Physical differences are not so difficult to adapt oneself to as religious, ethical, and irrational ones. Indonesians are trained from earliest childhood to give and receive things with the right hand only. The left hand is considered unclean. When a foreigner offers an Indonesian something with his left hand, or holds out his left hand to take something he is being offered, the Indonesian may explain this action rationally as arising from a difference in custom, but the deep prejudice against the use of the left hand, which he has been lectured about over and over again since he was young, will not be so easily done away with.
比起宗教、伦理和不合乎常理的差异来说,适应具体的、实在的差异却没那么困难。印度尼西亚人从小就被教导只能用右手来给予或接收东西。左手被认为是不干净的。当一个外国人用左手递给一个印尼人东西或伸出左手准备接东西时,印尼人会合理地解释道,这一动作是来自风俗的差异。从小,别人就无数次地告诉他对于使用左手的深刻偏见,但人们不会轻易摆脱这一偏见。
There are some travelers who adapt themselves so successfully to foreign customs and habits that they are often severely criticized by their more stubborn fellow countrymen. If they are Asians, they are accused of having become "Westernized"; and if they are Europeans, people say they have "gone native." Which is better: rigid, self-satisfied prejudice against foreign things or loss of your certainty that your own country's habits and customs are the only right ones, and hence the inability to be one of the herd any longer?
有一些游客对外国的风俗习惯适应地非常好,以至于他们经常严厉地批评自己固执的同胞。如果他们是亚洲人的话,他们就被指责为变得“西方化”;如果他们是欧洲人的话,人们会说他们“本土化了”。哪一种更好呢:对外国事物带有一种洋洋得意的顽固偏见,还是不确定自己本国的风俗习惯是唯一正确的,导致今后无法和同伴聚在一起?
Perhaps the ideal would be that travel could make people tolerant of the habits and customs of others without abandoning their own. Shouldn't the standard for judging a foreigner be: Does he try to be polite and considerate to others? instead of: Is he like me?
理想的情况或许是,旅游能够使人宽容地对待别国的风俗习惯,而又不放弃自己的那一套。评判外国人的标准难道不应该是看他是否努力做到礼貌而又顾及别人的感受,而不是看他的行为举止是否和我的一样吗?
来源:可可英语 //m.moreplr.com/daxue/202009/617742.shtml