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为什么有那么多人认为自己是中国经济繁荣背后的失败者？

25岁的朱光（音译）身穿阿迪达斯上衣和帆布鞋，他是一个你在中国大城市街头时常能看到的形象：

在纸面上，他是中国经济千百万前途光明的成功者之一：大学生，上海的工人父母的独生子，在中国领先的电脑制造商联想工作。

On paper he is one of the millions of up-and-coming winners of the Chinese economy: a university graduate, the only child of factory workers in Shanghai, working for Lenovo, one of China’s leading computer-makers.

不过朱光却认为自己与成功不沾边，而是失败者（loser）：

他每月的工资税后大约有4000元左右，他说感觉自己在工作中像一个毫无特点的机器人。他在办公楼的餐厅吃饭，晚上回到与别人合租的公寓中20平米的房间里，玩起网络游戏。

He earns 4,000 yuan ($650) a month after tax and says he feels like a faceless drone at work. He eats at the office canteen and goes home at night to a rented, 20-square-metre (215-square-foot) room in a shared flat, where he plays online games.

朱光是无数把自己称为“屌丝”的年轻人之一。对此他毫不避讳。《经济学人》不得不费好半天劲向英语读者解释这个词：

他以现代街头俚语戏自称为一个“屌丝”，这个代称失败者的词如果直译的话就是“男性的阴毛”……用这个嘲讽的外号称呼自己像是一种控诉，“就像甘地一样。”朱光半开玩笑半认真地说，“这是一种沉默的抗议。”

He mockingly calls himself, in evocative modern street slang, a diaosi, the term for a loser that literally translates as “male public hair”…Calling himself by this derisive nickname is a way of crying out, “like Gandhi”, says Mr Zhu, only partly in jest. “It is a quiet form of protest.”

这么说英语读者还不懂？作者只好解释得再细致点：

“屌丝”主要是男性，他们一般都是社交能力很差、迷恋网络游戏的白日梦空想家。

A mostly male species, diaosi are often daydreamers with poor social skills and an obsession with online gaming.

他们与日本逃避婚姻的“草食系男子”有些许的不同，“屌丝”更少是自己选择这种生活状态的。是社会逼他们做此选择，特别是在房价高不可及的境况之下。

They are slightly different from Japan’s marriage-shunning “herbivore” young men in that fewer of them have chosen their station in life. Society has chosen it for them, especially with property prices climbing well beyond their reach.

称自己为“屌丝”变成了一种自己与大众站在一起的光荣的声明，对抗的则是他们感知当中富裕阶层的腐败。

Calling yourself a diaosi has also become a proud statement of solidarity with the masses against the perceived corruption of the wealthy.

《经济学人》认为，“屌丝”背后映射的其实是中国社会的板结化，伴随着经济的高速增长，底层青年取得事业成功的机会反而越来越少，这在不少实证研究中也有所体现：

南京审计学院的陈怡（音）和伦敦政治经济学院的考威尔发现，2000年以来，社会底层的民众比1990年代更有可能留在原来的位置上，他们总结称，“中国已经变得更加僵化。”

Yi Chen of Nanjing Audit University and Frank A. Cowell of the London School of Economics found that, since 2000, people at the bottom of society were more likely than in the 1990s to stay where they were. “China has become more rigid,” they conclude.

至于中国社会板结化的原因，也许朱光本人的感受就是解释：

朱光说，之所以成为“屌丝”，因为他是工人的孩子，不是有钱有势的富二代、官二代。他和他的“屌丝”同事觉得，如果有关系和钱，他们可以上更好的大学，找到更好的工作。

Mr Zhu says what makes him a diaosi is that he is the son of factory workers. He is not fu er dai—second-generation rich—or guan er dai—the son of powerful government officials . He and his diaosi colleagues feel that, with connections or cash, they might have attended a better university and found a better job.

事实上，愿意把自己归入“屌丝”一类的中国人越来越多：

即使是高收入者也自称为“屌丝”，或自称为“IT民工”。尽管他们的收入比中国人均收入第三高的城市上海的平均水平——2012年人均可支配收入4万元人民币——还要高，不过表面上成功的代价是缺乏晋升机会。

Even many higher earners call themselves diaosi, or refer to themselves as “IT labourers”. Though their salaries are above average even in Shanghai—which had China’s third-highest annual urban disposable income per person in 2012 at 40,000 yuan—the cost of appearing successful is stratospheric.

对此中国社科院的学者张翼也曾撰文，阐述了他的观点：

张认为底层人民感到自己被隔离了。他说，在生活的每一次变化中，他们都感到自己比过去更加无望。

Mr Zhang concluded that people at the bottom feel utterly alienated. They feel less hopeful than they did before of ever moving up in life, he said.

那么中国离“屌丝”最近和最远的群体是哪些呢？去年咨询机构易观国际（Analysys International）的一个社会调查仅供参考：

超过90%的程序员和记者、大约80%的餐饮、服务和市场营销人员说自己是“屌丝”。而在被调查者中，不把自己看做失败者的比例最高人群，是为政府和党工作的公务员们。

More than 90% of programmers and journalists and about 80% of food and service industry and marketing workers said they did( see themselves as diaosi). Those surveyed who least identified with being losers were civil servants, working for the government or the Communist Party.

但有人反对，一位商人在大众点评网上专门针对小城市的低收入工人（月收入150到450美元）提供优惠券和团购产品，文章引用这位商人Schubert You的看法说：他服务的对象才能称为真正的“屌丝”，北京和上海的IT业员工才不是“屌丝”呢——只是这种称呼契合了他们的心态而已。

各位，你愿意说自己是，还是不是呢？（小编同样陷入思考当中）■

原文参考：
China’s losers（原载于经济学人网站）

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