Brother Lu: Hello! I haven't written to you for a long time. I was too busy working a while ago. Everyone here is busy making a living. This is the basic tone of life for all ordinary people in the United States. Of course, it is impossible for new immigrants like us exception. However, while running on the long distance, I still think about that sentence in your letter.At the end of last year, you said in a letter: "Next year is the election year in the United States. Don't forget to talk about the election with me." At that time, I expounded his philosophy of ideals, morality, politics, education, etc. without thinking.I admit it, and I agreed.But when I think about it later, I often wonder if I promised too quickly and too easily.

I thought, if it is only about describing the process of the US election, then all you need to do is read the newspaper on the other side of the ocean.What you want to understand is clearly the power structure and operation of the US government reflected in the general election, as well as the broader and deeper content of American society.In this way, the presidential candidate became a tiny thread in my hand, and if I dragged it randomly along this thread, God knows what messy mess it would make.So, on the one hand, I held the thread carefully, not daring to act rashly.At the same time, whenever I have time, I slowly sort out this mess in my mind.This is another reason why I haven't started writing for months.

I thought about it. In fact, every election year does have its unique features, because it will very directly reflect the social problems in the United States at that time.However, all general elections also have many common laws to follow, because the "general election" itself is also a concentrated response of the political life of the American people.The entire American social system is a big background for the general election.So, I thought, if I can try to write you with the general background of this election year combined with its "differentiating factors", I might be able to get to the point.

When it comes to the general election, such a scene always appears in my mind.In a small town, on a cold night, in a small open space outside the polling station, there was a long line of American people waiting to vote silently. That was the first election year I encountered in the United States.To be honest, at that time, I was still confused about such a new thing as the general election.All kinds of concepts that have gradually grown up in my head, like mushrooms of different colors, have been stuffed to the brim.The only thing that makes me sober is, I think, whether it is "false democracy" or "manipulated by money", anyway, I am now standing on this new continent called the United States, and I have to use my own eyes to see it. Take a closer look.

At that time, I saw the momentum created by the different party conventions for the election, saw the debates of the presidential candidates, and so on.For me, this is the first "diorama" I have seen in my life.The national congresses of the two major parties, the Republican Party and the Democratic Party, are very different from the party congresses we are used to. It is a colorful and lively holiday party. Men and women, young and old, no one is serious and straight-faced, compared to watching a circus. More than anything.In these dioramas, there are many lively scenes.However, what left the deepest impression on me was indeed the scene in the small town I mentioned above.Because, I know this town too well.

This small town, you can probably say that it is one of the smallest administrative units in the United States.Apart from a small post office, there are very few other places of business worth mentioning.It turned out that there was a dilapidated little shop called "antique shop", (in the United States, the word "antique" has the most inclusive capacity. From priceless antiques to penniless second-hand goods, everything is within its scope. The "antique store" I'm talking about belongs to the latter, of course.] There was also a small shop that rented out video tapes, but all of them closed later. It shows that this place is in a bad mood.

The place where we saw them voting that day was a very simple but clean one-story house, like buildings of similar nature in big cities, with a brilliant name on the banner above it: City Building of So-and-so City [ The meaning is almost the same as the city government building in China].However, it also has a sign, which is the Fire Society.The town's administrative agencies only occupy a corner in this "mansion", and the chief owners of the "mansion" are two well-maintained and shiny fire engines. (The firefighters are all voluntary, and most of the funds are donated by the residents.] In such an area where wooden houses are prevalent, this arrangement reflects the clear thinking of the town leaders. Although it is a decline However, like tens of thousands of other small towns in the United States, its residents still live in a clean, garden-like environment. There are still several Very picturesque little church.

