I never like to put on a tie, so most of the pictures that you will see of me will have no tie. I once heard a funny expression from an Asian who said, “the tie is the white man’s burden,” and maybe it affected me!? I can easily imagine, for a very white man living in the Asian tropics, wearing a tie could also be quite a burden.

我一向不喜欢打领带。因此，在大部分的照片里你会发现我都是没有领带的。我曾听到一位亚洲朋友打趣的说“领带是白人的负担。”可能那句话影响了我！？我可以想像领带对于一个生活在亚热带白人可能真的是一个负担。

I remember that when I was in medical training in Hong Kong, which was then under British rule, every doctor had to wear a tie, in spite of sweltering heat and no air conditioning in the hospitals. I would wear a tie, a white shirt, and white short pants. And I had white long stockings to match. This might seem strange to you, especially as I wore a white doctor’ s coat over that, with my stick feet showing. And I would carry a fan to try to cool myself. Your imagination is probably running wild now, and it should. I think this experience “scarred me for life” in regard to ties.

我记得我在英属香港学医的时候，即使在暑气熏蒸没有冷气机的医院里，每个医生都还是必须打领带的。那时，我会穿着白衬衫，打领带，以及穿白短裤。对了，我还会配上白色的长筒袜。你可能会觉得这样的衣着很奇怪，特别是披上白色医师袍后的我两条竹竿般的小腿还是显而易见的。此外，我还会带着扇子来祛热。你可能觉得匪夷所思，的确是如此。这个经历让我至今对领带都还有心里阴影。

Today I no longer live under British gentlemanly rules, but I am often still expected to put on a tie, in Asia or in the USA. As needed, I reluctantly put on my tie, especially if I am giving a message before a Chinese congregation in church, or attending an official dinner of some kind, or when I have to meet some high Chinese government official. Why do Asians pick up these funny white men’s burdens?

当然，今天我已不在英国士绅的管辖范围中生活。但是不论是在亚洲或在美国，人们通常还是期待着我会打领带。真的有需要的时候，特别是在教会中文堂里传讲信息，出席正式晚宴，或者是与中国官员会面时，我还是会勉强的戴上我的领带。为甚么亚洲人会学到这个有趣的白人负担呢？

And, in Asia, formal jackets are de rigueur for official functions. This is undoubtedly a (British?) white man’s burden, and totally uncomfortable in hot weather. But I discovered a polite way of solving this problem. I would usually drape a jacket over my forearm, which gives the appearance that I’m dressed appropriately, but had just momentarily taken off my jacket. It looks official enough, and fits the proper image of a tie wearing gentleman, I guess. Try it, it’s a pretty effective ploy.

在亚洲，穿西装是正式场合的必须礼仪。这毫无疑问的是一个（来自英国的？）白人的负担。这在热天里是令人非常难受的。好在我发现一个不失礼的解决方法。我通常会把西装挂在我的前臂上，给人一个我穿着正式只是暂时脱下外套而已的印象。这看起来还是很正式，而且我想也很合乎打领带绅士的形象。你试试看，这个妙计是很管用的。

It turns out that even if you put a white shirt and a tie on a so-called “very primitive” tribal young man, either in the deepest African jungle or the remotest Indonesian island, presto, he looks “civilized.” This is the power of a tie or western clothing. This leads however to a biased concept that people who wear natural coverings, without shirt and tie, are “primitive,” or “not very smart.”

其实你如果把白衣领带穿到一个与世隔绝的非洲丛林或印尼孤岛里所谓的“原始”部落青年身上，他说变就变的就成了“文明”人了。这就是领带或西方衣着的力量。然而这也带来了将穿着自然，没有衬衫领带的人，看作是“未受教的”或“不精明的”的偏见。

Thus when “modern” explorers arrived on the scene in darkest jungles or far-flung islands, and met people who wore few clothes, there was this impression and conclusion that they were “ignorant savages.” This is quite unreasonable, and history tells us that those so-called savages, even some who actually were “cannibals” by tradition, within a short time, soon look like just anybody else. Especially when they put on a white shirt and a tie.

因此，当“文明”的探险家踏入蛮荒丛林或偏远海岛事看见穿着较少的原住民时，他们会觉得那些原住民未开化的野蛮人。这是很不合理的。历史告诉我们那些所谓的野蛮人，即使是有食人传统的，也可以在极短的时间内同化成相一般人一样。特别是他们穿上衬衫领带后。

There really are no, or very few true “savages” among these so-called “primitive” people. The modern day savages are Nazis in World War II, the Imperial Japanese Army of World War II, Pol Pot of Cambodia, and the very “modern” ISIS terrorists. When you see and read what they have done, we are reminded that they were, and are, by all accounts, “civilized,” educated, and modern dressed. And millions have died at the hands of these “true savages,” not the stereotypical ones.

事实上，所谓的“原始人”里真正野蛮的是寥寥无几的。反之，二次世界大战时的纳粹党和日本帝国陆军，柬埔寨的波尔布特，以及非常“现代”的伊斯兰国恐怖组织才是近代的野蛮人。当我们见到或读到他们的所作所为，我们不禁想到他们从各方面来说都是“文明”的，受过教育的，以及衣冠楚楚的。然而，数百万人死于这些“真正的野蛮人”而不是我们印象中的野蛮人手上。

For those who believe in a Creator, one of the most important concepts is that man is created in God’s image, and therefore everyone is precious, from the white shirt and black tie Western educated, to the lightly dressed far away native of some lonely island. And they are all capable of learning in the same way, given health education, schooling, and good teachers. And funny enough, once they put on a tie they look just like us.

