You don’t have to look fashionable or attractive in order to find out what will be the future trend; you only need to be observant and able to make judgments about it.
7. He…was up in the cybersphere far above the level of time zones. (Para. 19)
He was playing the game on the Internet with people living in different parts of the world, an activity that goes far beyond the limit of time zones.
8. In the first two weeks of business the Gucci Store took in a surprising $100,000. (Para. 22) In the first two weeks after starting business in Shanghai, the Gucci Store made as much as $100,000, a surprisingly large amount of money.
9. Early on I realized that I was going to need some type of compass to guide me through the wilds of global culture. (Para. 29)
Early before that / From the very beginning I realized I was going to need some guidance that would lead me through the rich and wide variety of global cultures.
10. The penitence may have been Jewish, but the aspiration was universal. (Para. 39)
The way of expressing / showing repentance may have been characteristic of the Jews, but the desire for forgiveness from God was common to people of all cultures.
Translation
Today we are in the throes of a worldwide reformation of cultures, a tectonic shift of habits and dreams called, in the curious vocabulary of social scientists, “globalization”.
今天我们正经历着一种世界范围的文化巨变的阵痛, 一种习俗与追求的结构性的变化; 这种变化, 用社会学家们的奇特词汇来称呼, 就叫做“全球化”。
Whatever their backgrounds or agendas, these critics are convinced that Western — often equated with American — influences will flatten every cultural crease, producing, as one observer terms it, one big “McWorld”.
不管其背景或纲领如何, 这些对全球化持批评态度的人都相信, 西方的影响 — 经常等同于美国的影响 — 会使所有不同的文化都丧失其独特性, 从而产生出一种就像一位观察家所说的 “麦当劳世界”。
But I also discovered that cultures are as resourceful, resilient, and unpredictable as the people who compose them.
而我同时也发现, 文化, 就像创造文化的民族一样, 善于随机应变 / 具有应变能力, 富有弹性, 而且不可预测。
It’s really hard to be original these days, so the easiest way to come up with new stuff is to mix things that already exist.
如今想要创新极为困难, 因此最容易的办法就是把现存的东西糅合在一起, 弄出个新玩意来。
The Cosmopolitan, plunging necklines and all, is read by 260,000 Chinese women every month. (Para. 20)
每个月, 有26万中国女性在阅读(美国的)《时尚》杂志, 里面有那些开领低胸服装的画页和其他内容。
The lights went out, and for a moment the only sound in the darkness was the whirring of an expensive camera on auto-rewind. (Para. 27)
灯光熄灭了, 有那么一阵子, 黑暗中所能听到的只有一部昂贵的相机自动倒片时发出的声音。
They received a lot from local cultures, but they also kept their own identity. (Para. 38)