Americans living in such places are genuine ordinary people.You have already known from the letter I wrote to you last year that ordinary people in the United States manage their own lives, and there is very little pressure from outside.They are all scattered one by one. As long as they pay taxes and do not break the law, no one will take care of them, and it is impossible for anyone to take care of them.Of course, no one will urge them to go to elections.Usually, what they care about is far from politics and the like. Their life is not leisurely. Living in such a depressed small town, the simplest logic is that they have to go to a place far from home to work to support themselves and their families. At this basic point of life, they Not at all superior to new immigrants like us.Of course I know that they have advantages in language and familiarity with this society. However, because many of them have a relatively low level of understanding and mastery of science and technology, they are even more knowledgeable than many new immigrants studying abroad. It is difficult to find a high-paying job, and it is even more difficult to feel comfortable in a high-tech society. (The nimble descendants in the town have all gone far away.] The reason why they stood in the cold autumn wind in the dark night waiting for the election, it can be concluded that they, like me, have just come from twenty or thirty miles away, or even farther place to come back from get off work.

I am not a U.S. citizen, so naturally I do not have the right to vote.So, I just drove and drove past them slowly.Then, go home and watch TV.I remember that night, I didn’t care that I was exhausted, and I had to get up early the next day to go to work. I stayed in front of the TV until the results of that year’s general election came out.The US has different time zones, the east coast where we live is three hours ahead of the west coast and maybe six or seven hours ahead of Hawaii.Fortunately, more than half of the general election that year had already been decided without waiting for the result in Hawaii, otherwise I would not be able to sleep that night.

I don't have the right to vote, so I don't have any burden of responsibility. I can only wait for someone else to choose the president of the country we live in every day.Fortunately, as I have already told you, I hadn’t been here for a long time, and I didn’t know much about everything in this country, and my understanding of the two major political parties in the United States, namely, the Democratic Party and the Republican Party, was very superficial. All the political agendas promoted by them are equally "missing the point" to me.Therefore, we have neither the tension that we want someone to be elected, nor the great pain of losing the right to choose.

What's more, since we were young, we have been living in a society with strong security. If we count it carefully, we can't remember how many important things have to be decided by ourselves. Whether there is such a right to brood.In this way, I may be one of the most relaxed people in American society in the election year. But, in that case, looking back on that night, why did I have to watch the election results in front of the TV before I would give up and go to bed?I found myself obsessed with the election itself that day. In the era when computers and communications are so advanced, the election results here are automatically calculated through the computer network immediately, and soon jump out on the TV screen.The results of each state will continue to increase the number of votes for both parties on the TV screen.Sometimes A leads in votes, and sometimes B leads in votes.I stared at the TV screen in amazement, the two groups of abstract figures were like living creatures, competing for their growth speed and vitality.The power struggle among them is to decide which candidate will become the president of the world's most powerful country in the next four years. I also saw these candidates on the screen, although they had given countless speeches to promote their political views, they did everything to get elected.At this moment, they can only be like me, sitting quietly in front of the screen, watching an invisible force represented by these numbers determine their fate.This force is embracing the ideas of one of them while definitively denying the claims of the others.No matter what the result is, they are powerless at this moment.They can only wait for a powerful force to judge them. At this time, I couldn't help but think of the polling station in the small town I just passed by again and again.The silent team in the dark was frozen in my mind, and it became the indelible background of the jumping numbers full of vitality in front of my eyes.And the overlapping of these two scenes made me feel puzzled and confused as if I was drunk.I began to feel that I didn't really understand what I thought was a very simple American, even though they lived in an ordinary small town, even though they were just working to make ends meet every day like me. This is the impression left on us by the US election when we first came here.Along with these impressions, a series of question marks have also been raised in our hearts.These question marks became one of our initial impulses to learn about America. The first question mark raised by the election of the US president turned out to be such a weird question as "what is the president of the United States".Don’t be surprised, and don’t think that I’m playing tricks. After encountering a lot of problems, I realized that I must first solve the seemingly simple question