简介：残奥会短跑冠军aimee mullins天生没有腓骨，从小就要学习靠义肢走路和奔跑。如今，她不仅是短跑选手、演员、模特，还是一位稳健的演讲者。她不喜欢字典中 “disabled”这个词，因为负面词汇足以毁掉一个人。但是，坦然面对不幸，你会发现等待你的是更多的机会。
i'd like to share with you a discovery that i made a few months ago while writing an article for italian wired. i always keep my thesaurus handy whenever i'm writing anything, but i'd already finished editing the piece, and i realized that i had never once in my life looked up the word "disabled" to see what i'd find.
let me read you the entry. "disabled, adjective: crippled, helpless, useless, wrecked, stalled, maimed, wounded, mangled, lame, mutilated, run-down, worn-out, weakened, impotent, castrated, paralyzed, handicapped, senile, decrepit, laid-up, done-up, done-for, done-in cracked-up, counted-out; see also hurt, useless and weak. antonyms, healthy, strong, capable." i was reading this list out loud to a friend and at first was laughing, it was so ludicrous, but i'd just gotten past "mangled," and my voice broke, and i had to stop and collect myself from the emotional shock and impact that the assault from these words unleashed.
you know, of course, this is my raggedy old thesaurus so i'm thinking this must be an ancient print date, right? but, in fact, the print date was the early 1980s, when i would have been starting primary school and forming an understanding of myself outside the family unit and as related to the other kids and the world around me. and, needless to say, thank god i wasn't using a thesaurus back then. i mean, from this entry, it would seem that i was born into a world that perceived someone like me to have nothing positive whatsoever going for them, when in fact, today i'm celebrated for the opportunities and adventures my life has procured.
so, i immediately went to look up the __ online edition, e_pecting to find a revision worth noting. here's the updated version of this entry. unfortunately, it's not much better. i find the last two words under "near antonyms," particularly unsettling: "whole" and "wholesome."
so, it's not just about the words. it's what we believe about people when we name them with these words. it's about the values behind the words, and how we construct those values. our language affects our thinking and how we view the world and how we view other people. in fact, many ancient societies, including the greeks and the romans, believed that to utter a curse verbally was so powerful, because to say the thing out loud brought it into e_istence. so, what reality do we want to call into e_istence: a person who is limited, or a person who's empowered? by casually doing something as simple as naming a person, a child, we might be putting lids and casting shadows on their power. wouldn't we want to open doors for them instead?
one such person who opened doors for me was my childhood doctor at the a.i. dupont institute in wilmington, delaware. his name was dr. pizzutillo, an italian american, whose name, apparently, was too difficult for most americans to pronounce, so he went by dr. p. and dr. p always wore really colorful bow ties and had the very perfect disposition to work with children.
i loved almost everything about my time spent at this hospital, with the e_ception of my physical therapy sessions. i had to do what seemed like innumerable repetitions of e_ercises with these thick, elastic bands -- different colors, you know -- to help build up my leg muscles, and i hated these bands more than anything -- i hated them, had names for them. i hated them. and, you know, i was already bargaining, as a five year-old child, with dr. p to try to get out of doing these e_ercises, unsuccessfully, of course. and, one day, he came in to my session -- e_haustive and unforgiving, these sessions -- and he said to me, "wow. aimee, you are such a strong and powerful little girl, i think you're going to break one of those bands. when you do break it, i'm going to give you a hundred bucks."
now, of course, this was a simple ploy on dr. p's part to get me to do the e_ercises i didn't want to do before the prospect of being the richest five-year-old in the second floor ward, but what he effectively did for me was reshape an awful daily occurrence into a new and promising e_perience for me. and i have to wonder today to what e_tent his vision and his declaration of me as a strong and powerful little girl shaped my own view of myself as an inherently strong, powerful and athletic person well into the future.
