在一家中国餐馆里,一位满头大汗的侍者手端一碗热汤来到顾客面前。一位顾客突然对他叫起来:“我的天!你的大拇指在我的汤里!”而那位侍者却满面堆笑地回答:“没关系。不烫,不烫。”这则笑话使我想起美国诗人埃兹拉·庞德(Ezra Pound,一八八五——一九七二)。庞德对中国文化的误解多少象那位餐馆伙计的回 In a Chinese restaurant, a sweating waiter hands a bowl of hot soup came to customers. A customer suddenly exclaimed him: “My God, your thumb is in my soup!” And the waiter replied with a smile: “It’s okay, not hot, not hot.” This joke makes I recall the American poet Ezra Pound (1885-1972). Pound’s misunderstanding of Chinese culture, as much as the restaurant folks back