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Sim Chi Yin had a cushy expat life in Beijing working as a reporter for The Singapore Straits Times, writing long feature stories and sometimes taking photos. The company paid for her education at the London School of Economics in exchange for eight years of employment. She had health insurance, a pension and job security.
作为新加坡《海峡时报》(The Straits Times)记者，沈绮颖(Sim Chi Yin)在北京过着惬意的异国生活，写写长篇特写，偶尔拍拍照片。《海峡时报》为她支付了伦敦政治经济学院(London School of Economics)的学费，作为交换条件，她必须为公司工作八年。她拥有医疗保险、养老金和失业保险。
So why did she walk away from that after nine years?
那么，她为何要在九年后离开？
“I wanted to be a photographer but the editors at The Straits Times said I was overqualified,” she recalled. “Almost every year I asked to be assigned to the photo desk but they didn’t take visual journalism seriously.”
“我想作摄影师，但是《海峡时报》的编辑说那是大材小用，”她回忆道。“我几乎每年都会要求担任摄影记者，但他们并不重视视觉报道。”
Ms. Sim — an ethnic-Chinese, middle-class child from Singapore whose family had risen from humble roots — had wanted to be a photographer since she was a teenager. So as grateful as she was to her newspaper, she took a gamble on photography.
沈绮颖——一个来自新加坡华裔中产家庭的孩子，她的家庭属于白手起家——从少年时代开始就希望成为一名摄影师。所以，虽然对她所在的报纸心怀感激，她还是选择在摄影方面孤注一掷。
Her decision, which meant slashing her expenses and moving to a smaller apartment, has paid off: Last month she joined the cooperative photo agency VII as an interim member, after being mentored for the past three years by Marcus Bleasdale as part of VII’s mentorship program.“Most importantly, she is great photographer, a great journalist and a really good person who is dedicated to issue oriented storytelling,” said Ed Kashi, who is on VII’s board.
做出这个决定意味着她需要削减开支，搬到一个面积较小的公寓，但这一切都值得：上个月，她作为临时成员加入合作性图片社VII。过去三年，她一直在马库斯·布里斯戴尔(Marcus Bleasdale)的指导下学习，属于VII导师项目的一部分。VII董事埃德·卡希(Ed Kashi)说，“最重要的是，她是一个了不起的摄影师，了不起的记者，一个非常好的人，专注于争议性叙事。”
He also acknowledged that VII, like Magnum and other cooperative agencies, have had too few women and people of color as members and that Ms. Sim’s background is a welcome change. Ms. Sim, who has freelanced for The New York Times, Time Magazine and the New Yorker, speaks fluent Mandarin.
他也承认，和马格南(Magnum)等许多合作性的图片社一样，VII的女性和有色人种成员太少，沈绮颖的背景是一个大家乐于见到的改变。沈绮颖曾为《纽约时报》、《时代》周刊(Time magazine)和《纽约客》(New Yorker)兼职摄影，普通话说得很流利。
The interim membership is like a two-year trial marriage for both sides, during which Ms. Sim wants to organize group projects and expand the agency’s presence in Asia.
对于双方而言，这个临时的成员身份就像是两年的试婚。这段时间，沈绮颖希望能组织一些群体项目，扩大机构在亚洲的影响力。
Chi Yin Sim grew up in Singapore in an ethnic Chinese family that had lived overseas for three generations and almost never spoke of the past. As a teenager she devoted herself to being “a useful person”, working with disabled people and volunteering as a Salvation Army Christmas bell-ringer at shopping malls.
沈绮颖在新加坡的一个华裔家庭中长大。这个家族的前三代人一直在海外居住，他们几乎从不提过去。少年时代，她认为自己应该成为“一个有用的人”，她帮助残疾人，自愿在圣诞节去购物中心当救世军摇铃人。
Her parents were not interested in politics or civic engagement. Ms. Sim always felt that her parents didn’t understand or approve of her interest in social issues, activism and eventually journalism.
她的父母对政治和公民参与并不感兴趣。沈绮颖总感觉，父母既不理解也不支持她对社会事务、行动主义乃至新闻报道的兴趣。
But she did not fully understand their disapproval at first.
但是最初她并不完全理解他们的反对。
After receiving a masters in Chinese history she delved into her family’s past, especially curious about her grandfather, whom no one ever spoke of. Her mother showed her a photo of a man with a box camera slung around his neck.Over the next eight years she discovered he had been a school principal, businessman and eventually the editor of a leftist newspaper in Malaya. She learned that he had been active in Malaya’s Chinese community and was arrested and tortured by Japanese occupying forces during World War II. When the British returned, he wrote anti-colonial editorials, which led to his arrest. Given the choice of staying in jail or being deported, he left to his ancestral village in Guangdong province, leaving his family behind temporarily.
在获得了一个中国历史硕士学位后，她开始研究家族的过去，她对从未有人提起的祖父尤其感兴趣。母亲给她看了一张照片，上面的男子脖子上挂着一部箱式相机。在接下来的八年时间里，她发现祖父曾是一位校长、商人，而且后来还成为了马来亚左翼报刊的编辑。她得知，他曾经在马来亚的华人社区活动，后来在二战期间，又遭到了日本侵略势力的逮捕和折磨。当英国人回来时，他写了一些反殖民主义的社论文章，并因此遭到逮捕。在入狱和被驱逐之间，他选择了返回自己位于广东省的祖祖辈辈居住的村落，暂时离开家人。
Ms. Sim only learned this hidden family history in full when she visited her relatives in Gaoshang, a farming village in China, in 2011. Her grandfather is revered as a martyr for the revolution: a six-foot tall obelisk marks his burial place. A month after arriving he joined the Chinese Communist Party guerrillas, he was captured by Nationalist forces and was executed shortly before the Communist victory.
沈绮颖是2011年前往广东诰上村拜访亲属时才完全了解这段被隐藏的家族历史的。她的祖父是一位革命烈士：他的墓地前耸立着一座六英尺（约合2米）高的石碑。抵达一个月后，他便加入了中国共产党游击队，然后被国民党抓住，并且在共产党胜利之前不久被处决。
Ms. Sim often wonders what her grandfather would think of the “New China” he fought for. She is “sure that he would be disappointed” with a lot of aspects of it. But she also suspects he would have approved of her interests in journalism and social issues, as she tries to do what she can “to be useful.”
沈绮颖经常思考，祖父究竟会如何看待他为之奋斗的“新中国”。她“肯定他会”对它的很多方面“感到失望”。但是她还认为，祖父肯定会支持她对新闻和社会事务的兴趣，因为她试图做一些“有用的事”。
“It’s an enormous place with enormous problems,” she said. “But I have come to really care about China and it’s people. After all, it’s the place where my grandfather died for.”
“这个地方很大，问题很多，”她说。“但是我现在真的很关心中国和中国人民。毕竟，我的祖父就是为这里而死的。”