this is an e_ample of how adults in positions of power can ignite the power of a child. but, in the previous instances of those thesaurus entries, our language isn't allowing us to evolve into the reality that we would all want, the possibility of an individual to see themselves as capable. our language hasn't caught up with the changes in our society, many of which have been brought about by technology. certainly, from a medical standpoint, my legs, laser surgery for vision impairment, titanium knees and hip replacements for aging bodies that are allowing people to more fully engage with their abilities, and move beyond the limits that nature has imposed on them -- not to mention social networking platforms allow people to self-identify, to claim their own descriptions of themselves, so they can go align with global groups of their own choosing. so, perhaps technology is revealing more clearly to us now what has always been a truth: that everyone has something rare and powerful to offer our society, and that the human ability to adapt is our greatest asset.
the human ability to adapt, it's an interesting thing, because people have continually wanted to talk to me about overcoming adversity, and i'm going to make an admission: this phrase never sat right with me, and i always felt uneasy trying to answer people's questions about it, and i think i'm starting to figure out why. implicit in this phrase of "overcoming adversity" is the idea that success, or happiness, is about emerging on the other side of a challenging e_perience unscathed or unmarked by the e_perience, as if my successes in life have come about from an ability to sidestep or circumnavigate the presumed pitfalls of a life with prosthetics, or what other people perceive as my disability. but, in fact, we are changed. we are marked, of course, by a challenge, whether physically, emotionally or both. and i'm going to suggest that this is a good thing. adversity isn't an obstacle that we need to get around in order to resume living our life. it's part of our life. and i tend to think of it like my shadow. sometimes i see a lot of it, sometimes there's very little, but it's always with me. and, certainly, i'm not trying to diminish the impact, the weight, of a person's struggle.
there is adversity and challenge in life, and it's all very real and relative to every single person, but the question isn't whether or not you're going to meet adversity, but how you're going to meet it. so, our responsibility is not simply shielding those we care for from adversity, but preparing them to meet it well. and we do a disservice to our kids when we make them feel that they're not equipped to adapt. there's an important difference and distinction between the objective medical fact of my being an amputee and the subjective societal opinion of whether or not i'm disabled. and, truthfully, the only real and consistent disability i've had to confront is the world ever thinking that i could be described by those definitions.
in our desire to protect those we care about by giving them the cold, hard truth about their medical prognosis, or, indeed, a prognosis on the e_pected quality of their life, we have to make sure that we don't put the first brick in a wall that will actually disable someone. perhaps the e_isting model of only looking at what is broken in you and how do we fi_ it, serves to be more disabling to the individual than the pathology itself.
by not treating the wholeness of a person, by not acknowledging their potency, we are creating another ill on top of whatever natural struggle they might have. we are effectively grading someone's worth to our community. so we need to see through the pathology and into the range of human capability. and, most importantly, there's a partnership between those perceived deficiencies and our greatest creative ability. so it's not about devaluing, or negating, these more trying times as something we want to avoid or sweep under the rug, but instead to find those opportunities wrapped in the adversity. so maybe the idea i want to put out there is not so much overcoming adversity as it is opening ourselves up to it, embracing it, grappling with it, to use a wrestling term, maybe even dancing with it. and, perhaps, if we see adversity as natural, consistent and useful, we're less burdened by the presence of it.
this year we celebrate the 200th birthday of charles darwin, and it was 150 years ago, when writing about evolution, that darwin illustrated, i think, a truth about the human character. to paraphrase: it's not the strongest of the species that survives, nor is it the most intelligent that survives; it is the one that is most adaptable to change. conflict is the genesis of creation. from darwin's work, amongst others, we can recognize that the human ability to survive and flourish is driven by the struggle of the human spirit through conflict into transformation. so, again, transformation, adaptation, is our greatest human skill. and, perhaps, until we're tested, we don't know what we're made of. maybe that's what adversity gives us: a sense of self, a sense of our own power. so, we can give ourselves a gift. we can re-imagine adversity as something more than just tough times. maybe we can see it as change. adversity is just change that we haven't adapted ourselves to yet.
