李资政访谈的对答

Q: "So when, don't take this the wrong way, but when you decided to close the Chinese stream education and the college, what was the rationale behind that and do you ever regret doing that?"
问：请别误会我说这话，当阁下决定关闭华文系统和它的大学的时候，背后的思维是甚么，阁下是否曾经后悔这么做？

Mr Lee: "No, I regret not doing it faster because politically, if there'd been a violent electoral protest in the next elections because they're so wedded to the idea that language means, culture means, life means everything. But I'm a pragmatist and you can't make a living with the Chinese language in Singapore. The first duty of the government is to be able to feed its people, to feed its people in a little island. There's no hinterland and no farming, you have got to trade and you have got to do something to get people buy your goods or services or get people to come here and manufacture themselves, export, ready-made markets and multinationals which I stumbled on when I went to Harvard for a term in 1968 and I said oh, this could solve my unemployment problem. So we brought the semiconductors factories here and one started, the whole herd came and we became a vast centre for production of computers and computer peripherals.
李先生：不，我后悔没有更早这么做。从政治而言，在以后的大选，会引起选区激烈的抗议，他们的想法根深蒂固，语言是文化是生命是所有的一切。但是，我重务实，不能靠华语在新加坡找生活。政府的首要任务是养活它在小岛上的人民。国家没有后方的土地，没有农业，必须贸易，使到他国的人买我们的产品和服务，使到他国的人来此设厂生产，外销到他们现有的市场。1968年我到哈佛大学一个学期，和垮国公司的企业家接触，我告诉我自己，哦，这可以解决国家的就业难题。因此，我们引入晶体工厂，从一家开始，接踵而来的是一群工厂，我们成为生产电脑和电脑配件的巨大中心。

But they all speak English, multinationals from Japan, Europe, whatever European country they come from, they speak English. So Chinese-educated were losing out and they were disgruntled because they got the poorer jobs and lesser pay. So eventually our own Members of Parliament were Chinese-educated and graduates from the Chinese university said okay, we have got do something. We're ruining these people's careers.
但是他们都说英语，来自日本、欧洲，任何欧洲国家的跨国公司人员都说英语，因此，受华文教育的人吃亏了，他们得到比较差的工作和比较差的待遇而感到不满。最后，受华文教育和华文大学毕业的我党国会议员说，好，我们一定要把事情解决，我们是在损害这些人的就业前程。

By that time, the university was also losing its good students and getting bum students. Because they took in poor students, they graduated them on lower marks and so the degree became valueless. So when you apply for a job with a Chinese university degree, you hide your degree and produce your school certificate. So I tried to change it from within, the Education Minister was Chinese-educated and English-educated to convert it from within because most of the teachers have American PhDs. So they did their thesis in English but they've forgotten their English as they've been teaching in Chinese, so it couldn't be done. So I merged them with the English speaking university. Great unhappiness and dislocation for the first few years but when they graduated, we put it to them do you want your old university degree or you want English university degree? All opted for the English university degree. That settled it."
到了那个时候，本地的华文大学也失去好的学生，而收素质低落的笨蛋学生(注二)。因为学生素质差，他们让分数低的学生毕业，使到学位变成没有价值。到头来持华文大学学位申请工作，要把学位隐藏起来而用学校文凭。我于是作内在的改变，受华文也受英文教育的教育部长(注三)作内在的改变，只是该大学授课职员获美国的博士学位，用英文完成他们论文，但是由于长期用华文授课，把英文给忘了。在内在改变没有可能的情况之下，我把他们和本地的英文大学融合(注四)，开始几年他们有很大的不满情绪和失落感，当他们毕业的时候，我们让给予选择原有大学的学位，还是英文大学的学位？全部人都选择英文大学学位。事情就这么解决了(注五)。

后记：翻译见仁见智，名家梁实秋、鲁迅尚且有翻译上的争论，何况南大站网上诸君。请恕本文不接受回应。

2010年3月12日

注一：http://www.news.gov.sg/public/sgpc/en/media_releases/agencies/pmo/transcript/T-20091228-1.html，TRANSCRIPT OF MINISTER MENTOR LEE KUAN YEW'S INTERVIEW WITH MARK JACOBSON FROM NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC ON 6 JULY 2009 (FOR NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE JAN 2010 EDITION).
注二：bum 是英文俚语，带轻蔑之意。有人建议翻译作：次等生，劣等生，末级学生，尾级学生，……
注三：即南大校长李昭铭博士。到了那个时候，是指李昭铭出长南大稍前的时候。
注四：即新大南大联合校园。
注五：即关闭南大。