of “what is the president of the United States” before I can understand the American election. And make a difference when you are introduced, otherwise it is really difficult to move an inch.Think about it, if I didn't even figure out "what" the president they elected, what else would I talk about? In my original impression, the president of the United States is also the head of the United States, or to be precise, the head of the government of the United States.He is a heavyweight who slams the table in the White House and makes the whole of America tremble.However, I soon discovered that what I took for granted was far from the truth.I don't know if the current US President Clinton is eager to have the power and power I imagined.Only one thing is certain, and that is, after many of his ambitions have been frustrated, he must have a much deeper understanding of the question of "what is the President of the United States" than I do. How did I come up with this question?Initially, it started with an English-Chinese translation problem. You must often hear the term "Clinton administration" on Chinese radio, television and newspapers.In the United States, there are also Chinese-language newspapers. In such newspapers, the word "Clinton Administration" is also a word that appears frequently, and it is commonly used in the Chinese-speaking world.Its meaning is almost equivalent to "the United States government", or at least it means "the US government headed by Clinton".I haven't done research either, when did such a term start in the Chinese world, and how many years it has been used.I think, probably since the governments of the East and the West began to deal with each other, this term came into being. At least for Chinese people like you and me, it is completely taken for granted, and it is almost impossible to question its accuracy in a whimsical way.Because, in the cultural background we are accustomed to, it is completely logical and watertight. In China, there are countless people who are proficient in English, and you and I have learned some English.Almost all of these people know that in the Chinese translation of the word "American government", the original English text of "government" is "GOVERNMENT", and in the Chinese translation of the so-called "Clinton Administration", the English word for "government" In the original text, it was "ADMINISTRATION".These are obviously two completely different English words that look beyond recognition.So, how come they all suddenly become exactly the same "government" as soon as they are translated into Chinese? When I came across these two words when I was learning English, I checked them out in English-Chinese dictionaries and found that they were often explained in this way in English-Chinese dictionaries. The original text of "Government" in "United States Government" is "GOVERNMENT". Its main meaning is "government" and "regime", but it also has the meaning of "administration" and "management agency".In the "Clinton administration", "government" in the original text "ADMINISTRATION", its main meaning is "management", "administrative agency".However, the English-Chinese dictionary specifically explains that when the first letter of the word is capitalized, that is, when it becomes a proper noun, it refers to the "government of a presidential system". In this way, I, like you, and all Chinese who learn English by looking up English-Chinese dictionaries, have come to such a conclusion.That is to say, first, "GOVERNMENT" is a general term for "government". That is to say, in English, the national government is "government", and the country's administrative agency is also "government".Second, the word "ADMINISTRATION" is a synonym for the previous "government" in a country with a presidential system, such as the United States. To put it bluntly, in a country with a presidential system like the United States, perhaps Due to some idiom, perhaps just stupidity, they went to the trouble of using two different words to express the same simple concept: "government". Once such conclusions and understandings are ascertained , it automatically became a part of my reading and thinking. After coming to the United States, we can still receive Chinese and even TV programs from China through satellites.You can also read different Chinese newspapers.Of course, more English information is overwhelming.We were so involuntarily caught in the middle, dizzy.For a long time, we continued the understanding and thinking habits formed in China over the years.Listening to the Chinese "American government" and "Clinton government" is very pleasant to the ear, and whenever I hear Clinton's "ADMINISTRATION" from the English news, I always have a conditioned reflex and automatically change it into "Clinton government" in my mind. Never think twice. After listening a lot, we discovered a usage pattern of these two English words.That is, although the English-Chinese dictionary says that these two words have the same meaning, both represent "government".However, in English, at least in the United States, they never mix the two words casually.Because we have never heard the "government" behind Clinton's name, and what followed behind him has always been the tongue-twisting "ADMINISTRATION".Even so, we also think that this is a matter of habit of using language, which belongs to the category of research and discussion by linguists.Language learners and users like us only need to memorize this "foreign habit" by rote, and don't "make a fool of yourself" when using it. What finally made us wonder about the meaning of these two English words was after seeing occasional