i think the greatest adversity that we've created for ourselves is this idea of normalcy. now, who's normal? there's no normal. there's common, there's typical. there's no normal, and would you want to meet that poor, beige person if they e_isted? (laughter) i don't think so. if we can change this paradigm from one of achieving normalcy to one of possibility -- or potency, to be even a little bit more dangerous -- we can release the power of so many more children, and invite them to engage their rare and valuable abilities with the community.
anthropologists tell us that the one thing we as humans have always required of our community members is to be of use, to be able to contribute. there's evidence that neanderthals, 60,000 years ago, carried their elderly and those with serious physical injury, and perhaps it's because the life e_perience of survival of these people proved of value to the community. they didn't view these people as broken and useless; they were seen as rare and valuable.
a few years ago, i was in a food market in the town where i grew up in that red zone in northeastern pennsylvania, and i was standing over a bushel of tomatoes. it was summertime: i had shorts on. i hear this guy, his voice behind me say, "well, if it isn't aimee mullins." and i turn around, and it's this older man. i have no idea who he is.
and i said, "i'm sorry, sir, have we met? i don't remember meeting you."
he said, "well, you wouldn't remember meeting me. i mean, when we met i was delivering you from your mother's womb." (laughter) oh, that guy. and, but of course, actually, it did click.
this man was dr. kean, a man that i had only known about through my mother's stories of that day, because, of course, typical fashion, i arrived late for my birthday by two weeks. and so my mother's prenatal physician had gone on vacation, so the man who delivered me was a complete stranger to my parents. and, because i was born without the fibula bones, and had feet turned in, and a few toes in this foot and a few toes in that, he had to be the bearer -- this stranger had to be the bearer of bad news.
he said to me, "i had to give this prognosis to your parents that you would never walk, and you would never have the kind of mobility that other kids have or any kind of life of independence, and you've been making liar out of me ever since." (laughter) (applause)
the e_traordinary thing is that he said he had saved newspaper clippings throughout my whole childhood, whether winning a second grade spelling bee, marching with the girl scouts, you know, the halloween parade, winning my college scholarship, or any of my sports victories, and he was using it, and integrating it into teaching resident students, med students from hahnemann medical school and hershey medical school. and he called this part of the course the _ factor, the potential of the human will. no prognosis can account for how powerful this could be as a determinant in the quality of someone's life. and dr. kean went on to tell me, he said, "in my e_perience, unless repeatedly told otherwise, and even if given a modicum of support, if left to their own devices, a child will achieve."
see, dr. kean made that shift in thinking. he understood that there's a difference between the medical condition and what someone might do with it. and there's been a shift in my thinking over time, in that, if you had asked me at 15 years old, if i would have traded prosthetics for flesh-and-bone legs, i wouldn't have hesitated for a second. i aspired to that kind of normalcy back then. but if you ask me today, i'm not so sure. and it's because of the e_periences i've had with them, not in spite of the e_periences i've had with them. and perhaps this shift in me has happened because i've been e_posed to more people who have opened doors for me than those who have put lids and cast shadows on me.
see, all you really need is one person to show you the epiphany of your own power, and you're off. if you can hand somebody the key to their own power -- the human spirit is so receptive -- if you can do that and open a door for someone at a crucial moment, you are educating them in the best sense. you're teaching them to open doors for themselves. in fact, the e_act meaning of the word "educate" comes from the root word "educe." it means "to bring forth what is within, to bring out potential." so again, which potential do we want to bring out?
there was a case study done in 1960s britain, when they were moving from grammar schools to comprehensive schools. it's called the streaming trials. we call it "tracking" here in the states. it's separating students from a, b, c, d and so on. and the "a students" get the tougher curriculum, the best teachers, etc. well, they took, over a three-month period, d-level students, gave them a's, told them they were "a's," told them they were bright, and at the end of this three-month period, they were performing at a-level.
and, of course, the heartbreaking, flip side of this study, is that they took the "a students" and told them they were "d's." and that's what happened at the end of that three-month period. those who were still around in school, besides the people who had dropped out. a crucial part of this case study was that the teachers were duped too. the teachers didn't know a switch had been made. they were simply told, "these are the 'a-students,' these are the 'd-students.'" and that's how they went about teaching them and treating them.
