“Money can’t buy you happiness, but it does bring a more pleasant form of misery,” comic Spike Milligan’s famous one-liner looks like a neat description for "communism with Chinese characteristics."

　　“金錢買不到幸福，但確實帶來了一種更令人愉悅的痛苦形式”——喜劇演員斯派克·米利根(Spike Milligan)這句著名的俏皮話，看上去就像是對“具有中國特色的共產(chǎn)主義”的簡潔描述。

　　Despite soaring growth, surging wages, and a general feeling that China is "on the up", the latest Gallup Wellbeing Survey suggests that most Chinese people are down in the dumps.

　　盡管中國經(jīng)濟飛速發(fā)展，薪資大幅增長，人們普遍感覺中國“正在崛起”，但最新的蓋洛普健康調(diào)查(Gallup Wellbeing Survey)表明，大多數(shù)中國人情緒都很低落。

　　The poll – which covers 124 countries across the globe – puts people into three categories based on how they would describe their lives. The options are "thriving", "struggling", and "suffering".

　　基于受訪者對個人生活的描述，這項涵蓋全球124個國家的調(diào)查將他們分成了三類，分別是“蒸蒸日上”、“勉強糊口”和“非常痛苦”。

　　Despite being the world’s fastest growing major economy – and the envy of stumbling economies in Europe and the US – China’s figures aren’t happy reading: Thriving: 12 percent. Struggling: 71 percent. Suffering: 17 percent.

　　盡管中國是全球增長最快的主要經(jīng)濟體，讓步履蹣跚的歐洲經(jīng)濟體和美國深感羨慕，但調(diào)查結(jié)果并不理想：感覺生活“蒸蒸日上”的只有12%，“勉強糊口”的占71%，“非常痛苦”的為17%。

　　To put that better into context, at 12 percent ‘thriving’, China is on a par with both Afghanistan and Yemen (though the survey was done in 2010, before recent unrest).

　　和其它國家進行一下對比，可以讓我們對這些數(shù)字有更直觀的認識：中國有12%的人感覺生活“蒸蒸日上”，這與阿富汗和也門相同（不過此次調(diào)查是在2010年完成的，當(dāng)時也門還未發(fā)生動亂）。

　　At 71 percent "struggling", China sits in similar territory to Haiti, Azerbaijan and Nepal.

　　71%的“勉強糊口”比率，與海地、阿塞拜疆和尼泊爾差不多。

　　Meanwhile the "suffering" 17 percent is a higher figure than Sudan, the Palestinian Territories, and Iraq.

　　與此同時，感到“非常痛苦”的人的比率為17%，比蘇丹、巴勒斯坦地區(qū)和伊拉克還高。

　　The findings also match other recent surveys, such as one from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in December, which showed that the majority of China’s growing middle class in unhappy with life. Back then, the China Daily pointed to the rigours of modern life, the "rat race", fears about job security, meeting mortgage repayments, and increasing materialism as some of the causes of melancholy.

　　上述結(jié)果與最近的其它一些調(diào)查結(jié)果相符。比如，中國社會科學(xué)院(Chinese Academy of Social Sciences)去年12月的一項調(diào)查顯示，在中國不斷壯大的中產(chǎn)階級當(dāng)中，絕大多數(shù)人對生活并不滿意。當(dāng)時，《中國日報》(China Daily)指出，人們情緒低落的部分原因在于：現(xiàn)代生活的嚴酷、競爭激烈、擔(dān)心失業(yè)、償貸壓力和日益增長的物質(zhì)主義。

　　The increasing divide between rich and poor may also be a factor. The gini-coefficient – a measure of inequality – has been rising in China in recent years, the China Daily reports, and is already worryingly high. "China’s Gini coefficient, an indicator of inequality, is approaching 0.5. Throughout the world, a commonly recognized 'red line', or point where society should start to be worried, is 0.4, while 0 represents an equal distribution of national wealth."

　　貧富差距日益擴大可能也是一個因素。《中國日報》報道稱，中國的基尼系數(shù)(Gini coefficient)最近幾年一直在上升，目前已經(jīng)高得令人擔(dān)憂?；嵯禂?shù)是一種衡量收入公平程度的指標(biāo)。 “中國的基尼系數(shù)正在逼近0.5——基尼系數(shù)是衡量國民財富分配公平程度的指標(biāo)，全球范圍內(nèi)認可的這個指數(shù)的‘紅線’是0.4，系數(shù)為0時，意味著國民財富能夠公平分配。”

　　Just last week, new rules on outdoor advertising came into effect in Beijing. As AFP reported at the announcement of the effective ban on high-end bill boards: 'China’s capital has banned outdoor advertising that promotes hedonistic or high-end lifestyles as the government seeks to ease public concerns about the country’s widening wealth gap… Such promotions help create a politically “unhealthy” climate, it said…" Newly forbidden words include 'supreme', 'royal', 'luxury' or 'high class', which are widely used in Chinese promotions for houses, vehicles and wines, it said."

　　就在上周，北京的戶外廣告新規(guī)開始生效。在報道北京對高端產(chǎn)品廣告牌采取事實上的禁令時，法新社(AFP)稱：“北京禁止戶外廣告宣揚享樂主義或高端生活方式，因為政府尋求緩解公眾對中國日益擴大的財富差距的擔(dān)憂……政府稱，此類促銷可能會產(chǎn)生一種‘不健康的’政治氛圍……。“新規(guī)規(guī)定，戶外廣告上不得出現(xiàn)‘至高無上’、‘天皇貴族’、‘奢華’或‘高檔’等詞，而這些詞語目前廣泛用于中國的樓盤、汽車和葡萄酒的促銷當(dāng)中。”

　　With sales booming at high-end retailers like Burberry, better forms of misery – and retail therapy solutions – are certainly on offer in China. But only for those that can afford it.

　　隨著巴寶莉(Burberry)等高端零售商在華銷售的大幅增長，在中國，人們肯定能享受到“更愉悅的痛苦”——以及“購物療法”——但是只有那些能夠負擔(dān)得起的人才能享受。