何為男子漢？培訓(xùn)機(jī)構(gòu)欲“重塑”中國男孩
唐海巖經(jīng)營學(xué)校的宗旨很明確：要把男孩培養(yǎng)成男子漢。
There are many ways to be a man, of course, but the broad-shouldered Mr. Tang has a particular kind of man in mind. This man plays sports. This man conquers challenges.
當(dāng)然，成為男子漢的方法有很多種，但有著寬闊肩膀的唐海巖心里對于男子漢有著特別的定義。他愛好運(yùn)動。他能戰(zhàn)勝挑戰(zhàn)。
“We will teach the children to play golf, go sailing and be equestrians,” said Mr. Tang, 39, “but we will never cultivate sissies.”
“我們會教孩子去打高爾夫、去玩帆船、玩馬術(shù)，”39歲的唐海巖說，“但是我們絕不培養(yǎng)娘娘腔。”
Mr. Tang founded the Real Boys Club, which stands at the forefront of a deep conversation in China about what it means to be a man. It’s a debate that has been stirred by worries about military effectiveness, an embrace of traditional culture and roles, disappointing academic performance among boys and echoes of the defunct one-child policy.To the club’s thinking, the alternative for the boys, ages 7 to 12, is life in a society where androgynous pop idols, overprotective mothers and mostly female teachers would turn them into effeminate crybabies.
唐海巖創(chuàng)立了本色男兒俱樂部，該俱樂部站在中國關(guān)于何為男子漢的深入對話的前沿。對軍隊?wèi)?zhàn)斗力的擔(dān)憂、對傳統(tǒng)文化和角色的信奉、對男孩學(xué)習(xí)成績的失望，以及對已不復(fù)存在的獨(dú)生子女政策的回應(yīng)，激發(fā)了這場辯論。在這家俱樂部看來，對于7歲至12歲的男孩們來說，另一種選擇是生活在這樣一個社會里：流行偶像中性化、母親過分溺愛、以女性居多的教師，會把他們變成嬌氣的愛哭鬼。
On one recent Sunday afternoon, 17 boys from the Real Boys Club blocked, sprinted and tackled one another as they learned about American football. Wearing a red hooded sweatshirt, Mr. Tang led the boys in a call-and-response chant.
最近一個周日的下午，本色男兒俱樂部的17個男孩在學(xué)橄欖球，他們相互阻截、沖刺和斷球。唐海巖穿著一件紅色連帽運(yùn)動衫，領(lǐng)著孩子們喊口號。
“Who’s the best?” he shouted.
“誰最棒?”他喊道。
“I’m the best!” they shouted back.
“我最棒!”他們大聲回應(yīng)。
“Who’s the strongest?”
“誰最強(qiáng)?”
“I’m the strongest!”
“我最強(qiáng)!”
“Who are you?”
“你是誰?”
“Real men!”
“男子漢!”
Arguably, the club is intended to address a problem that China does not have. Chinese men still dominate the top echelons of politics and business. Institutional sexism is widespread. Wealth is concentrated in the hands of men. Women complain of sexual harassment within public transport, universities and companies.
可以說，這個俱樂部旨在解決一個中國沒有的問題。中國男性仍然控制著政界和商界的高層。制度上的性別歧視很普遍。財富集中在男性手中。女性抱怨在公共交通、大學(xué)和企業(yè)里遭到性騷擾。
But China’s preoccupation with strong men has taken on a political dimension, feeding concerns about whether young Chinese males are in trouble. State media has said video games, masturbation, and a lack of exercise have made many young men ill-suited for the military. “Erasing the gender characteristics of a man who is not afraid of death and hardship,” Peng Xiaohui, a sexology professor at Central China Normal University, said, is tantamount to “a country’s suicide.”
但中國對強(qiáng)壯男性的關(guān)注已到了政治層面，引發(fā)了對中國年輕男性是否陷入困境的擔(dān)憂。官方媒體說，電子游戲、手淫和缺乏鍛煉使得許多年輕人不適合參軍。華中師范大學(xué)的性學(xué)教授彭曉輝表示，“把不怕苦不怕死的這種男性的性別特征把它抹殺掉”，“這個國家”相當(dāng)于“自殺”。
“It is still necessary for a boy to be raised as a boy and a girl to be raised as a girl,” Mr. Peng said in a telephone interview. “They should not be raised based on the opposite gender.”
