Is it acceptable for companies to require women to wear high heels all day in their jobs
（邓永铿爵士为FT专栏作家，就生活礼仪方面的问题答读者问。）
This question was highlighted by a case last year where a woman working as a receptionist was told that she must wear high heels while performing her duties at all times. She complained that this was very uncomfortable and caused injuries to her feet, and she jettisoned her heels. Whereupon she was sent home.
你能接受公司要求女员工们整天穿着高跟鞋上班吗？
I must confess sympathy for the employee. Of course I don’t wear high heels, but I can easily imagine the discomfort if they are worn for several hours on the trot for five consecutive working days, at an incline of almost 45 degrees. It must feel like skiing down a black run all day. I know that even for formal events where women wear stilettos for dinner for three to four hours, they usually breathe a sigh of relief when they eventually feel they are done for the night and are able to take them off. Indeed, I know of many women who go to these glamorous events always with a spare pair of flat shoes, which they change into the moment they can fling off the heels.
这个问题在去年引起了高度关注，起因是一名从事前台接待工作的女员工被雇主要求必须穿着高跟鞋工作。她抱怨说这很难受，还伤到了她的双脚，于是她拒绝再穿高跟鞋。但随后就被公司请回了家。
Maybe employers should ask their female staff to write the company dress codes. In any event, if a company feels that it needs lanky, glamorous-looking receptionists to shepherd clients in and out of its offices, perhaps it should simply employ those who are tall enough already, although this might well constitute illegal discrimination in itself.
我得承认我很同情这名雇员。当然我不穿高跟鞋，但不难想象，如果一周连续五天每天都蹬着将近45度的高跟鞋小跑几个小时会有多难受，那肯定像一整天都在黑道上滑雪一样。据我了解，即使为了正式场合，女性们穿着细高跟鞋出席一场三、四个小时的晚宴，当她们感到终于结束了能够脱下高跟鞋时通常都会长舒一口气。事实上，我知道很多女性出席这种盛大场面时总会再带一双平底鞋，一旦她们脱掉高跟鞋就会马上换上。
Do you like visiting famous people’s burial places If so, where do you go
也许雇主们应该让他们的女性员工撰写公司的着装规范。无论如何，如果一个企业觉得，他们需要瘦高个儿、浓妆艳抹的前台迎来送往，那或许他们就该直接雇佣些本来个头就高的人，虽然如此一来本身就可能构成了非法歧视。
I love visiting necropolises, cemeteries, mausoleums and other burial places, mainly because that’s the nearest I get to meeting people I have admired and loved, and also hated, but whom it is now impossible to meet. So I have seen nasty Stalin’s necropolis at the Kremlin, as well as Lenin’s embalmed body nearby, and that of Mao at Tiananmen Square in Beijing. They all give me the creeps because I can never fathom their crooked minds.
你喜欢探访名人墓地吗？若喜欢，你会去哪？
The grandest of burials is possibly that of China’s first emperor, Qin Shi Huang, whose mausoleum in Xian includes a terracotta army of more than 8,000 soldiers. Equally grand, perhaps, is the Great Pyramid of Giza for Pharaoh Khufu. But other than individual burial sites, the cemetery in Vienna and London’s Westminster Abbey have the most interesting selection of dead people.
我喜欢探访墓园、公墓、陵园和其他墓地，主要是因为那里是最接近我曾仰慕和爱戴过的人们的地方，也有些我厌恶的、如今不可能再见的人。所以我曾到克里姆林宫探访过卑劣的斯大林的墓地，以及不远处列宁的遗体，还有北京天安门广场上毛泽东的遗体。他们都让我觉得毛骨悚然，因为我永远不能理解他们扭曲的思想。
Vienna Central Cemetery — said to be “half the size of Zurich, but twice as fun” — contains the graves of Brahms, Beethoven, Czerny, Schubert, Johann Strauss, Josef Strauss, von Suppé, Wolf and Schoenberg. What a resounding graveyard this would be if all the dead bodies came alive! Then there is Westminster Abbey. In its Poets’ Corner alone, there are the graves of Chaucer, Dryden, Sheridan, Spenser, Dr Johnson, Browning, Tennyson, Dickens, Hardy, Kipling; as well as memorials for the three Bront sisters, Jane Austen, Elizabeth Browning, Keats, Byron, Coleridge, Lewis Carroll, George Eliot and TS Eliot. There is no other place on earth within which the ghosts of those who have enriched this earth so abundantly continue to live.
