Obama is on her first-ever trip to China, alongside her mother and two daughters, and will spend four days in Beijing before heading to a string of popular tourist sites in the interior cities of Xi'an and Chengdu.

美国夫人米歇尔·奥巴马踏上了其访华之行。在北京为期四天的停留后，米歇尔会继而启程访问中国内陆的西安和成都。

 

Back during the Ming dynasty, some four centuries ago, the Hall of Earthly Tranquility in Beijing’s Forbidden City was the redoubt of China’s empress. On Friday, under rare unpolluted skies, the first ladies of the world’s two biggest economies, Michelle Obama and her Chinese counterpart Peng Liyuan, embarked on a lightning tour of the imperial residence. They strode through the Hall of Supreme Harmony, checked out the Hall of Preserving Harmony and admired a golden throne off-limits to most tourists. Obama and Peng glided past by a large stone carving that was labeled “Large Stone Carving.” Alas, time was running tight so they had to skip a tea ceremony in the Lodge of Fresh Fragrance.

早在400年前，在古老的明朝，京城的紫禁城中，坤宁宫便是中国皇后的居所。本周五（3月21日），在北京罕见的碧空下，米歇尔·奥巴马和彭丽媛，世界的两个经济体的夫人一起以闪电般的速度游览了这座皇家宫殿。两位夫人快步穿过太和殿，参观了禁止对普通游客开放的黄金龙椅，经过了一块标着“大石雕”的巨大石雕。哎，时间紧迫，两位女士不得不放弃了在故宫饮茶的计划。

 

Perhaps next time.

只好等下次了。

 

A day before, Obama had arrived on her first trip ever to China with her mother Marian Robinson and children Malia and Sasha in tow. She is set to spend four days in Beijing before heading to the interior cities of Xi’an and Chengdu, where she will take in some of China’s most famous tourist sights: the terra-cotta warriors and the giant pandas. Obama is even blogging about her China experience, a process that will likely require her handlers to use a virtual private network to evade Chinese Internet censorship. In a month, President Barack Obama is also due in Asia. But his four-nation tour, somewhat controversially, will not include a China stop. Instead, it was left to his wife to help smooth ties and develop a relationship—however brief and somewhat stiff—with Peng.

前，米歇尔携母亲和两个女儿抵达中国。按计划，她将在北京停留四天，然后前往西安和成都两座内陆城市，一览中国最为的旅游景观：秦兵马俑和大熊猫。米歇尔甚至还在博客上直播她的访华行程——不过可能得使用翻墙网络。一个月后，美国总统巴拉克·奥巴马也将访问亚洲。不过他的四国访问计划并不包括中国，这颇引发了一些争议。现在，与中国的外交重担落在了他夫人身上，和中国夫人疏通关系、发展感情，尽管二人鲜有交集，并不熟识。

 

“The relationships between the United States and China couldn’t be more important,” Obama said on Friday morning, “and having the opportunity to travel here, to listen, to learn, to hear more about the education initiatives here in this country and to share my travels with students throughout the United States is a very unique experience, and it’s one that I will never forget.”

周五早上，米歇尔表示：“美中关系是重中之重。得此机会，游览中国，倾听、学习、了解这里的教育，和全美的学生分享我的中国之行，是很特殊的经历，我将铭记一生。”

 

Obama began her day at Beijing Normal School, an elite high school whose students enjoy a leafy campus and state-of-the-art equipment. The walls are decorated with murals glorifying both Euclid and Karl Marx. She and Peng visited a robotics class, where students were learning about various robots, including a hexagonal snowflake robot that one student described to Obama as “very amazing and adorable.” The first ladies also took in a calligraphy class, where Peng wrote a four-character aphorism that describes how individuals with high morality can accomplish major tasks. She presented the calligraphy to Obama as a present.

米歇尔北京之行的站是师大二附，北京的一所重点高中。校园树木林立，拥有先进的教学设备，学校墙壁上同时装饰着欧几里得和卡尔·马克思的壁画。米歇尔与彭丽媛参观了机器人课堂，课堂上学生们学习制造各式各样的机器人，甚至还包括一个六角雪花型的机器人，让米歇尔大为称赞。夫人还参加了书法课，彭丽媛题写了成语“厚德载物”，寓意具有高尚的道德境界方可肩负重任，并赠予米歇尔。

 

Finally, the two wrapped up their school tour by visiting a ping-pong class where students spend 40 minutes slamming plastic balls onto green tables with metronomic precision. Table tennis is a serious sport in China, with deep political significance. After enduring decades of international isolation during which the world chose the government in Taiwan as China’s rightful representative, Beijing began to integrate into the global community. Ping-pong led the way.

