Places and People

乡土与人

Where you are dropped, as the saying is, is who you are, at least in a certain limited sense. If you are dropped in Bitlis but are soon taken to New York, Bitlis is less who you are than New York is. But the place you knew first is at least a large part of who you are. Places make people. They very definitely do, almost physically¹. Places procreate. They are part of the human procreation process. There are many men and women who wouldn’t think of engaging in the procreative act in certain places of the world, and there are other places in which nothing seems more right and pleasant. There are places that are all business, and places that are all fun and frolic, and still other places that are all light and song and the senses and love.

正如古语所言，你出生的地方将会为你打上烙印，至少在某种有限的意义上是这样的。如果你出生在比特里斯，之后又迁去了纽约，那么你可以更多地成为纽约人而不是比特里斯人。但是你第一次结识的那个地方至少在很大程度上决定了你会成为什么样的人。地域可以造就人。它们确实有这样的功能，大多是形体上的。环境可以养育人。它们是人类繁育过程的一部分。在世界上的某些地方，那里许多的男男女女都不想参与到后代的生育中来；也有一些地方，在那里，没有什么让人觉得更加舒适与惬意。有些地方遍布焦虑，有些地方充满欢乐与嬉戏，也有些地方洋溢着欢乐与歌声，荡漾着理智与热情。

After the World, after being anywhere at all, my place was Fresno, and as far as I am concerned it was the very best possible place for me to be----and for this reason: that’s where I was dropped. The minute we met, that was it. We belonged to each other. Forever, It was a fact.

在我来到这个世界，去过其他地方之后，我发现，最适合我的地方是弗雷斯诺------因为我出生在那里------这是在我和它相遇的那一刻就注定好的。我们属于彼此，永远属于。我出生在弗雷斯诺，而不是出生在比特里斯，马赛，伦敦，纽约或其他的地方，这是事实。

I was born there. I wasn’t born in Bitils, Marseilles, London, New York, or anywhere else. I was born in Fresno. It was my place. I loved it. I hated it. But had I been born in Paris, I would have loved Paris, and I would have hated it. Fresno had great early appeal for me. It had a fine smell of dust, of the desert, of rocks baking in the sun, of sand with cactus² growing out of it, of water flowing in rivers and ditches, of leaf and blossom and fruit. It also had all of the smells of rot, decay, and ferment³: the great heaps of grape pulp⁴ and skin at the wineries sent a smell all through the town if there was a little wind stirring. There were also the magnificent smells in the house in which one did one’s early time: the very walls themselves, the people who lived in the house, and the things they cooked or baked: Armenian bread, for instance, in the three popular forms prepared by the Saroyan family: the round, wafer-thin flat bread, the oval loaf bread only an inch or two thick, and the diamond-shaped little loaves of butter bread. There was also always the smell of various green things, or growing things----parsley, mint, basil, onions, bell peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers, and so on and so forth⁵.

弗雷斯诺是我的出生地，那里是我的归宿。我爱它，我也恨它。但即使我出生在巴黎，也会对巴黎既爱又恨。弗雷斯诺深深地吸引着我：那里有泥土的清香，沙漠的广袤，有烈日烘烤下的岩石的炙热，有长出了仙人掌的沙土地的粗糙，有奔腾在小溪水渠中的浪花的欢愉，有搭建成几何形框架的果园和葡萄园的绿荫，还有落叶，花蕾和果实的馨香。当然，那里也有腐烂、变质、发酵的气息：微风吹过， 酿酒厂旁边的一堆堆果肉和果皮散发出的臭味便会飘满全镇。那里也有从早年修建的房屋里散发出的温馨的气息：自家筑起的墙壁、住在屋里的人们、还有他们烹饪烘烤的食物：比如萨洛阳家族准备的三种流行的亚美尼亚面包：圆形薄脆面包、只有一两寸厚的椭圆形面包、方片形的黄油小面包。那里也总是有各种绿色植物，或着说是正在茁壮生长的植物的气息------欧芹，薄荷，罗勒，洋葱，青椒，番茄，黄瓜等等。

All of these things were a part of the place, and very quickly a part of me. Fresno was my place, and my family was my place

所有的这些事物都是弗雷斯诺的一部分，也正是我的一部分。弗雷斯诺就是我的家，而我的家庭就在弗雷斯诺。