“還是要男孩當(dāng)男孩養(yǎng)，女孩當(dāng)女孩養(yǎng)。”彭曉輝在電話采訪中說。“不能反性別去撫養(yǎng)。”
Mr. Tang, a former football coach and teacher, said the idea for starting his club came from his discussions with parents who were worried about their sons falling behind in school. According to a 2014 survey of 20,000 Chinese primary school students and their parents in four provinces, almost two-thirds of the boys surveyed performed poorly academically, compared with less than one-third of girls. The study was conducted by the China Academy of Educational Sciences, a research institution affiliated with China’s education ministry.Mr. Tang was also inspired by a 2006 trip to Oakland, Calif., where he saw American parents teach their boys “to overcome challenges and dangers” through physical training. In China, by contrast, many parents try to protect their sons, a cultural bias that has been magnified by the one-child policy. The survey by the China Academy of Educational Sciences found that “whether it was in life or in school, parents had a tendency to spoil boys.”
唐海巖曾是一名足球教練和教師。他說，創(chuàng)辦這個俱樂部的想法，來自于他與那些擔(dān)心兒子學(xué)業(yè)落后的父母的討論。2014年，一項針對中國4個省份2萬名小學(xué)生及其家長的調(diào)查顯示，近三分之二的受訪男孩在學(xué)業(yè)上表現(xiàn)不佳，而女孩的這一比例則不到三分之一。這項研究是由中國教育部下屬的中國教育科學(xué)研究院進(jìn)行的。唐海巖還受到2006年一次加利福尼亞州奧克蘭之旅的啟發(fā)，在那里，他看到美國父母通過體育鍛煉教育他們的男孩“抵御危險和困難”。相比之下，在中國，許多父母試圖保護(hù)他們的兒子，獨(dú)生子女政策放大了這種文化偏見。中國教育科學(xué)研究院的這項調(diào)查還發(fā)現(xiàn)，“無論在生活還是學(xué)習(xí)中，父母均有對男孩更加溺愛的傾向”。
More than 2,000 boys have enrolled in the Real Boys Club, according to Mr. Tang.
唐海巖表示，有超過2000名男孩加入了本色男兒俱樂部。
One mother, Sun Yi, decided to enroll her 8-year-old son — her only child — because she believed it would teach him teamwork. She paid about $2,000 for a semester’s worth of classes.
一位名叫孫旖的母親決定給8歲的兒子——她唯一的孩子——報名，因?yàn)樗嘈胚@將教會他團(tuán)隊合作。她為一個學(xué)期的課程支付了大約2000美元(約合1.4萬元人民幣)。
“He used to like to cry, but now I think he has a much sunnier disposition,” she said. “I feel his tolerance ability has improved, and he now knows how to deal with failure and frustration.”In the Real Boys Club, the lessons of manhood are taught in slogans. Before the boys do their homework, they pledge to study hard for the “rise of China,” starting with the words: “I am a real man! The main bearer of the family and social responsibility in the future! The backbone of the Chinese people!”
“他相對會愛哭一些，現(xiàn)在就陽光了，”她說。“我覺得承受能力強(qiáng)了，包括失敗和挫折這種探索。”在本色男兒俱樂部，關(guān)于男子漢的訓(xùn)誡是通過口號傳達(dá)的。在男孩們做作業(yè)之前，他們承諾為“中華崛起”而努力學(xué)習(xí)，口號的開頭是“我是男子漢!是未來家庭和社會責(zé)任的主要承擔(dān)者，是中華民族的脊梁!”
Mr. Tang said “real men” are gallant. (“I can never ask this of a girl,” said Mr. Tang, who has a 3-year-old daughter. “This is a trait that is unique to boys.”) Other traits that boys should have, he said, include courage, etiquette, the ability to distinguish right from wrong, and an understanding of “honor and disgrace.”
唐海巖說，“男子漢”是勇敢的。(“有血性我不能要求女孩，”有一個三歲女兒的唐海巖說。“這是男孩特有的一種東西。”)他說，男孩應(yīng)該擁有的其他品格還包括敢擔(dān)當(dāng)、明是非、辨善惡、懂禮儀、以及知“榮辱”。
At the start of the program, several of the boys spoke only in a whisper or cried for half an hour, said Guo Suiyun, one of the teachers.
一位名叫郭遂運(yùn)的教師說，在課程開始時，幾個男孩只會小聲說話，還有人哭了半個小時。
“When one of them cries, we will definitely not comfort him,” said Mr. Guo, 30. “We will only encourage him to be strong.”Every Sunday, the boys hop on a bus at 7:40 a.m. and ride to a sports school nestled in the hills of western Beijing, where they play soccer, games that involve teamwork and strength, and football — a sport that is still new to many in China. One day in December, they will run shirtless.
