Decadence

12月18日，中国首届“人造美女”选美大赛总决赛将在北京举行，届时20名17至62岁的人造美女将在舞台上尽情展示她们精心修饰的美丽。据悉，这也是世界上首届人造美女选美赛事，引起了路透社、美联社等三十多家世界知名媒体的关注，外电报道如下：China will soon host the finals of the country's first beauty contest in which every contestant has gone under the knife. Twenty "man-made" beauties will parade their surgical nips and tucks next Saturday in the hope of taking home the country's first Miss Artificial Beauty crown. The contest is the latest addition to China's beauty pageant scene after Miss World was held in the southern island of Hainan for two years in a row. Beauty pageants were once considered reviled displays of western decadence but have become big business in Communist-ruled China following more than two decades of economic reforms. "I wanted to convey a message to society -- that the pursuit of beauty is ageless," said 62-year-old Liu Yulan, the oldest contestant who turned to plastic surgery to smooth facial wrinkles and fill out her drawn cheeks. Another contestant, who did not make the Miss Artificial Beauty finals, spent $36,000 in her quest for the perfect body, according to a Chinese Web site. Decadence表示“颓废，堕落，衰落”，例如：The 1890s in Europe are widely regarded as years of social decadence.（19世纪90年代的欧洲被普遍认为处于社会颓废时期。）19世纪末期，英法两国曾兴起一种文学运动，以高雅美学、技巧和追求新感觉为特征，被后人称作Decadence（颓废派文艺）。 （中国日报网站编）