首届《参考消息》读者译文大赛（附竞赛原文）

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　曾经，《参考消息》是中国人了解世界的重要“窗口”；今天，《参考消息》仍站在时代前沿反映世界的风云变幻。

  几十年来，《参考消息》以其强大的语言翻译力量，把全球最新变化、最新思想以及最新情感转化为中国人的语言，影响着中国人的世界观。

  本报诚邀读者参加“首届《参考消息》读者译文（英译中）大赛”，共同体验我们所处的全球化时代，共同领略语言转换带给我们的美妙享受。

　　经过三个月的紧张筹备，首届《参考消息》读者译文大赛于9月9日正式启动。大赛活动公告、参赛细则以及竞赛文章已发表在2009年9月9日《参考消息》第11版。竞赛截稿时间定在10月8日。由于《参考消息》覆盖上千万读者，本次大赛设置的获奖人数高达90名。

活动时间

  1）、译文征集：

  2009年9月9日--2009年10月8日

  2）、公布获奖名单：2009年11月

  3）、颁奖阶段：2009年11月初

赛事规则  

  一、本竞赛为英译中竞赛，请参赛者将本报本版今日刊登的竞赛文章翻译成中文。

  二、参赛截稿日期为10月8日，请参赛者于10月8日之前（以寄出日邮截为准，含此日）将参赛译作寄至：北京市宣武门西大街57号参考消息报社 读者译文竞赛组委会，邮编100803。请在信封上注明“参赛译作”字样；如是高校学生，请在信封上注明“高校学生参赛译作”。

  三、请将参赛译作用电脑打印或用稿纸誊写清楚（请不要使用有单位名称标识的稿纸）。请在译作前附Ａ４纸，上贴参赛卡（请从报纸剪下、复印有效），将个人信息填写在内。为保证公平，参赛译作内不得有任何个人信息，否则被视为无效。参赛译作一稿有效，恕不接受修改稿。

  四、请参赛者独立完成参赛译作，如发现有抄袭现象，则取消参赛资格。参赛者请不要将译作在本次活动期间（从公布赛事到颁奖期间）在任何媒体上发表（包括书报刊及网络）。

  五、本竞赛设立一等奖5名，奖金3000元人民币、一套汉王电纸书、奖杯及证书；二等奖10名，奖金3000元人民币、奖杯及证书；三等奖15名，奖金1000元人民币、奖杯及证书；优秀奖30名，精美奖品及证书。本竞赛鼓励高校学生参与，特别设立“大学生奖”：一等奖5名，奖金3000元人民币、一套汉王电纸书、奖杯及证书；二等奖10名，奖金3000元人民币、奖杯及证书；三等奖15名，奖金1000元人民币、奖杯及证书。

  六、本竞赛评审委员会拟于11月在本报及新华网公布竞赛结果，并向竞赛获奖者颁奖。

  七、本竞赛活动详情和最新信息请关注竞赛官方网站：新华网。

  八、本竞赛组委会联系方式：

  电话：（010）63071120　信箱：ckbei@xinhua.org

  　地址：北京市宣武门西大街57号参考消息报社

  邮编：100803

  　九、本竞赛活动规则解释权归参考消息报社。

　　首届参考消息杯读者译文(英译中)赛参赛卡（见：http://news.xinhuanet.com/newmed ... tent_12020590_3.htm）

奖项设置

  一等奖： （ 5名）3000元人民币+一套汉王电纸书+奖杯及证书

  二等奖： （10名）3000元人民币+奖杯及证书

  三等奖： （15名）1000元人民币+奖杯及证书

  优秀奖： （30名）精美礼品及证书   

  大学生奖

  本竞赛为鼓励高校学生参与特设立“大学生奖”

  一等奖： （ 5名）3000元人民币+一套汉王电纸书+奖杯及证书

  二等奖： （10名）3000元人民币+奖杯及证书

  三等奖： （15名）1000元人民币+奖杯及证书

竞赛文章
　One small step back to where we started

  The Apollo missions were supposed to reveal the truth about the Moon. In fact, they taught us about the Earth – and ourselves

  In July 1969, soon after their return from the moon, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were shown footage of the world’s reaction to the lunar landing. They saw the US newscaster Walter Cronkite wiping away his tears; people gathered around televisions from China to Brazil; pavements outside TV shops crammed as people watched in awe. Aldrin turned to Armstrong. “Neil,” he said, “we missed the whole thing”.

  That comment (reminiscent of George Harrison’s complaint that the Beatles felt left out because “We were the only people who never got to see the Beatles”) reveals the surprising truth about the Apollo missions: they weren’t about the Moon. They were about the Earth.

  The clues had been there from the start, when the crew of Apollo 8 became the first humans to leave their home planet’s orbit. Orbiting the Moon on Christmas Eve 1968, fulfilling dreams as old as mankind itself, their real wonder was not at the dead grey planet beneath them, but at the vibrant blue globe in the distance. The first three men to see the Moon up close soon realised — with a much deeper sense of reverence — that they were the first three men to see the Earth from a distance. Witnessing an earthrise made them feel humble. They read the opening chapters of Genesis to a worldwide audience of millions, signing off with, “Merry Christmas, and God bless all of you, all of you on the good Earth.”

