到宽容大度。当美国人在芝加哥的中央供暖房里的扶手椅上舒服地坐着时,听到大多数英国人家都没有中央供暖,只能报以宽容一笑;当英国人读到某个热带国家的公共卫生设施,而该国居民读到伦敦的大雾时,双方都试图去客观和包容地看待。但真正亲身接触自己不习惯的事物却难以忍受得多。
来源:可可英语 //m.moreplr.com/daxue/202009/617726.shtml