介绍:
“Stop being fussy and just swallow it,” my wife snapped, leaving me in no doubt her patience had run out. It was early 2009, our first Spring Festival since moving to Beijing, and I was experiencing the worst flu of my life. For two days I’d been running a fever and was virtually unable to get out of bed, which had prompted my wife to visit the nearby pharmacy to pick up some traditional Chinese remedies.
“别那么挑剔！赶紧把药吞了！”我妻子厉声喝道，毫无疑问，她的耐心已经耗尽。2009年初，我们搬到北京，过第一个春节的时候，我却经历了人生中最严重的一次流感。两天里，我一直在发烧，甚至几乎没法下床。见此情景，我妻子便去最近的药房给我抓了些中药。
She had already made me eat an entire packet of tiny black balls without water – they tasted truly awful, like scrapings from a donkey’s hoof, which they may well have been for all I knew – and she was now telling me to swallow a big white “pill” in one go.
她让我不喝水吃下一整包黑色小药丸，味道糟糕透了，就像是驴蹄的残渣，就我看来也许还不如残渣的味道好。现在，她又让我吞下一整个大白“药丸”。
I could barely get it in my mouth, let alone swallow it. “It’s impossible. It’ll choke me,” I croaked before breaking into a coughing fit. She insisted the woman at the pharmacy had told her I should take one pill every four hours. I looked into the bag she was holding, spotted about 10 of these white balls inside, and my life flashed before my eyes.
我几乎都无法将整丸药放进嘴里，更别说吞下药了。“不可能，我会噎着的。”，趁还没咳嗽前，我一直念叨。我妻子坚持说药店的女药师要我必须每四小时吃一片药，我看了眼她手里的药盒，瞅到里面大概有十来丸药，我觉得眼前开始闪现我这一生的时光。
Suddenly, her expression changed and she took the ball from my hand. She gave it a sharp twist, and what we both realized at that moment was actually a wax shell broke in half, revealing a brownish pill roughly twice the size of an M&M. She gave me a wide sorry-I-almost-killed-you grin.
突然，她表情发生了变化，并拿走我手上的药丸。然后将白色药丸扭了一下，几乎同时我俩都意识到了这其实只是外面白色的蜡壳，拧开后，就看到了里面褐色的药丸，大小几乎是M&M豆的两倍。接着，她给了一个充满歉意的笑容，就像在告诉我：哎呀，不好意思，差点害死你。
It was on that day I vowed never to take my wife’s health advice ever again. She grew up in eastern China, and I’ve discovered over the years she has very different
ideas to me on how to stave off illness.
也就是从那天起，我发誓再也不听她任何对我健康的建议。妻子在中国东部长大，这些年来，我发现关于如何不得病，我俩有完全不一样的看法。
For a start, I’m not convinced by her argument that hot water is a panacea.
首先，我并不相信她所谓“热水是万能药”的说法。
Meanwhile, I’m suspicious about the extraordinary number of foods my mother-in-law says are “good for men’s health” (she’s desperate for a grandchild, so these are often the first items placed in my bowl at family meals during Spring Festival).
同时，我对岳母所谓的“对男人好的一大堆食物”的说法持怀疑态度。（因为岳母太想要孙子了，所以春节家庭聚会的时候，这些食物是我碗里必不可少的。）
I was stuck by flu again shortly before Christmas and, having listened patiently to my complaints of feeling exhausted and depressed, my wife promised to prepare a filling dinner to lift my spirits. In my mind I pictured comfort food, the kind my mother would cook for me when I was a child. I saw myself tucking into hearty British fare, a nice stew of beef and potatoes, or shepherd’s pie perhaps.
圣诞节前不久，我又不幸得了流感。我妻子很耐心地听完我浑身疲惫，心情低落的抱怨后，保证晚上要做顿美妙的晚餐来帮我缓解病情。我脑海里勾画了一顿暖胃的晚饭，就像我还是孩童的时候，妈妈为我准备的晚饭一样。我看到自己享受着精心准备的英式食物——煎的刚好的牛排和土豆或者派。
Nope. When I arrived home after work that night I was presented with a casserole dish filled with cabbage and ginger soup. Not to sound ungrateful, but my heart sank.
“Have you never heard of the phrase feed a cold, starve a fever?” I asked her.
但是什么都没有。当我完成工作，晚上回到家，看到的只是盘子里的卷心菜和姜汤。我并没有在言语上表现出我的失望，但是心却失落极了。我问妻子:“你难道你没有听过伤风时宜吃，发烧时宜饿这句话么？”
“No, in China we think you should eat only light food when you’re ill,” she replied, adding for good measure: “Plus cabbage and ginger is good for men’s health.”
“没，在中国我们认为，人生病的时候应该吃点清淡的食物。”妻子回应道，接着又补了一句：“卷心菜和姜对男人的健康有好处。”
