2015-06-14

【Aiden in English】

        If you have a fear of lemons, then one place you shouldn’t go is anywhere in Southern Italy area around the Mediterranean Sea. Lemons literally control society there, and it’s a huge export. And just saying, I love lemons from the bottom of heart.

        Tangy lemons look so cool. But when they’re the size of my face, it gets… strange. People planted lemon trees around their houses. Lemonade stands were placed everywhere more common than soda’s. The gorgeous island of Capri probably had more lemon trees than the population. The tourist numbers were also more than the population. So it’s safe to say that coming to this random, isolated island wasn’t strange since it’s not completely random or isolated anymore. 

        Capri is an island jutting out of the Gulf of Naples in the Tyrrhenian Sea. One moment there was a tidal wave. The next thing you knew, you crashed against a sheet of rock rising up hundreds of feet in the air. And guess what? There were lemon trees on the edge of the cliff. The main center town of Capri was tiny, lively village of people sipping lemon slush or iced lemonade. The narrow streets were full of bustling tourists with frantic tour guides trying to keep the group together. Cozy little shops crammed side of side, their workers scrambling around to attract tourists. This tiny town had more to it than just shops. The vibe it gave off was positive, and hotels around the island were all 4 to 5 stars exclusively. Lemons seemed to pop up as decoration in the pictures if you looked close enough. They surrounded mansions, showing a splash of yellow on the canvas. Lemons tied together by the dozen on a rope created a border to a doorway or an entrance. It sounded crazy but true in every three people there was a cup of lemon slush. Something told me that if Capri didn’t have lemons, it wouldn’t be on the map.

        A society is based upon a special product in each country that is exported for money. Italy has many, but lemons are around the tippy-tippy top. This crucial item provides the thing that all humans want: money. People now can do basically everything with money, even illegal stuffs. Money equals wealth, and wealth equals power. There is a simple math equation, and let’s add another variable in front of money. Exported goods equal money, money equals etc ... And Capri has a ton of lemons that have absolutely no use to them anymore. So they have a ton of exporting goods. However, lemons aren’t exactly crucial like oil. The bad thing of society is the fact of depending on one source and using one source of product more than the product is produced. Oil is that product, and it takes over a millennium to make a new batch of oil. Oil in the earth is running out. By far, electrical cars are a possibility. It doesn’t seem like wait a minute, and your car charges. A hydrogen powered automobile technology has been there for years, but the price of manufacturing one is too great. The world government is in no shape to make a large decision like this at the moment either. 

        Lemons become indispensible in Capri, and it doesn’t look as if they’re running out any time soon. The locals can be replanted and harvested every year. But the world has to choose the only supply of energy for cars, which is gonna run out for us, huh?

【紅霞譯文】

        如果你對檸檬心存恐懼，那麼千萬不要去意大利南部地中海沿岸一帶，在那裡檸檬絕對舉足輕重，多到出口的地步，順便提一句，我打心眼裡喜愛檸檬。

        清香撲鼻的檸檬看上去很爽，可一旦個頭大如我的臉蛋，心裡難免感覺彆扭。人們在房前屋後種植檸檬樹，檸檬汁貨攤比賣蘇打水更為流行，秀麗的卡普里島檸檬樹遍地開放，大大超過當地人口，觀光客流排山倒海，洶湧淹沒島民數量，可以說即使鬼使神差來到這樣一個煢煢孑立的島嶼也不會感到孤獨，因為卡普里島一向生機勃勃。

        卡普里島坐落於第勒尼安海那不勒斯灣，四面環海，眼前潮起潮落，背後幾百英尺高的山石拔地而立，你猜怎麼着？檸檬樹傲然挺立在懸崖邊上。小鎮中心不大，異族同胞們有滋有味嘬着檸檬冰沙；狹窄的街道人聲鼎沸，導遊歇斯底里地召集觀光隊伍；舒適的小商店一家挨着一家，其員工為招攬生意，爭先恐後地吸引顧客。卡普里島不光商家林立店鋪櫛比，生活氣息高漲檔次節節攀升，彈丸之地儘是四、五星級旅館。如果你稍加留意，檸檬似乎還被當成繪畫素材，黃燦燦地閃現在畫布上，點綴着亭台樓閣；用繩子將十幾個檸檬捆綁在一起懸掛門前，藉以區分左鄰右舍。耳聽為虛眼見為實，這裡每三個人中定有一個人在享受檸檬冰沙。憑直覺而論，如果沒有檸檬，世上恐怕就沒有卡普里島。

        一個社會依靠出口國寶級特產換取經濟利益，意大利有多種多樣，但在卡普里島檸檬絕對首屈一指，它給人們帶來生活所需：金錢，有錢才能做任何事情，甚至非法行當。金錢意味着財富，財富代表權力，這個簡單的數學公式足以說明問題，讓我們在錢財上再添加另一個變量，即出口的商品帶來收入，收入支配其它……卡普里島有取之不盡用之不竭的檸檬，出口業興旺發達，然而，檸檬畢竟不像石油至關重要，事情壞就壞在現有社會必須依賴一項資源，而該項資源恰好處於瀕於枯竭狀態，石油正是這種資源，需要一千多年才能自然形成，難怪全球石油產量日趨減少。到目前為止，電力汽車有可能擺脫對汽油的依賴，但這並非指日可待，你總得充電吧；氫氣汽車技術已問世多年，但生產成本一直懸而未決，天底下尚無任何政府具有實力解決這種糾結。

        卡普里島離不開檸檬，其產量在短期內不會改變，再說當地居民可以年年栽培年年收穫，但世人偏偏選用石油來充當汽車能源，而石油終將會出現危機，對嗎？