To Remember in America
2026年2月6日
上世纪70年代，我在北京上幼儿园时，有一位老师似乎从折磨孩子中获得了无穷无尽的乐趣。每次游戏时间，她都会提前把某个孩子罚站——因为她“看出”那孩子即将调皮捣蛋。而她的惩罚方式堪称“独创”：孩子既不能站着，也不能坐着，只能蹲着，就像在用露天茅厕一样。我常常就是那个孩子，因为她觉得我聪明得“过了头”。有一次，她把手比成手枪抵住我的头，说：“砰。”
但那还不是最糟的。她上小学五年级的儿子，常在午休时来我们幼儿园。他母亲会坐在午睡室门口织毛衣，而那个男孩——在我们四岁孩子眼里简直像个巨人——则拿着一把锤子在床铺间来回踱步，威胁说谁要是敢动一下或发出一点声音，就砸碎他的脑袋。每次那个可怕的男孩进来，我都会隔着床栏，紧紧握住旁边小床上那个男孩的手，吓得动弹不得。
几十年后，我回北京探望母亲，竟在路上遇见了那位老师。如今她已是个虚弱的老妇人，正朝我们走来。母亲告诉我，她经常打听我的近况，让我打个招呼。我断然拒绝。当她和母亲寒暄时，我转过身去背对着她。事后母亲责备我太无礼。我解释说，这个女人很邪恶，当年虐待过我们这些孩子。母亲却以她一贯的笃定语气说：“这不可能是真的。你们当时为什么不告诉家长？其他老师为什么没阻止她？”见我沉默不语，她便断定我们那时一定太淘气，并引用了一句俗语：“可怜之人，必有可恨之处。”
每天早上上学路上，我都会哭。但一个四岁的孩子，哪懂得如何表达自己的恐惧与痛苦？幼儿园里还有其他大人，却似乎没人觉得那位老师的做法有何不妥（也许即便家长知道，也不会觉得有什么问题）。他们都从这位老师的管教中获益——我们变得乖顺、易于管理。
生活在今天的美国，让我想起了那所幼儿园：那种肆虐的暴政；那些像拿锤子的男孩一样，因为可以为所欲为而肆意欺凌无辜者的男人；还有那些像我母亲一样的人，坚称“这不可能是真的，生活不会那么糟糕”；如果坏事发生了，一定是你自己的问题；别惹事；保持希望吧——中期选举时会好转的，四年后会变好的，总有一天会好起来的。
一位住在伦敦的朋友提到，最近她总听到一句令人费解的话：“这不是美国，这不是我们的样子。”但这就是美国，这就是生活，这就是人类的行为方式。美国例外论救不了我们。我和朋友们现在出门前都会确保手机电量充足——必要时可以录像取证。这虽只是微小之举，却也并非毫无风险。
我不知道当年在幼儿园里和我手拉手的那个小男孩，是否还记得我们共同经历过的恐惧。那时他被视作“迟钝”，而我曾多次为他挺身而出，惹了不少麻烦。后来上了小学，我不再能保护他，他遭受了更多欺凌和虐待。五十年过去了，如今我能为他做的，唯有铭记——正如当年他握住我的手，给予我那一点点却至关重要的慰藉。
To Remember in America
Yiyun Li
When I was at nursery school in Beijing in the 1970s, there was a teacher who seemed to find tireless pleasure in tormenting the children. At playtime, she would pre-emptively put a child on a time out, as she could see that the child was heading into mischief. And her punishment – an ingenious invention – was that the child could not stand or sit but had to squat as though using an open-air toilet. I was often that child, as she thought I was too smart for my own good. She once put her hand into the shape of a pistol to my head and said: bang.
But that was not the worst. Her son, who was in fifth grade at the nearby elementary school, would visit us on his lunch break. His mother would sit at the entrance of the nap room, knitting, while the boy – who looked like a giant to us four-year-olds – would walk around with a hammer, threatening to bash our skulls in if anyone dared to move or make a sound. Every time the teacher’s monstrous son came in, I would hold hands through the bedrail with the boy in the cot next to mine, paralysed by fear.
Decades later, visiting my mother in Beijing, I saw the teacher, by now a frail old woman, walking toward us. My mother told me that the teacher often asked about me and that I should greet her. Absolutely not, I said, and turned my back to the woman when she exchanged greetings with my mother, who afterwards chastised me for being rude. I explained that the woman was evil and had abused us as children. My mother said, with her usual certainty: ‘That can’t be true. Why didn’t you or the other children tell the parents? Why didn’t the other teachers stop her?’ When I didn’t reply, she concluded that we were simply too naughty and went on to quote a proverb that anyone who finds himself in a pitiful situation must harbour something worth hating.
I cried every morning on the way to nursery school, but few four-year-olds would know how to articulate their terror and misery. There were other adults at the school, but none of them seemed to find the teacher’s practice unacceptable (and perhaps the parents, had they known, would not have done either). All of them must have benefited from the teacher’s regime – we were obedient, easily manageable.
Living in today’s America reminds me of that nursery school. The reigning tyranny; the men who brutalise the innocent – like the boy with the hammer – because they can; the people who, like my mother, say this can’t be true, life can’t be that terrible; if bad things happen, you are the problem; do not provoke; keep up the hope; things will be better – by the midterms, in four years, some day.
A friend in London talks about the mystifying phrase she keeps hearing these days: ‘This is not America, this is not who we are.’ But this is America, this is life, and this is how human beings behave. American exceptionalism will not save us. My friends and I have all made sure that our phones are fully charged when we leave the house – to record if necessary, a small act, though not entirely risk free.
I don’t know if the little boy who held hands with me at nursery school remembers the terror we lived through. He was considered ‘backward’, and I got into plenty of trouble fighting for him. He was later mistreated and bullied at elementary school, where I was no longer able to protect him. Fifty years on, remembering is the only thing I can do for him, as he once offered me a tiny and essential comfort by holding my hand.
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