diplomatic disputes between the United States and other countries.When we were in China, we often read about such diplomatic disputes in the newspapers, and we didn't take it seriously when we read it.Usually such disputes are caused by the "inconsistency between words and deeds" of the "US government".However, now that we live in this country, of course we have begun to pay attention to such disputes, trying to explore some of the causes of such disputes. We have seen that the "Clinton administration" made a diplomatic commitment, or made a moderate diplomatic statement, emphasizing the "seeking common ground" between the two countries, and trying to "reserve differences" as much as possible, or try to ignore this "difference" as much as possible. Then, often, Congress, which is another part of the "U.S. government," passes an entirely different resolution.In such resolutions, it is often the "differences between the two countries" that the president tries to temporarily ignore and cover up.In this way, the same "government" is almost expressing different messages at the same time. This behavior of blatantly disregarding its external image is very puzzling, especially for us Orientals who value "face" the most. Puzzled.After much deliberation, it seems that apart from "duplicity", I really can't think of other words to describe this behavior of the "Clinton administration". As for the other country, receiving such completely inconsistent messages from the "Clinton administration" in such a short period of time can only produce a feeling of being deceived and fooled.Protests and a diplomatic standoff ensued.Not only that, but it will even arouse public indignation in the other country and arouse their strong anti-American sentiment.Such a situation has far more far-reaching impact on the relationship between the two countries than the official diplomatic deadlock.Because of official diplomacy, there is always a lot of rational thinking out of interests.Therefore, if the deadlock is said to be formed, it will be formed, and if it is said to be broken, it will be broken.All the governments in the world seem to be playing this kind of game all the time, and they never get tired of it. However, the deepening of the emotional and cultural estrangement between the people of two countries that are already strangers to each other is by no means something that politicians can easily shake off.Therefore, when the politicians shake hands again and talk happily, the common people are still squinting at them with a cold face.The impact of this shadowing is often more far-reaching. When such a situation happens, and the other country's ruling and opposition parties react strongly, the US president at this time always has a very embarrassing face.Despite this, it is difficult for him to win sympathy, the logic is very simple. Because, you are talking about, what is the president of the United States?Isn't he the head of government of the United States?Could this still be wrong?What is a Head of Government?Isn't that the head of a country, and he led the country and the government during the four-year administration?Therefore, the "Clinton administration" is of course the US government headed by Clinton.Now, you Clinton said one thing outside, and just turned around, and the Congress under the government you lead is completely doing another thing.To put it lightly is to backfire, but to put it seriously, the original statement was simply false.I really don't see what's wrong with this logic.I am as outraged as everyone else. It wasn't until I lived here for a while that I began to suspect that it wasn't as simple as it all happened. For the first time, I began to be puzzled by the translated term "Clinton Administration" and doubted its reliability.Because I finally found out that Clinton is far more than I imagined in this country.He doesn't run Congress at all, and he's not even the head of government.So, I finally followed the clues and dragged out the two completely different-looking "government" words in English. I vaguely felt that these two different words, in the process of magically combining into one It seems that some concept has been changed secretly, and something has gone wrong. So, I wonder why I didn't do a very simple thing early on, which is to look up the dictionaries in the English-speaking world and see their original explanations of these two words.I first checked the "administration" (ADMINISTRATION) that always followed Clinton, which worried me the most.I see that, except for "management" and "administrative agency", which are similar to English-Chinese dictionaries, when it is used as a proper noun (the first letter is capitalized), its explanation is the same as the notes on English-Chinese dictionaries that we usually see , are substantially different.It makes it clear that this refers only to officials in the "executive branch" of government and their policies and principles. What does it mean?That is to say, since the word does not have the meaning of "government" at all, Americans have never had the so-called "Clinton administration", but only the names and concepts of "Clinton executive agency" and "Clinton executive branch".You must have seen that, in this way, my original understanding of "what is the president of the United States" obviously becomes a problem.He is certainly not the head of the US government, he is just the director of the "executive" branch of the three branches of the "legislative, judicial and executive" US government.According to popular terms, he is only the director of the "Grand Administrative Office" of the US federal government, and