最宏伟的陵墓当属中国第一位皇帝，秦始皇(Qin Shi Huang)的陵墓，秦始皇陵位于中国西安市，墓中包含有8000多尊兵马俑。能和秦始皇陵媲美的，或许就是埃及法老胡夫(Pharaoh Khufu)的吉萨大金字塔(Great Pyramid of Giza)。而除了某个人的墓地外，维也纳(Vienna)和伦敦的威斯敏斯特教堂(Westminster Abbey)还有最有趣的名人公墓。
Mind you, the most impressive burial site must be Robert Maxwell’s — on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem, from where Jesus Christ ascended to heaven. Was this location chosen for “Bob” to resurrect
维也纳中央陵园(Vienna Central Cemetery)——据说“有苏黎世的一半大，但却比苏黎世有意思一倍”——陵园中葬有勃拉姆斯(Brahms)、贝多芬(Beethoven)、车尔尼(Czerny)、舒伯特(Schubert)、约翰施特劳斯(Johann Strauss)、约瑟夫施特劳斯(Josef Strauss)、冯苏佩(von Suppé)、保鲁夫(Wolf)和勋伯格(Schoenberg)。如果这些名人死而复生，那这个墓园将会多么热闹！还有威斯敏斯特教堂。单其诗人角(Poets' Corner)一隅，就埋葬着众多文豪，其中包括乔叟(Chaucer)、德莱顿(Dryden)、谢里丹(Sheridan)、斯宾塞(Spenser)、约翰逊博士(Samuel Johnson)、布朗宁(Browning)、丁尼生(Tennyson)、狄更斯(Dickens)、哈代(Hardy)、吉卜林(Kipling)；那里还有勃朗特三姐妹(three Bront sisters)、简奥斯汀(Jane Austen)、伊丽莎白布朗宁(Elizabeth Browning)、济慈(Keats)、拜伦(Byron)、柯勒律治(Coleridge)、刘易斯卡罗尔(Lewis Carroll)、乔治艾略特(George Eliot)、TS艾略特(TS Eliot)的纪念碑。世上再没有哪个地方收容着这么多曾经极大地丰饶过这个世界的灵魂。
If the US is so “uncivilised” and unfit for living, why do you even visit or do business there
如果美国这么“不文明”而且不适合居住，那为何你还去那里旅游或做生意？

There are many uncivilised places which do not preclude my visiting or doing business with, because these are not mutually exclusive. Most cities in China are choked with pollution and ugliness, but I still travel there to visit and for business. In Middle America, I find a lot of customs and the behaviour of people, especially mass followers of evangelism, rather disturbing. The west and east coasts are full of intense and obstinate Americans, with Californians utterly intolerant of smokers and Noo Yawkers ruthlessly mercenary, and both over the top with political correctness. And US customs and immigration officials are known for their aggressiveness. I always try to take a little Valium before confronting them. Yet, I love all these differences and never mind being in the US as a tourist or businessman, if only to remind myself of the importance of diversity and absurdity.
有很多不文明的地方，但这并不妨碍我去那里游玩或公干，因为这并不矛盾。中国有很多城市都污染严重、市容丑陋，但我仍不时去那些地方造访和出差。在美国中部，我发现那里很多风俗和人们的举止，尤其是众多福音传道的追随者们，都让人不胜其烦。东西海岸又满是热情又顽固的美国人，加州人对吸烟者一点都不能忍，纽约客们则生性冷漠惟利是图，而这两者在政治上却又都过分正确。听闻美国海关和移民局官员向来咄咄逼人。跟他们交锋前我总要先服些安定。然而，我喜欢所有这些分歧也从不介意在美国做一名游客或是商人，只要我提醒自己想一想多样化和荒谬的重要性。