“人不缺地工,地不缺人糧。”
And, then, most telling of all: "No on who can rise before dawn 360 days fails to make his family rich."
這所有的這一切都在說明“早起的鳥有食吃”的道理。
Rise before dawn? 360 days a year?
每天天不亮就起床?而且是一年365天,日復(fù)一日?
For the Kun leisurely gathering mongongo nuts, or the French peasant sleeping away the winter,
對于以堅果為生的原始人和在冬天以冬眠為主的法國農(nóng)民以及非農(nóng)業(yè)人口來說,
or anyone else living in something other than the world of rice cultivation, that proverb would be unthinkable.
這句諺語非常不可思議。
This is not, of course, an unfamiliar observation about Asian culture.
當(dāng)然,亞洲文化處處有跡可尋。
Go to a college campus, and students will say that the Asian students are overwhelmingly the ones studying at the library long after everyone else has left.
去大學(xué)的校園打聽一下,學(xué)生們會告訴你,大多數(shù)的亞洲學(xué)生在其他學(xué)生離開后依然會學(xué)習(xí)很長時間。
Some people of Asian background understandably get offended when people talk about their culture this way,
由于文化背景產(chǎn)生的差異,當(dāng)一些亞洲學(xué)生聽到其他人議論類似以上的事情時,他們會感到自己受到了冒犯,
because they sense that the stereotype is being used as a form of disparagement.
因為他們認(rèn)為其約定俗成的生活模式受到了質(zhì)疑。
But a belief in work is in fact a thing of beauty.
但這種勤奮的工作態(tài)度的確令人欽佩。
Virtually every success story we've seen in this book so far involves someone or some group working harder than their peers.
實際上,從這本書里我們已經(jīng)看到了太多成功的案例,這些成功的人都付出了比普通人更多的努力。
Bill Gates was addicted to his work screen as a child, so was Bill Joy.
當(dāng)比爾·蓋茨還是個孩子的時候,他就全心全意致力于他的計算機事業(yè);比爾·喬伊也是如此;
The Beetles put in thousands of hours practice in Hamburg.
甲克蟲樂隊曾經(jīng)在汗堡持續(xù)練習(xí)達(dá)到數(shù)千個小時;
Joe Flom ground away for years, perfecting the art of takeovers before he got his chance.
喬·弗洛姆曾一直默默無聞,直到得到機會的眷顧,他才在藝術(shù)領(lǐng)域聲名雀起。
Working really hard is what successful people do.
每一位成功的人士都付出了辛勤的汗水。
And the genius of the culture form in the rice paddies is that hard work gave those in the fields away to find meaning in the midst of great hardship and poverty.
這種文化之所以得以形成,在于生活在辛苦與貧窮中的人們可以由此看到一種希望,那就是辛勤勞動可以有所回報。
That lesson has served Asians well in many endeavors but rarely so perfectly as in the case of mathematics.
勤奮的特質(zhì)使亞洲人獲益良多,但是最典型的,還是莫過于數(shù)學(xué)方面的成就。
A few years ago, Alan Schoenfeld, a math professor of Berkeley, made a videotape of a woman named Renee as she was trying to solve a math problem.
幾年以前,一位在伯克利大學(xué)任教的數(shù)學(xué)教授,艾倫·肖恩菲爾德,曾用錄影機記錄下每位學(xué)員的上課情況。