so, i think that the only true disability is a crushed spirit, a spirit that's been crushed doesn't have hope, it doesn't see beauty, it no longer has our natural, childlike curiosity and our innate ability to imagine. if instead, we can bolster a human spirit to keep hope, to see beauty in themselves and others, to be curious and imaginative, then we are truly using our power well. when a spirit has those qualities, we are able to create new realities and new ways of being.
i'd like to leave you with a poem by a fourteenth-century persian poet named hafiz that my friend, jacques dembois told me about, and the poem is called "the god who only knows four words": "every child has known god, not the god of names, not the god of don'ts, but the god who only knows four words and keeps repeating them, saying, 'come dance with me. come, dance with me. come, dance with me.'"
thank you. (applause)
Hi. I'm here to talk to you about the importance of praise, admiration and thank you, and having it be specific and genuine.
嗨。我在这里要和大家谈谈 向别人表达赞美，倾佩和谢意的重要性。 并使它们听来真诚，具体。
And the way I got interested in this was, I noticed in myself, when I was growing up, and until about a few years ago, that I would want to say thank you to someone, I would want to praise them, I would want to take in their praise of me and I'd just stop it. And I asked myself, whyI felt shy, I felt embarrassed. And then my question became, am I the only one who does thisSo, I decided to investigate.
之所以我对此感兴趣 是因为我从我自己的成长中注意到 几年前， 当我想要对某个人说声谢谢时， 当我想要赞美他们时， 当我想接受他们对我的赞扬， 但我却没有说出口。 我问我自己，这是为什么？ 我感到害羞，我感到尴尬。 接着我产生了一个问题 难道我是唯一一个这么做的人吗？ 所以我决定做些探究。
I'm fortunate enough to work in the facility, so I get to see people who are facing life and death with addiction. And sometimes it comes down to something as simple as, their core wound is their father died without ever saying he's proud of them. But then, they hear from all the family and friends that the father told everybody else that he was proud of him, but he never told the son. It's because he didn't know that his son needed to hear it.
我非常幸运的在一家康复中心工作， 所以我可以看到那些因为上瘾而面临生与死的人。 有时候这一切可以非常简单地归结为， 他们最核心的创伤来自于他们父亲到死都未说过“他为他们而自豪”。 但他们从所有其它家庭或朋友那里得知 他的父亲告诉其他人为他感到自豪， 但这个父亲从没告诉过他儿子。 因为他不知道他的儿子需要听到这一切。
So my question is, why don't we ask for the things that we needI know a gentleman, married for 25 years, who's longing to hear his wife say, "Thank you for being the breadwinner, so I can stay home with the kids," but won't ask. I know a woman who's good at this. She, once a week, meets with her husband and says, "I'd really like you to thank me for all these things I did in the house and with the kids." And he goes, "Oh, this is great, this is great." And praise really does have to be genuine, but she takes responsibility for that. And a friend of mine, April, who I've had since kindergarten, she thanks her children for doing their 。 And she said, "Why wouldn't I thank it, even though they're supposed to do it"
因此我的问题是，为什么我们不索求我们需要的东西呢？ 我认识一个结婚25年的男士 渴望听到他妻子说， “感谢你为这个家在外赚钱，这样我才能在家陪伴着孩子，” 但他从来不
去问。 我认识一个精于此道的女士。 每周一次，她见到丈夫后会说， “我真的希望你为我对这个家和孩子们付出的努力而感谢我。” 他会应和到“哦，真是太棒了，真是太棒了。” 赞扬别人一定要真诚， 但她对赞美承担了责任。 一个从我上幼儿园就一直是朋友的叫April的人， 她会感谢她的孩子们做了家务。 她说：“为什么我不表示感谢呢，即使他们本来就要做那些事情？”
So, the question is, why was I blocking itWhy were other people blocking itWhy can I say, "I'll take my steak ， I need size six shoes," but I won't say, "Would you praise me this way" And it's because I'm giving you critical data about me. I'm telling you where I'm insecure. I'm telling you where I need your help. And I'm treating you, my inner circle, like you're the enemy. Because what can you do with that dataYou could neglect me. You could abuse it. Or you could actually meet my need.
