烤猪论

字幕原文

According to an old Chinese legend, 根据一个古老的中国传说，

people once ate all their meat raw. 很久以前人们吃的肉全都是生的。

Then one day, 后来有一天，

a careless boy named Bo-bo was playing with fire and accidentally burned down his father's cottage, 一个叫波波的粗心男孩玩火，不小心把他爹的茅屋给烧了，

with a litter of piglets inside. 屋里还关着一窝小猪崽。

Poking through the ashes, he touched one of the pigs, 他在灰烬里扒拉的时候碰到了其中一只猪，

burned his fingers, and licked them. 烫着了手指，赶紧放嘴里舔了舔。

And that was it. 这下可不得了了。

He had just discovered crackling. 他刚发现了烤猪皮有多香。

His father, Ho-ti, was furious, until he tasted it too. 他老爹霍蒂本来气急败坏，直到他也尝了一口。

Soon, strangely enough, their house kept burning down. 没过多久，说来也怪，他们家的房子老是隔三岔五被烧光。

The neighbors caught on, and before long, 邻居们琢磨过味儿来了，很快，

houses were going up in flames all over the country, 全国各地的房子都跟着烧了起来，

all for the sake of roast pork. 全都是为了吃口烤猪肉。

People built flimsier and flimsier homes, 人们把房子盖得越来越简陋糊弄，

and setting fire to them became a kind of science. 烧房子甚至成了一门“学问”。

This went on for ages. 这种荒唐事居然持续了好多年。

Then, at last, 直到最后，

some genius worked out that you could cook a pig without burning down a whole house. 有个绝顶聪明的人终于想明白了，烤头猪其实用不着把整栋房子给烧了。

Just a fire and a spit. 就生一堆火，架根签子就行。

It's a ridiculous story, of course. 当然，这故事听起来挺荒诞的。

But it's not quite as silly as it sounds. 但它其实也没听上去那么傻。

How many things do we still do the expensive, 我们现在又有多少事情，依然在用那种代价高昂、

exhausting way, simply because that's how it's always been done? 又劳民伤财的方式去做，仅仅因为“一直以来都是这么做的”？

Every now and then, 时不时地，

it's worth asking whether we really need to burn the house down. 我们真该问问自己，真的有必要去烧掉整座房子吗？