亚洲人比其他地区的人更“精于算数”？

Asians are known the world over as being “good at math.” This is a stereotype perpetuated by popular culture in the West. But is there some truth to it? Yes, as it turns out. I can say that in daily life, Chinese people do more math than their American counterparts. In fact, one can even say daily life in China is an ongoing math test. Right off the top of my head, I can think of three examples, starting with shopping in China’s capital.

亚洲人比其他地区的人更“精于算数”，这种印象在西方世界深入人心，但这是事实吗？没错，事实确实如此。可以这么说，日常生活中中国人比美国人做更多算数。在中国的生活就像参加一场数学测试，我当下就可以想到三个例子，先拿在北京购物来说吧。

When you walk into any department store in Beijing, chances are there is a sale going on. You will see signs with a single digit number and the Chinese character zhe prominently displayed next to products that are on sale. Experienced shoppers can jump to the conclusion that 7 zhe must mean 70% discount. Alas, the Chinese system encourages shoppers to go one extra step in calculating their discount: i.e., 7 zhe means you pay 70 percent, resulting in a 30 percent discount. Some adults in the West couldn’t do this simple math in their heads. Because, why would you need to? We left all that behind in elementary school.

进到北京任何一家百货公司，你可能都会看到店家在搞促销活动，商品旁边贴着醒目的促销牌子，上边会有数字和一个中国汉字“折”。经常购物的顾客可能草率地认为7折也就是有70%的折扣。唉，中国这种促销方式使得顾客在计算折扣的时候多了一步，比如说7折就是支付70%，也就是30%的折扣。有些西方人就不会做这类简单的加减，有必要吗？他们早就把这点知识还给小学数学老师了。

Another example is the loyalty card, or membership card, offered by retailers, dentists, hair salons and massage parlors, just to name a few. But signing up requires you to do math quickly in your head. The more you spend up front, the bigger the discounts, a not uncommon sales strategy. But commit at your own risk. If that business suddenly decides to close its doors, you will not be refunded, nor will you even be notified.

另一个例子就是在商店、牙医诊所、理发店或者按摩院等地方办理的积分卡。当你注册会员也需要飞快地计算，花的钱越多得到的折扣就越多，这是一种常见的销售策略。但是同时也要承担风险，比如商店突然关门歇业，你连退款都拿不到，甚至对此毫不知情。

Shopping for groceries was among the challenges we first encountered in Beijing. Trying to buy milk and yogurt at the local supermarket almost turned into an international incident when, upon seeing all the past expired dates marked on packages throughout the entire dairy section, I demanded to see a manager and tried to bring it to his attention. In vain, of course, as the language barrier prevented us from communicating effectively. Later, a friend explained that those were production dates, not expiration dates, as I had assumed. She also showed me where they helpfully printed the shelf life of each product. So, to put it in American terms, production date+shelf life= expiration date. Again, they are encouraging shoppers to do math.

在北京的杂货店购物也是我们初到北京市遇到的挑战之一，逛超市时还差一点酿出一起“国际事故”。当时我们想买点牛奶和酸奶，却发现整个奶制品区食品包装上的日期已经过期了，我要求见经理向对方反映问题。当然，因为语言障碍我们没有达成有效沟通，白费了力气。后来有朋友解释说，那些是生产日期而不是我认为的到期日，她还告诉我厂家贴心地把每件商品的保质期印在哪。所以按照美国的理解，就是生产日期+保质期=到期日。他们又在鼓励消费者做算数了。

Newcomers to China will no doubt be confused about this system, which nobody here seems to think twice about. But as an American, it was all very taxing until I got clued in. I often felt put out that I had to be doing math when I simply wanted to buy stuff. But now that I’ve been here a while, I see the wisdom of such a system. Could it be how Chinese people stay sharp into old age? After all, using your brain with word games and riddles are believed to be countermeasures against the onset of Alzheimer’s disease and other age-related ailments. It appears that in China, they’ve incorporated into ordinary daily life a brilliant system where nobody forgets their early math lessons.

刚来中国的人毫无疑问会被这种逻辑弄晕，而中国人却早已是司空见惯了。作为一个美国人，我费了很大劲儿才能弄明白。我经常觉得，自己只是想买点东西，却要做算数，真是不爽。但在这儿呆了一段时间，现在我才发现这种体系的智慧所在。这会不会就是中国人就算步入老年仍能保持思维敏捷的秘诀呢？毕竟动动脑子做文字和猜谜游戏能有效对抗老年痴呆以及其他与年龄相关的疾病。而在中国，他们将这种聪明的体系渗透到日常生活中，学到的数学知识总是不会荒废。