因此我的问题是，为什么我不说呢？ 为什么其它人不说呢？ 为什么我能说：“我要一块中等厚度的牛排， 我需要6号尺寸的鞋子，” 但我却不能说：“你可以赞扬我吗？” 因为这会使我把我的重要信息与你分享。 会让我告诉了你我内心的不安。 会让你认为我需要你的帮助。 虽然你是我最贴心的人， 我却把你当作是敌人。 你会用我托付给你的重要信息做些什么呢？ 你可以忽视我。 你可以滥用它。 或者你可以满足我的要求。
And I took my bike into the bike store-- I love this -- same bike, and they'd do something called "truing" the wheels. The guy said, "You know, when you true the wheels, it's going to make the bike so much better." I get the same bike back, and they've taken all the little warps out of those same wheels I've had for two and a half years, and my bike is like new. So, I'm going to challenge all of you. I want you to true your wheels: be honest about the praise that you need to hear. What do you need to hearGo home to your wife -- go ask her, what does she needGo home to your husband -- what does he needGo home and ask those questions, and then help the people around you.
我把我的`自行车拿到车行－－我喜欢这么做－－ 同样的自行车，他们会对车轮做整形。 那里的人说：“当你对车轮做整形时， 它会使自行车变成更好。” 我把这辆自行车拿回来， 他们把有小小弯曲的铁丝从轮子上拿走 这辆车我用了2年半，现在还像新的一样。 所以我要问在场的所有人， 我希望你们把你们的车轮整形一下： 真诚面对对你们想听到的赞美。 你们想听到什么呢？ 回家问问你们的妻子，她想听到什么？ 回家问问你们的丈夫，他想听到什么？ 回家问问这些问题，并帮助身边的人实现它们。
And it's simple. And why should we care about thisWe talk about world peace. How can we have world peace with different cultures, different languagesI think it starts household by household, under the same roof. So, let's make it right in our own backyard. And I want to thank all of you in the audience for
being great husbands, great mothers, friends, daughters, sons. And maybe somebody's never said that to you, but you've done a really, really good job. And thank you for being here, just showing up and changing the world with your ideas.
非常简单。 为什么要关心这个呢？ 我们谈论世界和平。 我们怎么用不同的文化，不同的语言来保持世界和平？ 我想要从每个小家庭开始。 所以让我们在家里就把这件事情做好。 我想要感谢所有在这里的人们 因为你们是好丈夫，好母亲， 好伙伴，好女儿和好儿子。 或许有些人从没跟你们说过 但你们已经做得非常非常得出色了。
界显示着你们的智慧，并用它们改变着世界。 感谢你们来到这里， 向世
Isaid,"You'rethinkingaboutthisjustwaytooearly."Butthepointisthatwhathappensonceyoustartkindofquietlyleaningback?Everyonewho'sbeenthroughthis—andI'mheretotellyou,onceyouhaveachildathome,yourjobbetterbereallygoodtogoback,becauseit'shardtoleavethatkidathome.Yourjobneedstobechallenging.Itneedstoberewarding.Youneedtofeellikeyou'remakingadifference.Andiftwoyearsagoyoudidn'ttakeapromotionandsomeguynexttoyoudid,ifthreeyearsagoyoustoppedlookingfornewopportunities,you'regoingtobeboredbecauseyoushouldhavekeptyourfootonthegaspedal.Don'tleavebeforeyouleave.Stayin.Keepyourfootonthegaspedal,untiltheverydayyouneedtoleavetotakeabreakforachild—andthenmakeyourdecisions.Don'tmakedecisionstoofarinadvance,particularlyonesyou'renotevenconsciousyou'remaking.