he is a kind of "big steward".Such a character is sandwiched between the "master" and the "outsider", and it is not uncommon for both sides to disagree. When dealing with the outside world, given the president's role as the executive director of the day-to-day affairs of the government, he is often pushed to the forefront to express various opinions on behalf of the country.However, this country is not in his hands.It is precisely because of the nature of his position that, on the premise that he does not violate the interests of the entire country and the overall attitude of the federal government, he has some powers that no one else has, so that the administration he presides over can be shared more conveniently. Continue to fight with various countries and regions.However, this kind of power often makes the "master" behind feel uneasy, for fear that the "office director" will lose his principles or exceed his power for the convenience of his own work. Therefore, compared with the president, the Congress, which is the legislative branch of the United States, seems to have the taste of the master of the United States.Members of Congress are "representatives of public opinion" directly elected from the states.They manage the legislation, that is to say, the general principles are given by them, but let the president, the "chief of office", lead his executive team to implement it.In dealing with foreign countries, of course, the president leads this group of people to do it.Once Congress is dissatisfied with what they have done, they often do not give the president a good face immediately.In this case, it is always up to Congress to pass a resolution to express their anger at the president's actions.At this time, the president and Congress behave completely differently.This is the cause of many of the diplomatic disputes I mentioned earlier. By the way, what is the role of the courts as the judicial branch of the US government?What impresses me the most is the Supreme Court in this branch. They seem to be a bit like "mother-in-law".They rarely show their faces in public.However, once any controversial legislative issue arises, they will come out and give an "explanation".Once they come out and declare that a certain legislation is "unconstitutional", then it will be invalidated immediately, without further ado. Of course, this is just my very vivid description.The three branches of the U.S. government actually have a more rigorous mechanism of mutual restraint to avoid a simple structure where one layer is higher than the other, because for Americans, superior power is always very dangerous.It is precisely to prevent a certain branch from climbing to the top of power, so the three branches of the US government are relatively independent, and there are always interactions and reactions between them.That is to say, it took a lot of effort to drag down the three big blocks that could have been built into a pagoda, and put them on the flat ground after being pulled apart.These, I want to keep them in the future and introduce them to you slowly. You see, it took me a long time to get a rough idea of ​​the seemingly simple question of "what is the president of the United States."At one time, I felt quite useless, and couldn't figure out how a simple English-Chinese translation problem would lead everyone to a foggy swamp.Later, I felt that this may also be inevitable.A small translation problem actually reflects the deep gap between the two cultural backgrounds. Although the countries with long histories in the East and the West have taken different paths, they have gone through many similar historical paths after all.Although they were strangers to each other when they first encountered each other, those similarities gave them a slight surprise of deja vu.At least, you have an emperor, and I also have an emperor. Your emperor controls a large group of people, and my emperor here also controls a large group of people.Whether they are fighting, fighting, or doing business, they have difficulties in cultural communication, at least they are not so completely "separated".Although many changes have taken place in each of them since then, the experience of this first encounter is still very important. It at least makes the mutual understanding between the two parties a gradual process in the future. The United States is rather special.America is a brand new country with a very short history.At the time of its founding, it carried relatively less historical baggage than any other country.However, it does its own thing, which makes it harder for countries with long histories and completely different cultural backgrounds to understand. The United States was only two hundred years old.I sometimes think that two hundred years ago, a new country on the other side of the ocean like a newborn calf, with a very "modern" style of conduct and appearance, collided with a long-established oriental empire at once. One of the funniest things in the world. The United States has just gained independence from a British colony. Of course, there are many things like emperors and dynasties. However, the profound cultural accumulation of the other side has a completely different connotation, which must have made this new country, which is short of breath when it comes to traditional culture, confused for a long time. . From the side of the Qing government 200 years ago, there were many foreigners from Britain, France, etc., and Yankees were not the same thing.At that time, when it was heard that there was no emperor but only the president, all the people in the Qing Dynasty must have thought that