，两位女士参与了学校的乒乓球课。40分钟的课堂里，学生们在带有刻度的绿色球台上反复练习着抽球。乒乓在中国并非平凡运动，它曾起到重要的政治作用。长达数十年，国际社会只承认台湾是中国的合法政府，新中国政府一直被孤立，后来才开始逐渐得到国际承认。正是乒乓球打破了坚冰。

 

After a speech in which each ping-pong teacher was introduced with great solemnity, Obama slipped out of her vest-coat and tried her hand at ping-pong. The students stayed silent as she whiffed her first few attempts. But as she began to make contact with the table, the kids broke out into gasps and claps. Afterward, Obama, who has made physical fitness one of her signature campaigns, joked about her husband’s ping-pong prowess. “My husband plays,” she said. “He thinks he’s better than he really is.” The students laughed nervously.

在校方严肃地介绍了每位乒乓球教师后，米歇尔脱下外套，一试身手。她先是比划酝酿，学生们安静地站在一旁观看。而当米歇尔挥拍击球成功时，孩子们立刻如释重负，爆发出热烈的掌声。然后，米歇尔拿总统先生的乒乓球技术打趣，“我丈夫也打乒乓球，当然打得没他想象的那么好。”学生们笑了，不过有点紧张。“健康体魄”是米歇尔的标志性口号之一。

 

The Chinese first lady, whose hair was coiffed in an elaborate braid known in China as “scorpion head,” declined to play. She did, however, nod and smile at her American counterpart’s enthusiastic efforts. For years, Peng, now 51, was far more famous in China than her husband, President Xi Jinping, who quietly rose through the Communist Party’s ranks. A folk singer with the People’s Liberation Army, Peng attained the rank of major general and was known for warbling rousing socialist ditties like “People From Our Village.” While she has been far more visible than her predecessors, who rarely appeared in any photo-ops with their leader husbands, Peng still hews to a script. She stood rigidly next to Obama as they gazed upon robots, exchanging not a word. Nor did she engage in much small talk with the Beijing Normal School students, although she did admit, as she picked up her calligraphy brush: “I’m somewhat nervous, too.” Peng also spoke phrases of well-enunciated English.

而中国的夫人婉拒了打球之请。她的发型经过精心打造，编成美丽的“蝎子头”。不过，对于米歇尔的热情尝试，她报以点头和微笑。在中国，现年51岁的主席夫人远比她丈夫出名得多，而她丈夫的升迁一直很低调。身为一名人民解放军的民歌歌唱家，彭丽媛现在是将军军衔，歌声清亮甜美，因《父老乡亲》等社会主义歌曲而家喻户晓。中国的前几任夫人几乎不怎么和丈夫公开露面，相比之下，她的曝光率相当高，但是行事稳重，一板一眼。在参观机器人课堂的时候，她端站在米歇尔身边，没有太多交流。她也没有和师大二附的学生谈笑风生，不过在拿起毛笔时，她还是袒露了心声：“我也有些紧张。”彭丽媛还讲了几句英文，发音清晰。

 

More than 30 American kids are studying at Beijing Normal School, part of a growing corps of 20,000 American students in China (the number of Chinese students in the U.S. is upwards of 200,000). Obama has made the importance of education one of the themes of her China trip, and she is using her personal story as an example of American social mobility.

超过30名美国学生在师大二附就读，他们是两万名在中国的美国留学生的一部分（中国赴美留学生现已达20万）。这个数字还在增加。教育是米歇尔中国之行的重要主题，她认为自己的个人经历可以作为美国社会流动的实例。

 

“As someone from a modest background, [Obama] has parents who didn’t go to college but who emphasized education... as a way to succeed and move forward,” said Tina Tchen, Obama’s chief of staff.

“奥巴马夫人的家庭背景并不夺目，她的父母都没有读过大学，但十分强调教育……是一种成功和向前的途径。”陈远美，白宫公共联络室主任表示。

 

Some of the American students studying at Beijing Normal School come from the U.S.’ toniest private schools, like Phillips Academy Andover in Mass. and Sidwell Friends in Washington, which Obama’s daughters attend. The Beijing Normal School program for some foreign students, according to two American teenagers, costs $50,000 a year. Obama is promoting a State Department-backed program called 100,000 Strong that will send American children of all economic backgrounds to study in China.

在师大二附读书的美国学生中，有很多来自美国秀的私立中学，比如麻省的安多佛菲利普斯中学（Phillips Academy Andover），华盛顿的西德维尔之友中学（Sidwell Friends），奥巴马女儿在后者就读。两名美国学生告诉我们，师大二附的交换项目每年的费用为五万美元。奥巴马总统正在推动国务院支持的“十万强计划”，即邀请全美的年轻人去中国学习。

 

On Friday evening, Obama, her mother and daughters headed to the Diaoyutai State Guest House for dinner. There, they met with Xi and posed for photographs with the Chinese President. Obama told Xi that she had tried a little ping-pong earlier in the day. “Not so good,” she remarked, of her sporting foray. She described the rest of her China trip so far as “wonderful.”

周五晚上，米歇尔一行前往钓鱼台国宾馆参加晚宴。习主席接待了她们，并且还合影留念。米歇尔告诉习主席，上午她试着打了乒乓球。“打得不太好，”她这样评价自己的突击练习。对于目前的中国之行，米歇尔表示“十分完美”。