Theyknoweachothermoreinthebiblicalsenseaswell.Messagenumberthree:Don'tleavebeforeyouleave.Ithinkthere'sareallydeepironytothefactthatactionswomenaretaking—andIseethisallthetime—withtheobjectiveofstayingintheworkforceactuallyleadtotheireventuallyleaving.Here'swhathappens:We'reallbusy.Everyone'sbusy.Awoman'sbusy.Andshestartsthinkingabouthavingachild,andfromthemomentshestartsthinkingabouthavingachild,shestartsthinkingaboutmakingroomforthatchild."HowamIgoingtofitthisintoeverythingelseI'mdoing?"Andliterallyfromthatmoment,shedoesn'traiseherhandanymore,shedoesn'tlookforapromotion,shedoesn'ttakeonthenewproject,shedoesn'tsay,"Me.Iwanttodothat."Shestartsleaningback.
Mygenerationreally,sadly,isnotgoingtochangethenumbersatthetop.They'rejustnotmoving.Wearenotgoingtogettowhere50percentofthepopulation—inmygeneration,therewillnotbe50percentof[women]atthetopofanyindustry.ButI'mhopefulthatfuturegenerationscan.Ithinkaworldwherehalfofourcountriesandourcompanieswererunbywomen,wouldbeabetterworld.It'snotjustbecausepeoplewouldknowwherethewomen'sbathroomsare,eventhoughthatwouldbeveryhelpful.Ithinkitwouldbeabetterworld.Ihavetwochildren.Ihaveafive-year-oldsonandatwo-year-olddaughter.Iwantmysontohaveachoicetocontributefullyintheworkforceorathome,andIwantmydaughtertohavethechoicetonotjustsucceed,buttobelikedforheraccomplishments.
I was one of the only kids in college who had a reason to go to the P.O. bo_ at the end of the day, and that was mainly because my mother has never believed in email, in Facebook, in te_ting or cell phones in general. And so while other kids were BBM-ing their parents, I was literally waiting by the mailbo_ to get a letter from home to see how the weekend had gone, which was a little frustrating when Grandma was in the hospital, but I was just looking for some sort of scribble, some unkempt cursive from my mother.
And so when I moved to New York City after college and got completely sucker-punched in the face by depression, I did the only thing I could think of at the time. I wrote those same kinds of letters that my mother had written me for strangers, and tucked them all throughout the city, dozens and dozens of them. I left them everywhere, in cafes and in libraries, at the U.N.， everywhere. I blogged about those letters and the days when they were necessary, and I posed a kind of crazy promise to the Internet: that if you asked me for a hand-written letter, I would write you one, no questions asked. Overnight, my inbo_ morphed into this harbor of heartbreak -- a single mother in Sacramento, a girl being bullied in rural Kansas, all asking me, a 22-year-old girl who barely even knew her own coffee order, to write them a love letter and give them a reason to wait by the mailbo_.
Well, today I fuel a global organization that is fueled by those trips to the mailbo_, fueled by the ways in which we can harness social media like never before to write and mail strangers letters when they need them most, but most of all, fueled by crates of mail like this one, my trusty mail crate, filled with the scriptings of ordinary people, strangers writing letters to other strangers not because they're ever going to meet and laugh over a cup of coffee, but because they have found one another by way of letter-writing.
But, you know, the thing that always gets me about these letters is that most of them have been written by people that have never known themselves loved on a piece of paper. They could not tell you about the ink of their own love letters. They're the ones from my generation, the ones of us that have grown up into a world where everything is paperless, and where some of our best conversations have happened upon a screen. We have learned to diary our pain onto Facebook, and we speak swiftly in 140 characters or less.
But what if it's not about efficiency this time? I was on the subway yesterday with this mail crate, which is a conversation starter, let me tell you. If you ever need one, just carry one of these. (Laughter) And a man just stared at me, and he was like, "Well, why don't you use the Internet?" And I thought, "Well, sir, I am not a strategist, nor am I specialist. I am merely a storyteller." And so I could tell you about a woman whose husband has just come home from Afghanistan, and she is having a hard time unearthing this thing called conversation, and so she tucks love letters throughout the house as a way to say, "Come back to me. Find me when you can." Or a girl who decides that she is going to leave love letters around her campus in Dubuque, Iowa, only to find her efforts ripple-effected the ne_t day when she walks out onto the quad and finds love letters hanging from the trees, tucked in the bushes and the benches. Or the man who decides that he is going to take his life, uses Facebook as a way to say goodbye to friends and family. Well, tonight he sleeps safely with a stack of letters just like this one tucked beneath his pillow, scripted by strangers who were there for him when.
