介绍:
千里送鹅毛
谭恩美【美】
这位老太太至今还记得，多年以前，她在上海，傻乎乎地出了个大价钱，在菜市场买下一只“天鹅”。这只给小贩吹得天花乱坠的家禽，其实是只鸭子，它般拼命地伸着脖子，企图成为一只真正的天鹅。而后来，它果真变得那么优雅，动人，谁都舍不得宰了吃。
后来，这位女人离乡背井，过江越海，直奔美国。在滔滔的海面上，她和它，都伸直脖子往美国的所在观望。在驶往美国的旅途中，她轻声对那只天鹅私语着：到了美国，我就要生个女儿，她会很像我。但在美国，她却无需仰仗丈夫的鼻息度日。在美国，不会有人歧视她，因为我会让她讲上一口流利漂亮的美式英语。她将应有尽有，没有烦恼和忧愁。她会领略我的一番苦心，我要让她成为比期望中还要好上一百倍的漂亮的天鹅！
然而，她的脚一踏上这块新的土地，移民局的官员便强行夺走了她的天鹅。她无奈地挥扬着双臂，而天鹅留给她的，只是一根羽毛。随后，她又得填写一大堆的表格。她已经完全忘记了，为什么她要千里迢迢来到美国，她舍弃的又是什么。
现在，这个女人已进入暮年。她有个女儿已长大成人，只会说英语，咽下的可口可乐可比悲伤多。一直以来，这个老妇人想把这根天鹅羽毛交给女儿，并跟她说：“这只羽毛看起来一文不值，可是它从遥远的国度而来，带着我的一切美好的愿望。”她等啊等，一年又一年，就是为了那一天她能够用标准的美式英语，把这个故事讲给她的女儿听。
Feathers from a thousand Li Away
By Amy Tan
The old woman remembered a swan she had bought many years ago in Shanghai for a foolish sum. This bird, boasted the market vendor, was once a duck that stretched its neck in hopes of becoming a goose, and now look!—it is too beautiful to eat.
Then the woman and the swan sailed across an ocean many thousands of li wide, stretching their necks toward America. On her journey she cooed to the swan: "In America I will have a daughter just like me. But over there nobody will say her worth is measured by the loudness of her husband's belch. Over there nobody will look down on her, because I will make her speak only perfect American English. And over there she will always be too full to swallow any sorrow! She will know my meaning, because I will give her this swan—a creature that became more than what was hoped for."
But when she arrived in the new country, the immigration officials pulled her swan away from her, leaving the woman fluttering her arms and with only one swan feather for a memory. And then she had to fill out so many forms she forgot why she had come and what she had left behind.
Now the woman was old. And she had a daughter who grew up speaking only English and swallowing more Coca-Cola than sorrow. For a long time now the woman had wanted to give her daughter the single swan feather and tell her, "This feather may look worthless, but it comes from afar and carries with it all my good intentions." And she waited, year after year, for the day she could tell her daughter this in perfect American English.