对相信造物主的人来说，一个很重要的概念是人是照着神的形象所造的。因此，不论是白衣黑领带的西方知识分子或是穿着稀少遥方孤岛的原住民，所有人都是宝贵的。只要有适当的教育，学校，以及老师，所有人都有同等的学习能力。有趣的是戴上领带后他们看起来跟我们并没有两样。

There was once a tribe that was “discovered” in the Philippines, that discoverers called a “prehistoric” tribe, living with practically no clothes, in a “Stone Age” culture. National Geographic loved it, made huge romantic reports on the tribe, and showed off their usual beautiful pictures, including the obligatory partially clothed natives. This became a great tourist attraction for many years, earning lots of money for the local place and the official guides who managed this “exotic” location.

很多年以前有人在菲律宾发现一个几乎不穿衣物，以石器时代方式生活的“史前”部落。美国国家地理学会(National Geographic)热衷的为这个部落做了许多富浪漫色彩的报道，也展出许多它一贯令人惊艳的照片。其中有一些是半穿着衣服土著的照片。这个部落因此成为著名的旅游景点以及当地政府和导游们的摇钱树。

Until many years later, it was discovered that it was a total hoax and that they were not indeed “prehistoric.” Anyway prehistoric means before history, so therefore that means that we know practically nothing reliable about anyone who is prehistoric anyway. We are so brain washed to think that people with few or no clothes on must be “primitive,” “backward” and “unevolved,” we are easily deceived, and many people at the time readily bought into this “great discovery.”

多年以后，人们发现这根本是一个骗局。那根本就不是一个真正的“史前”部落。无论如何，史前的意思是在有文字记载的历史以前。因此，我们基本上没有跟史前的人相关的可靠资料。即使如此，我们被洗过的脑很容易把那些不穿衣服的或者穿很少的人想成是“原始的”，“落后的”，和“未进化的”。我们很容易上当受骗。很多人当时确信那个“伟大的发现”是真的。

Even among far-flung islands and so-called primitive tribes, missionaries are often totally surprised when they find that the vocabulary can be just as complex, or even more complex than the languages we know. For example, in one tribe of the Indonesian islands, there are 19 verbs for one action, depending on when the speaker is speaking about a male, or a female, or an animal, or a plant. There is nothing “primitive” about that at all.

传道士门常常讶异于偏远孤岛上或所谓的原始部落里所使用词汇的复杂程度。它们有时候比我们熟悉的语言还复杂，如一个印尼群岛里一个部落的语法里可以因受词是阳性，阴性，动物，或植物而有十九个不同动词来形容同一个动作。这完全不“原始”。

Every race and tribe is very different in social customs, but inherently, and everyone, is just as smart. It is just that some people have not been educated in the modern system, and “look funny.” Some people even then start imagining that the “natives” have “ape-like features,” in order to confirm their own erroneous biases, when these “natives” are just different.

每一个种族或部落各自有不同的生活习俗，但在本质上他们和每个人一样都是聪明的。不同的只是他们有些人没有经过现代教育系统而且看起来有点“滑稽”。虽然原住民只是乍看之下外表上和我们有点不同，有些人会为自己的错误偏见自圆其说而想像“原住民”有着类似“人猿”的特征。

We are so amazed when we read about the pyramids, or the great constructions of the Incas, or the stones of Stonehenge, and think that there is some mistake there, how could they do that? Therefore, it must be some extraterrestrial being that has come upon this earth to do all these “smart things.” This is simply our modern arrogant interpretation of past history. People in ancient times were just as smart, or maybe even smarter than we are today, since they could do all these things without our modern contrivances and gadgets.

当我们读到金字塔，壮观的印加古城，或者是巨石阵的巨石时，我们常常感到不可思议。古人是怎么作到的？肯定是哪里出错了。一定是天外来客到地球上作出这些高智慧的杰作。这只是傲慢的现代人对历史难题所做的解释。事实上，古人的智慧比我们有过之而无不及。他们在没有现代机械和工具的情况下还能造出这么多超出寻常的建筑物。

There are many practical implications of this kind of arrogance. When Africans were terribly treated as slaves, it was because it was taught that they were “primitive”, and basically subhuman, and therefore it was acceptable to treat them as subhuman. In fact, the Nazis and Imperial Japanese used this kind of philosophy to torture their victims, whom they were trained rigorously to regard as subhuman, or unevolved beings, or dogs or something like that.

这种傲慢对社会有着深远的影响。从前非洲人被残酷的当作奴隶对待因为他们被看作是原始的非人类，可以以非人的方式对待。事实上，纳粹和日本帝国就是在这种观念下残杀他们的受害者。在严格训练下他们把受害者看作是非人类，未进化的生物，狗，或者是类似的东西。

I don’t believe there are really “dumb” primitive native tribes. Put on a white shirt and see what difference that makes. We should definitely not despise or under-estimate tribal people, publicly or secretly. They have the same potential for meaningful life as other human beings, and God loves them too. With or without a tie.

我相信没有任何一个原始部落是愚蠢的。我们不应该公开或私下鄙视或小看部落人。他们和所有人一样都有拥有神的爱，能活出有意义的生命 – 不管他们戴不戴领带。