“哭的時候我們不會去哄，”郭遂運(yùn)說，“我們不會去哄，我們只會鼓勵他要堅強(qiáng)。”每個星期天，男孩們都會在早上7點(diǎn)40分乘坐公共汽車前往一所坐落在北京西部山區(qū)的體育學(xué)校，在那里踢足球、進(jìn)行涉及團(tuán)隊合作和力量的比賽，還有橄欖球 ——一項對很多中國人來說很新鮮的運(yùn)動。12月的一天，他們要赤裸上身跑步。
“I never get to play soccer during the week,” said Sun Shujie, 10. Earlier, Mr. Tang had asked him to share his story about giving up his smartphone during the week and how he restricted himself to only 20 minutes of use.
“一周下來完全沒踢過足球，”孫樹杰說。早些時候，唐海巖曾要求他分享自己在這個星期戒掉智能手機(jī)、限制自己只使用20分鐘的故事。
The boys do their homework in a school surrounded by framed posters of famous scientists and engineers. Only one woman is pictured: the Polish physicist Marie Curie.Some in China blame boys’ lacking behavior on a lack of male role models. Fathers are rarely involved in their sons’ upbringing, according to government research. Even pop culture figures have sparked complaints: A number of parents were outraged when China’s state broadcaster, China Central Television, in September featured a boy band whose members wore makeup. The parents complained that these pop idols could cause their sons to “behave in a feminine way.”
男孩們做作業(yè)的學(xué)校里，到處都是裝裱起來的著名科學(xué)家和工程師的海報，其中只有一位女性：波蘭物理學(xué)家瑪麗·居里(Marie Curie)。有些中國人認(rèn)為男孩表現(xiàn)不好是缺乏男性榜樣導(dǎo)致的。根據(jù)政府的研究，父親很少參與兒子的教育。甚至流行文化人物也引發(fā)了一些抱怨：中國國家電視臺中央電視臺在9月份的節(jié)目中有一個男孩團(tuán)體，其成員臉上化妝，令不少家長感到憤怒。父母抱怨說，這些流行偶像可能會讓他們的兒子“娘娘腔”。
The Real Boys Club is meant to foster self-sufficiency, with the study period encouraging the boys to meet their goals without their parents hovering over them. Jin Hong, 9, said his parents would constantly breathe down his neck about schoolwork at home. “The thing I like most about the program is that I can study independently,” he said.
本色男兒俱樂部旨在促進(jìn)自立，學(xué)習(xí)期間鼓勵男孩們在沒有父母督促的情況下實(shí)現(xiàn)目標(biāo)。9歲的錦鴻說，在家里，父母不斷為學(xué)校作業(yè)嘮叨他。“這個課程最讓我喜歡的是，我可以獨(dú)立學(xué)習(xí)，”他說。
But the program does not encourage the boys to run amok. Boys who commit infractions — pushing other boys, hurling vulgarities — get points deducted and can get demoted from the “phoenix” level to the “smelly egg” level.
但它并不鼓勵男孩們橫沖直撞。有違規(guī)行為的男孩——推搡其他男孩、說粗話——會被扣分，可能從“鳳凰”級降到“臭雞蛋”級。
For Ms. Sun’s son, Fang Dingyue, it got to be too much. After Mr. Tang singled him out for not keeping up while marching, Dingyue burst into tears.Other men say they have doubts about the effectiveness of male-oriented schools. Wang Chenpeng, 23, a marketing employee for a storage company who loves wearing makeup, said his mother burned all his dolls because she thought it was too girlie. He later came out as gay.
對孫女士的兒子方鼎越來說，這一點(diǎn)有些難以承受了。在因?yàn)闆]有跟上行軍隊列被唐海巖點(diǎn)名后，他哭了出來。還有人說他們對男校的效果感到懷疑。23歲的王琛鵬是一家倉儲公司的營銷人員，喜歡化妝，他說母親燒掉了他所有的娃娃，因?yàn)樗X得太女孩氣了。他后來透露了自己是同性戀。
“On the surface, these children may try to keep in line with the requirements of their parents and these educational institutions, and then present a superficial image,” he said. “But their essence will remain the same.”
“那些小孩表面上可能會隨著家長或者那些教育機(jī)構(gòu)的人的要求，然后只會呈現(xiàn)出一個表面現(xiàn)象，”他說。“但是他的本質(zhì)內(nèi)在還是那樣。”