there was a new trick in this land called the United States, and they wanted to call their emperor the president.Apart from that, do you have any other understandings? However, problems soon emerged.The president over there often says nothing, and often argues that he can't make the decision.Think about it, I, the emperor, can be the master, and the British and French emperors I have dealt with before can also be the master, but you, the emperor who is called the president, says you can't be the master, who will believe it! The seeds of misunderstanding between the two countries were naturally planted from the very beginning.From the beginning of the work of English-Chinese translation, it is not just a literary work, but a cultural correspondence and comparison.If the word followed by the president of the United States is not "government", is it possible to follow something else?Although, there is a lot of evidence to prove that this word only means an "administrative branch", "executive agency", but it is said that their emperor only manages an "administrative agency"?is it possible? We can imagine how painfully the original translators and lexicographers struggled between two irrelevant cultural ideas. As a result of the struggle, they completely gave up their self-confidence and gave up a lot of ready-made information they had collected.Because they themselves are a fruit of this big tree of culture with deep roots and luxuriant leaves.Can you still grab your own hair and pluck yourself from this big tree? So, how to solve this translation problem?In the end, there is only one flexible technical solution, which is to change the "administrative agency of the government" to "government".Because they, like me, also discovered a fact early on, that is, the word "government" has always followed the word "president".So, they added another interpretation.As a result, we said that the annotation of the word we saw: "the government (of a presidential country)" came out logically.This time, everyone felt at ease.In my own logical system, I finally reached consummation. This small translation was passed down from generation to generation, and the term "Clinton administration" appeared in a grand manner, and it also appeared in Chinese newspapers, including those in the United States.People who read newspapers are also used to it.Perhaps, at a deep level, the ancient cultural logic connected with this kind of writing is still quietly working.However, today, if you want to understand, and then understand, the operation of the American political system and power structure, you must first remember that everything we read about the "Clinton Administration" should be read as "the Clinton Administration Branch", and after reading Where the "United States government" is used, you must confirm that it refers to the federal government, which includes the three branches of the legislative, executive, and judicial branches, or the executive branch under the leadership of the president.My experience is that most of the time, that's just the executive branch.Pronounce "Clinton Administration" as "Clinton Executive Branch", and know when to read "United States Government" as "United States Executive Branch", this is an introductory lesson for understanding the American political system and power structure. As the United States, since the beginning of 200 years ago, the gorgeous and thick culture on the other side of the ocean has puzzled it, and it still puzzles it today.For example, before Clinton, I don’t know how many American presidents were lucky enough to be named before the word “government”, and thousands of Chinese people mistakenly thought that they had boundless power in the United States and could be called “government”. summit".But, I bet you, believe it or not, not only the former presidents of the United States, but also Clinton today knows nothing about it.He thought that people all over the world understood clearly that he was just an "administrator" of this country. For Americans, the most difficult starting point to understand Eastern culture is also how to understand the logic of the other party.How to temporarily put aside your deeply ingrained way of thinking, and follow the other person's thinking track first.That way, it's easier to find the right conversation starters. The dialogue between the two big countries is unavoidable. It can be avoided after the first day of the junior high school, but it cannot be avoided during the fifteenth day.I sometimes think about it, why bother to ask for trouble, insisting on discussing there early, whether to want the East to be Westernized or the West to be Easternized.From our own experience as civilians, the first thing we see is cultural strangeness between the two parties, and the almost instant misunderstanding that results from it.Once a dispute arises, both parties are already furious, and they are not necessarily talking about the same thing, which can only make people feel absurd.It's better to find a way to get rid of a little more "strangeness" and "absurdity" first, and then it's not too late to consider whether to "transform". So for us civilians from the other side of the ocean, when we set foot on this new continent, we naturally feel that there are many new things.Just think about it, even "what is the president of the United States" will become a question, and there are too many things that need to be understood. Before I start to introduce you to this year's US presidential election, let me clarify "what" they are electing. I believe you will also feel that this is necessary.This letter ends here. wish it is good! Linda