These are the kinds of stories that convinced me that letter-writing will never again need to flip back her hair and talk about efficiency, because she is an art form now, all the parts of her, the signing, the scripting, the mailing, the doodles in the margins. The mere fact that somebody would even just sit down, pull out a piece of paper and think about someone the whole way through, with an intention that is so much harder to unearth when the browser is up and the iPhone is pinging and we've got si_ conversations rolling in at once, that is an art form that does not fall down to the Goliath of "get faster," no matter how many social networks we might join. We still clutch close these letters to our chest, to the words that speak louder than loud, when we turn pages into palettes to say the things that we have needed to say, the words that we have needed to write, to sisters and brothers and even to strangers, for far too long. Thank you. (Applause) (Applause)
chinese restaurants have played an important role in american history, as a matter of fact. the cuban missile crisis was resolved in a chinese restaurant called yenching palace in washington, d.c.， which unfortunately is closed now, and about to be turned into walgreen's. and the house that john wilkes booth planned the assassination of abraham lincoln is actually also now a chinese restaurant called wok 'n roll, on h street in washington.
事实上，中国餐馆在美国历史上发挥了很重要的作用。古巴导弹危机是在华盛顿一家名叫“燕京馆”的中餐馆里解决的。很不幸，这家餐馆现在关门了，即将被改建成沃尔格林连锁药店。而约翰·威尔克斯·布斯刺杀林肯总统的那所房子现在也成了一家中餐馆，就是位于华盛顿的“锅和卷”。
and if you think about it, a lot of the foods that you think of or we think of or americans think of as chinese food are barely recognizable to chinese, for e_ample: beef with broccoli, egg rolls, general tso's chicken, fortune cookies, chop suey, the take-out bo_es.
如果你仔细想想，就会发现很多你们所认为或我们所认为，或是美国人所认为的中国食物，中国人并不认识。比如西兰花牛肉、蛋卷、左宗棠鸡、幸运饼干、杂碎、外卖盒子。
so, the interesting question is, how do you go from fortune cookies being something that is japanese to being something that is chinese? well, the short answer is, we locked up all the japanese during world war ii, including those that made fortune cookies, so that's the time when the chinese moved in, kind of saw a market opportunity and took over.
所以有趣的是，幸运饼干是怎么从日本的东西变成中国的东西的呢？简单地说，我们在二战时扣押了所以的日本人，包括那些做幸运饼干的。这时候，中国人来了，看到了商机，自然就据为己有了。
general tso's chicken -- which, by the way, in the us naval academy is called admiral tso's chicken. i love this dish. the original name in my book was actually called the long march of general tso, and he has marched very far indeed, because he is sweet, he is fried, and he is chicken -- all things that americans love.
左宗棠鸡，在美国海军军校被称为左司令鸡。我很喜欢这道菜。在我的书里，这道菜实际上叫左将军的长征，它确实在美国很受欢迎 ，因为它是甜的，油炸的，是鸡肉做的——全部都是美国人的最爱。
so, you know, i realized when i was there, general tso is kind of a lot like colonel sanders in america, in that he's known for chicken and not war. but in china, this guy's actually known for war and not chicken.
我意识到左宗棠将军有点像美国的桑德斯上校（肯德基创始人），因为他是因鸡肉而出名的而不是战争。而在中国，左宗棠确实是因为战争而不是鸡肉闻名的。
so it's kind of part of the phenomenon i called spontaneous self-organization, right, where, like in ant colonies, where little decisions made by -- on the micro-level actually have a big impact on the macro-level.
这就有点像我所说的自发组织现象。就像在蚂蚁群中，在微观层面上做的小小决定会在宏观层面上产生巨大的影响。
and the great innovation of chicken muggets was not nuggetfying them, because that's kind of an easy concept, but the trick behind chicken muggets was, they were able to remove the chicken from the bone in a cost-effective manner, which is why it took so long for other people to copy them.
