英国文化：礼仪（manners）

In the next few minutes we’re going to be talking about modern manners. It’s an argument that, on the face of it, has been going on between the generations, for hundreds of generations. Older people can often be heard saying the youth of today lack the basics in good behaviour and with newspapers and the media focusing on the anti-social activities of a minority of young people, it’s easy for them to be branded with a negative stereotype. So are British manners really getting worse? Our reporter Mark went to find out.
在接下来的几分钟里，我们将谈到有关现代礼仪方面的问题。从表面上看，不同辈份之间在对于这方面的争论大概已持续几百个年代。我们经常听到老一辈的人说现在大部分的年轻人缺乏基本规范的文明礼貌素养，同时报纸新闻也报道了年轻团体的反社会活动，所以年轻人很容易被贴上既定偏见的标签。难道英国在文明礼貌方面的表现越来越差了吗？我们的记者马克决定一探究竟。

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Well, I’ve come to a typical UK high street on a weekday to talk to the young mums and dads, business people, elderly people and students that are out doing their shopping. So we should get an interesting mix of views. Let’s go see what people think.
在某个工作日，我来到了英国一条繁华的商业街，与那些正在购物的年轻父母、商业人士、老人和学生谈谈有关这方面的问题，我们应该会得到一些有意思的观点，让我们一起来看看人们是怎么想的吧。

-Excuse me, sir, would you say that manners are getting better or worse in the UK?
“先生，打扰一下，你认为英国在文明礼貌方面的表现是变得越来越好还是越来越糟糕？”

"I actually think they’re getting worse. I think that the standards are declining generally. "
“事实上我觉得是越来越糟糕了，有关礼貌方面的标准大体上降低了。”

"I think they are getting worse but not terribly so."
“我觉得是变差了但也不至于那么糟糕。”

"Generally in buses and trains I think that people’s manners have improved in many ways."
“从总体上说，在公车和列车上，人们在很多方面的表现已经有所进步了。”

"There are cultural differences, so you might meet someone from a different culture and your set of manners will quite be different to theirs."
“许多文化之间是存在差异的，所以你可能遇到来自不同文化背景的人，而且你在礼仪方面的方式也与他们的不尽相同。”

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Well, is it all a question of individual taste or is there some common ground? With me here is Simon Fanshawe, author of a book called ‘The Done Thing’, all about modern British manners.
这种问题是因人而异还是普遍存在呢？在我身边的是西蒙•凡维斯，他是著作《约定俗成》的作者，他在这本书中主要讲述了现代英国的礼仪风尚。

-Simon, what are the basic dos and don’ts?
西蒙，在你看来，哪些行为举止是能体现风度的，哪些是不被接受的？

-I think one of the things that’s confusing for people is when they come here is there appear to be hundreds and hundreds of rules, hundreds of things you should and shouldn’t do. And the truth of it is that most of them are about class. And lots of them are trip-wires actually for people who don’t know them.
So what I tried to do in my book was take it back to some sort of first principle and say look – there are anthropological reasons why we have certain kinds of manners. So I’ll give you a very good example, in Britain there are sort of two ways of holding a knife, very broadly. And broadly speaking the middle-classes hold it with the index finger on the top, gripped in the hand. And working-class people hold it like a pen. Entirely a class distinction and people mercilessly exploit it if they want to. The truth of it is, the one way not to hold a knife at the table, is clasped in your fist, raised as if to kill your guest. And what does that tell us about eating? Well, what it tells us about eating is two things: it's never confuse your guests with either the food or the enemy. Don’t eat them and don’t kill them!That’s about how you should hold your knife, because actually manners are really about the reduction of violence. There’s a lot in there about reducing violence. So that’s just an illustration of what one tries to do so actually when you look at real table manners they’re about people feeling comfortable with each other, sharing food around a table. Very important human thing.
所以我尽量在我的书中还原礼仪本来的概念和从人类学方面说明为什么我们会有既定的礼仪要求。我给你们举一个很贴切的例子吧。广泛地说，在英国有两种握餐刀的方式。一般来说，中产阶级紧握餐刀并把食指放在上面，而工人阶级握餐刀像握一支笔那样。这种不同的方式完全是由于阶级差异，人们可以毫不留情地利用它。事实上，有一个方法可以避免在餐桌上使用餐刀，就是把它紧握在你的拳头中，然后举起来，好像你要杀了你的客人那样。从中我们可以得知哪些饮食风度呢？这两件事可以说明：你的客人不会对食物或者你自认为充满敌对的行为感到困惑，你既不是要吃这些食物，也不是要杀死他们！这都与你握餐刀的方式有关，因为事实上风度与减少暴力是有关系的，而且是很大程度上有关系。所以这很好地阐释了人们在餐座上其乐融融地分享食物时充满了人性化的原因。

-And are things actually getting worse?
事情是否越来越糟糕呢？

-Very broadly speaking, we all rub along together pretty well, actually, we don’t do so badly. The trouble with bad manners is that when you experience it, it completely occupies your field of vision. So you feel completely knocked back and rather hurt by somebody.
广义上讲，我们相处得很好，事实上并不是那么顺利，在你经历时才会体会到不恰当的风度所带来的困扰，它们完全遮挡了你的视线，所以你会承受打击和某些人对你的伤害。

-Should foreigners, say, comply with British manners when in Britain or should they just be themselves?
这么说来，外国人是应该遵守英国礼仪要求还是按照他们自己的方式呢？

-Well I think, one, they should be very gentle with us because we’re not terribly good at understanding that there are lots of different customs from round the world, so you know, be gentle. But I think the thing what I would say to anybody going to any other culture, any other country in the world: Number one – be curious, ask yourself. The other thing is don’t think there’s a right and a wrong way to do things in terms of little funny details. Always remember that fundamentals matter more than anything else. ‘Please’ and ‘Thank You’ is a gift and a grace in any language so treat people in the fundamental purpose of manners which is to make life easier. If I can give you a definition of manners, it is it the reduction of actual or potential violence between strangers. So always seek to defuse conflict, always seek to reach out and offer yourself to other people, always seek to open the door and let them through. Do those kind of things because actually you’ll find people love it and they’ll respond to you.
我希望外国友人能够宽容地与我们相处，因为我们并不擅于理解来自世界各地不同的文化习俗，所以宽容很重要。对此，我想给那些即将到异国他乡的人们一些建议：首先，要充满好奇心和多思考，另一个就是不要非得为一些琐事划清对错界线，记住一些基本规范的举止行为比任何其它事都重要。“拜托”和“谢谢”在任何的语言环境下都简单好用，也能体现你的个人素养，所以使用简便的方式对待别人让生活更轻松。如果要我为“礼貌”定义，就是它能够缓和陌生人之间的冲突感，所以要寻找方法缓和矛盾，为他人提供帮助，打开心房让别人有机会去了解你。做到这些善事，你会发现人们其实很欣慰，并且会给予你同样友好的回应。

-Simon Fanshawe, it would be very bad manners of me not to say, ‘thank you’ for coming to talk to us.
西蒙•凡斯维，如果我不对你说“感谢您与我们分享这么多”，这是非常不礼貌的。

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Our reporter Mark, minding his p’s and q’s there. And that’s it for this time.
我们的记者马克，表达了他在风度方面的谨慎。今天我们分享的就这么多。

（来源：英国使馆文化教育处，编辑：Helen）