  Over the next four years, Apollo taught us what it means to be human: in a word, restless. Curiosity is never satisfied, it merely finds new targets. Quite how quickly the shift can occur was learnt by Pete Conrad, the third man to walk on the Moon (and the first to fall over on it). Once Armstrong and Aldrin had claimed the prize, no one was interested in Apollo 12. Conrad later appeared in an American Express advert of famous Americans nobody recognised. (Others included Mel Blanc, the voice of Bugs Bunny.) Yet in many ways Conrad’s was the most interesting Apollo mission of all. His fellow moonwalker, Al Bean, never the most naturally gifted astronaut, compensated with sheer hard work. Finally standing on the lunar surface, he threw his silver Nasa badge into the distance, knowing that the moonwalk had earned him a gold one. But as they flew back to Earth, he turned to Conrad and admitted disappointment in the Moon itself: “It’s kind of like the song Is That All There Is?” Another timeless truth: achievements themselves aren’t what count, it’s the fact that you worked for them.

  When Bean returned to Earth he would sit in shopping malls, simply to marvel at the variety of human life. And he has never again complained about the weather: “I’m just glad there is weather.” As so often, a journey into the unknown had revealed more about the traveller’s home than about the destination.

  Virtually every Apollo astronaut came back with a deep sense of the Earth’s fragility. Ed Mitchell, Moonwalker No 6: “When we see ourselves in this bigger perspective — call it the ET point of view, the God point of view — a shift takes place in your perception and you start to think quite differently.” Apollo 16’s Charlie Duke describes Earth as “hanging in space like a jewel”. “People are always asking what we discovered when we went to the Moon,” says Dick Gordon, of Apollo 12. “What we discovered was the Earth.”

  The discovery gave a big boost to the nascent Green movement. Sir Jonathon Porritt cites the “deep and lasting effect” that Apollo had on “many environmentalists — including me”. Friends of the Earth was founded in the same year that man first walked on the Moon. The inaugural Earth Day happened a year later. Everyone seemed to agree with Michael Collins’s thought as he splashed back down into the Pacific with Armstrong and Aldrin: “Nice ocean you got here, planet Earth.”

  Politically, too, there was a shift. The Earth from space looks just like a map — except without the national borders. Collins remembers people of every nation saying to him, “‘We did it’ — it was a wonderful thing.” Ed Mitchell, on his way back from the Moon, realised that “the molecules of my body and of the spacecraft and of my partners were manufactured in some ancient generation of stars — and that was an overwhelming sense of oneness and connectedness”. Inspired by the landings, René Dubos coined the phrase “Think globally, act locally”. T minus zero for Apollo was T plus one for globalisation.

  Yet despite the astronauts’ protestations that the Moon itself was a letdown, which of us, given the chance, wouldn’t want to go there? The Chinese are planning missions of their own, and the commercial investment being ploughed into space tourism proves just how much we yearn for new experiences. So much so that we resent anyone who dampens our excitement.

  Pete Conrad used to say he was prouder of his work on the Skylab missions than his walk on the Moon. “Some people even get mad,” he said. “‘What do you mean, the Moon isn’t the biggest thing in your life?’ I say: ‘Well, it isn’t’. They think, ‘Well, it should be’. I say: ‘Why? I’m the guy that did this’.” Maybe life is one long “wet paint” sign: you don’t believe it until you reach out and touch.

  Certainly, Dave Scott, of Apollo 15, thought so. Standing on the Moon, he voiced his thoughts to Houston: “I realise there’s a fundamental truth to our nature: man must explore.” Home is never far from our thoughts, though. How many times have you looked forward for months to a holiday, only to find that on day three you’re already dreaming of your own bed? But when you return, the process starts all over again. This idea of life as a perpetual cycle seems particularly comforting in a recession. Even though we’ve overreached (and overborrowed), and been reminded of some home truths, we know that one day we’ll reach out once more.

  When Bean retired from Nasa he became an artist. His paintings of the lunar landscape, which fetch tens of thousands of dollars, bear the lessons of his time as an astronaut. Just as he worked hard to reach the Moon, now he works hard to perfect his painting. “That’s what I tell myself when the colours don’t come out right or it hasn’t worked like I thought it would: ‘That’s why they call it art’.”

  Another of Bean’s thoughts sums up the very essence of the Apollo missions, indeed of all human travel: that it isn’t about where you’re going, it’s about who you are. “Everybody came back just more like I knew them. I think maybe success doesn’t change you as much as reveal you.”

  Which is why the greatest reason to celebrate this 40th anniversary isn’t scientific or environmental or political; it’s personal. The next time you go down a footpath just to see where it leads, or when the only thing that will stop your baby crying is taking it for a drive, remember the 12 men who stood on the Moon and looked at Earth. As T. S. Eliot put it:

  We shall not cease from exploration

  And the end of all our exploring

  Will be to arrive where we started

  And know the place for the first time.

消息来源：http://www.xinhuanet.com/newmedia/ckxxywds/
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