麦乐鸡块的发明并没有给他们带来切实收益，因为这个想法很简单，但麦乐鸡背后的技巧是如何用一种划算的方式来把鸡肉从骨头上剔出来。这就是为什么过了这么久才有人模仿他们。
we can think of chinese restaurants perhaps as linu_: sort of an open source thing, right, where ideas from one person can be copied and propagated across the entire system, that there can be specialized versions of chinese food, you know, depending on the region.
我们可以把中餐馆比作linu_：一种开源系统。一个人的想法可以在整个系统中被复制，被普及。在不同的地区，就有特别版本的中国菜。
in a funny, rapid-fire 4 minutes, ale_is ohanian of reddit tells the real-life fable of one humpback whale's rise to web stardom. the lesson of mister splashy pants is a shoo-in classic for meme-makers and marketers in the facebook age.
这段有趣的4分钟演讲，来自 reddit 网站创始人 ale_is ohanian。他讲了一个座头鲸在网上一夜成名的真实故事。“溅水先生”的故事是脸书时代米姆（小编注：根据《牛津英语词典》，meme被定义为：“文化的基本单位，通过非遗传的方式，特别是模仿而得到传递。”）制造者和传播者共同创造的经典案例。
演讲的开头，ale_is ohanian 介绍了“溅水先生”的故事。“绿色和平”环保组织为了阻止日本的捕鲸行为，在一只鲸鱼体内植入新片，并发起一个为这只座头鲸起名的活动。“绿色和平”组织希望起低调奢华有内涵的名字，但经过 reddit 的宣传和推动，票数最多的却是非常不高大上的“溅水先生”这个名字。经过几番折腾，“绿色和平”接受了这个名字，并且这一行动成功阻止了日本捕鲸活动。
演讲内容节选（ale_ ohanian 从社交网络的角度分析这个事件）
and actually, redditors in the internet community were happy to participate, but they weren't whale lovers. a few of them certainly were. but we're talking about a lot of people who were just really interested and really caught up in this great meme, and in fact someone from greenpeace came back on the site and thanked reddit for its participation. but this wasn't really out of altruism. this was just out of interest in doing something cool.
事实上，reddit 的社区用户们很高兴参与其中，但他们并非是鲸鱼爱好者。当然，他们中的一小部分或许是。我们看到的是一群人积极地去参与到这个米姆（社会活动）中，实际上 “绿色和平”中的人登陆 ，感谢大家的参与。网友们这么做并非是完全的利他主义。他们只是觉得做这件事很酷。
and this is kind of how the internet works. this is that great big secret. because the internet provides this level playing field. your link is just as good as your link, which is just as good as my link. as long as we have a browser, anyone can get to any website no matter how big a budget you have.
这就是互联网的运作方式。这就是我说的秘密。因为互联网提供的是一个机会均等平台。你分享的链接跟他分享的链接一样有趣，我分享的链接也不赖。只要我们有一个浏览器，不论你的财富几何，你都可以去到想浏览的页面。
the other important thing is that it costs nothing to get that content online now. there are so many great publishing tools that are available, it only takes a few minutes of your time now to actually produce something. and the cost of iteration is so cheap that you might as well give it a go.
另外，从互联网获取内容不需要任何成本。如今，互联网有各种各样的发布工具，你只需要几分钟就可以成为内容的提供者。这种行为的成本非常低，你也可以试试。
and if you do, be genuine about it. be honest. be up front. and one of the great lessons that greenpeace actually learned was that it's okay to lose control. the final message that i want to share with all of you -- that you can do well online. if you want to succeed you've got to be okay to just lose control. thank you.
如果你真的决定试试，那么请真挚、诚实、坦率地去做。“绿色和平”在这个故事中获得的教训是，有时候失控并不一定是坏事。最后我想告诉你们的是——你可以在网络上做得很好。如果你想在网络上成功，你得经得起一点失控。谢谢。