异国情调
阿兰德波顿
当代英国作家
代表作有《爱情笔记》、《旅行的艺术》、《身份的焦虑》等
Alain de Botton
Contemporary Swiss-born British author
Magnum opus：Essays in Love, Status Anxiety，The Art of Travel
一旦跨越国界，脚下便是一个不同的国度。然而仅有差异，尚不足以引发快感，即使有了快感，也不会长久。只有那些有助于我们国家自我完善的差异方可引发长久的快感，这种快感，才是异国情调的本质。
在阿姆斯特丹 ，有一条街 ，每幢公寓看来都一模一样 ，我在一户人家的红色大门口驻足 ，突然产生了一种强烈的愿望 ——希望自己能在那里度过余生 。头顶上的 2楼 ，是一间有 3个大窗户的房间 ，窗户都没有窗帘 。房间的内墙都刷成白色 ，墙上挂着一幅画 ，画面上只是许多小的蓝色和红色的点 。靠着一边墙 ，摆着一张橡木书桌 ，房间里还有一个很大的书架 ，一张扶手椅 。在这样的环境里的生活便是我梦寐以求的生活。
为什么会在异国被公寓前门这样微不足道的东西诱惑 ？为什么仅仅因为那里的有轨电车 ，因为那里的人们几乎不在家里装窗帘 ，我就深深地陷入对它的爱恋 ？不管这些由异国的细小 （和无声 ）的事物所引发的强烈反应看上去是多么荒谬 ，这情形至少同我们的私人生活有相通之处 。在个人生活中 ，我们也会因为一个人给面包抹黄油的方式而喜欢上他 ，也可能因为他对鞋子的品位而憎恶他 。如果我们因注重这些细节的东西而自责 ，那么我们必将忽视生活中的细节本身所具有的丰富含义 。
异国情调一词包含有一些更细微 、更让人捉摸不定的意义 ，异域的魅力源发于新奇与变化 ，譬如在异域你看到的是骆驼 ，而在家乡 ，你看到的是马匹 ；在异域你看到的是不加粉饰的公寓房 ，而在家乡 ，你看到的是带有装饰性石柱的公寓房 。但除此之外 ，这一切还可能为我们带来更深层次的快乐 ，因为我们看重这些域外特质 ，不仅仅是因为它们新奇 ，而且还因为它们更符合我们的个性 ，更能满足我们的心愿 ，相反 ，我们的故土并不能做到这一切 。
我之所以对阿姆斯特丹表现出如此的热情 ，是和我对本国的不满相关的 。在我自己的国家里 ，缺乏这种现代性 ，也没有这里素朴单纯的美感 ，有的只是对都市生活的抗拒和封闭保守的心态 。
我们在异域发现的异国情调可能就是我们在本国苦求而不得的东西 。
ON THE EXOTIC
In Amsterdam, I took a room in a small hotel in the Jordaan district and after lunch in a café went for a walk in the western parts of the city. In one street lined with uniform apartment buildings, I stopped by a red front door and felt an intense longing to spend the rest of my life there. I wanted the life that this space implied. I wanted a bicycle; I wanted to put my key in that red front door every evening. I wanted to stand by the curtain less window at dusk, looking out at the identical apartment opposite, and then snack my way before retiring to read in bed in a white room with white sheets.Why be seduced by something as small as a front door in another country? Why fall in love with a place because it has trams and its people seldom have curtains in their homes? However absurd the intense reactions provoked by such small (and mute) foreign elements may seem, the pattern is at least familiar from our personal lives. There, too, we may find ourselves anchoring emotions of love on the way a person butters his or her bread, or recoiling at his or her taste in shoes. To condemn ourselves for these minute concerns is to ignore how rich in meaning details may be.
In the more fugitive, trivial association“change—from finding camels where at home there are horses, for example, or unadorned apartment buildings where at home there are pillared ones. But there may be a more profound pleasure as well: we may value foreign elements not only because they are new but because they seem to accord more faithfully with our identity and commitments than anything our homeland can provide.
And so it was with my enthusiasms in Amsterdam, which were connected to my dissatisfactions with my own country, including its lack of modernity and aesthetic simplicity, its resistance to urban life and its net-curtained mentality.
What we find exotic abroad may be what we hunger for in vain at home.
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