20130930 课堂翻译练习 沾光 汉译英

沾光

我家居住的那片宿舍区，别的条件都还好，就是通往街道的小巷没有路灯。日复一日，年复一年，大家都习以为常了。这年秋天，有位邻居当了副县长，分管电力，上任的第二天，路灯管理所的工人便给我们这条小巷安装了路灯。小区里出了当官的大家都沾光，皆大欢喜。

可是好景不长，三年后，这位领导调到另一个县去了。也就是在他搬家的第二天，我们这里的路灯突然就不亮了。没有了路灯，大家自然又不习惯了。问原故，路灯管理所的人说：“这条小巷本来就没有计划安装路灯的，这几年是因为某某县长住在这里让你们沾光了。”听后，众人哑然。

A Benefit of Association

The residential area where I live is pretty good in terms of public facilities except that there were no lights in the alley leading to the main street. Year by year, everyone got used to this.

One autumn, one of our neighbours became vice head of

the county and was put in charge of power supply. The second day after he took office, street lights were installed along the alley. Now everybody was happy because we could all benefit from being a neighbor to the vice head of the county.

However, as the saying goes, “Good things don’t last long.”Three years later this vice head of the county was transferred to another county. The second day after his family moved out, the street lights went into blackout during the night.

Everybody was unused to this change now that we’d had lights for so long, and asked why the blackout. Someone from the street light office answered, “Originally it had not been planned to install lights along this alley. The reason why you had lights in the past few years was because Mr. So-and-So was the vice head of the county and you all benefited from connection with him.”

Everybody was left speechless at this reply.