(单词翻译:单击)
China's Red Cross is scrambling to help rebuild after another disaster -- only this time it's their own reputation they need to reconstruct.
又一场地震发生之后,中国红十字会正在忙着震后“重建”,只不过这一次需要重建的是其自己的声誉。
The Red Cross Society of China is vowing to restore its sagging image, which has buckled under the weight of allegations of corruption and poor management and an undeniable loss of public confidence. Evidence of how bad things have become: In the first day after a magnitude 7.0 earthquake hit the county of Lushan in Sichuan, the Red Cross received roughly 140,000 yuan ($22,700) in donations, compared to 10 million taken in by martial arts star Jet Li's One Foundation.
中国红十字会誓言要重振其日渐低迷的形象。此前中国红十字会曾遭到腐败和管理不善的指责,公众对它的信心也无法否认地丧失了。重压之下,其公众形象一蹶不振。从以下事实可以看出事态已经严重到什么程度:此次四川芦山7.0级地震发生后的头一天,红十字会收到大约人民币14万元(约合2.27万美元)的捐款。相比之下,武术影视明星李连杰的壹基金(One Foundation)则收到了人民币1,000万元的捐款。
One of its senior executives has vowed to resign if there isn't progress.
中国红十字会一位高级官员甚至发誓说,该机构的改革如果没有取得进展她就辞职。
'The Red Cross still has three to five years of pain ahead,' said executive vice president Zhao Baige, according to the People's Daily online ( in Chinese). 'Only by open, transparent and effective restructuring with public participation can we overcome this crisis.'
据人民网报道,中国红十字会常务副会长赵白鸽称,红会仍将经历3到5年的阵痛期,只有建立公开、透明、有效,而且必须是公众参与的治理结构,才有可能化解这一危机。
And just in case you thought she might be kidding, she added this for good measure: 'If we do not make progress in putting this 'black cross' (which we have to bear) behind us, I will submit my resignation.'
如果你认为她是开玩笑,那么你就错了。她还加了一句话:如果两到三年仍然翻转不了“黑十字”的印象,我自动请求辞职。
What is it that has laid them so low?
到底是什么令中国红十字会的形象变得如此低下?
China 's Red Cross, which unlike most Red Cross organizations is closely tied to the government, is still unable to shake the damage from the 2011 scandal linked to a woman known as Guo Meimei. While the woman had no official tie to the Red Cross, she may have traded on a presumed connection through a company called Red Cross Commerce. She famously bragged of her luxurious lifestyle, posting photos of expensive cars and luxury accessories on Sina Weibo, China's most popular Twitter-like microblogging service.
和大多数红十字组织不同,中国红十字会同政府紧密相连。该机构迄今仍无法摆脱2011年一起丑闻给其形象带来的损害,这一丑闻同一名叫郭美美的女子联系在一起。虽然郭美美同中国红十字会没有正式联系,但她可能利用了其与一家名为“中国商业系统红十字会”的企业的关系为自己牟利。郭美美因炫耀自己奢侈的生活方式而出了名,她曾在新浪微博上贴出豪车和奢华配饰的照片。
While the Red Cross has denied any connection to Guo Meimei there has still been no full, public accounting of the embarrassing incident. Persistent rumors of ties to a senior Red Cross official have never been fully laid to rest. More recently there have been fresh calls from within the Red Cross for a reopening of a probe.
虽然中国红十字会否认同郭美美有任何关联,但关于这一令人尴尬的事件至今没有完整、公开的说明。有关此事同红十字会一位高级官员存在关联的传言始终未能停歇。最近红十字会内部有人再次呼吁对这一事件重新展开调查。
The Red Cross has also struggled to deal with another public relations disaster -- that one following the massive 2008 earthquake in Sichuan where billions of yuan in donations were said to have gone missing. A significant part of those funds were managed by the Red Cross.
中国红十字会也难以处理另一场公关灾难:2008年四川发生大地震之后,据说有数十亿人民币的捐款不见了踪影。其中很大一部分捐款由红十字会管理。
The damage to the Red Cross's reputation has come into sharp focus since the Lushan earthquake hit on April 20. While the Red Cross once was widely seen as the relief agency of choice, that is no longer the case, with pedestrians largely ignoring collection boxes (the poor management of which was the subject of yet another scandal in January) and Internet users flooding the organization's microblog feed with thumbs-down icons. More than 1.3 billion yuan ($210 million) has been collected by a host of organizations -- but only about half went to the Red Cross, according to the People's Daily online.
自从4月20日芦山地震发生以来,红十字会的声誉遭到的损害就成为大家关注的焦点。虽然红十字会曾经被广泛视作首选的救济机构,但现在情况已经不是这样,路人大都对红十字会在街头摆放的捐款箱视而不见(红十字会对捐款箱管理不善成了今年1月另一宗丑闻的主题),而网民则蜂拥至中国红十字会的微博,纷纷给出拇指向下的标志。据人民网报道,芦山地震发生以来多家慈善机构已经收到超过人民币13亿元的捐款,但只有大约一半流向了红十字会。
The shift in donations away from the state-linked Red Cross toward private groups like the One Foundation presents a potentially serious challenge to the government, which has justified its moves to limit the growth of civic groups by insisting that it is better suited to serving Chinese people in need.
捐款避开同政府存在关联的红十字会、转向壹基金等民间团体对中国政府构成了潜在的严重挑战。中国政府曾试图证明其限制非政府组织发展的合理性,坚持认为政府能更好地为有需要的中国人服务。
Ms. Zhao tried to put the best face on this, saying she was moved by the fact that despite all the doubts about the organization, many people around the country still trusted the Red Cross with their donations.
赵白鸽试图给红十字会脸上贴金,她说红会在受到很大的社会质疑时,老百姓对红会仍然是这样的信任,让她十分感动。
Sadly for the Red Cross, the relief organization may need even more time to recover than Sichuan.
中国红十字会的不幸之处在于,这家救济组织恢复自身声誉所需要的时间,可能比四川从此次地震中恢复过来所需的时间还要长。