This article was originally a story written by Mark Han Sen, a Danish-American writer and inspirational speaker. The original title was Are you going to help me? ) included in 1993 Chicken Soup for the Soul edited by him.

The story background of Han Sen version is "1989, an earthquake of magnitude 8.2 almost razed Armenia, and in just 4 minutes, more than 30,000 people were killed."

Of course, as we all know, this inspirational speaker is mainly responsible for pouring chicken soup for everyone, and there is no door in the story.

In fact, the Armenian earthquake occurred on February 7th at 1988 1 1, with a magnitude of 6.8 on the Richter scale. At first, Soviet officials estimated that 40,000 people died. Later, about 25,000 victims recovered their bodies. Therefore, it is not a problem for Han Sen to say that "more than 30,000 people died as a result".

This earthquake is the first time that the Soviet Union requested humanitarian assistance from the United States, and it is also a relatively recent one, which may have a deep impression on Americans. So, Han Sen made up a story with this as the background, and casually said the time and magnitude. I guess neither he nor his audience took it seriously.

But the problem lies in the time when Chicken Soup for the Soul was translated into Chinese by Yang Chunyin at 1996 and published by Jilin People's Publishing House.

Although the full text is faithful to the original, there is a big mistake here. The original "Armenia" has been misinterpreted as "the United States".

Because this article is in the last part of the book, the previous chicken soup for the soul is almost all stories set in the United States, and it is understandable that the translator is dizzy and makes mistakes and mistranslations. When the proofreader and editor-in-chief saw the wonderful content of "an 8.2-magnitude earthquake almost razed the United States to the ground", they didn't question the correction, which I firmly believe.

Then a more wonderful upgrade took place in Wei Yingying's rewritten version of Father and Son in the Earthquake published by Xinhua Daily 1997 10. Judging from the wording of the original text, it is indeed directly rewritten on the basis of Yang's translation of Chicken Soup for the Soul.

In this version, Mark Han Sen, the original American author, somehow was taken away by Yamamoto in the process of "China" and became "Mark Victor Harsen".

Wei Yingying, the rewriter, estimated that "the earthquake of magnitude 8.2 almost flattened the United States" was outrageous, so he suddenly had a flash of light, thinking that the San Francisco earthquake of 1989 (with magnitude 6.9 and more than 270 deaths) was changed to "Los Angeles area", and then the number of casualties increased from "30,000" to "300,000".

In addition, in fact, Americans prefer to touch chicken soup when writing it. However, this rewritten version finally added the Chinese happy ending of "Hugging Together".

In Wei's revision, his son's name was also changed from "Oman" in Yang's translation to "Amanda". Where did the "big" that dad called his son come from? Is this editor Japanese?

Because the rewritten article "Father and Son in the Earthquake" was successfully extracted in Reader magazine, it was quickly included in various popular books such as Philosophy of Life and Family Instructions at the end of last century and the beginning of this century, and finally it was successfully included in the ninth textbook of sixth grade Chinese of People's Education Publishing House in 2002.

Then it is estimated that the people in the teaching and research group are puzzled that there was no earthquake in Los Angeles in 1989, so they wisely followed the 2005 edition of "Northridge Earthquake in Los Angeles" (1994 17).

In fact, the "Northridge Earthquake" killed 57 people and injured more than 8,400 people. All primary school students can see that the earthquake occurred at "4: 365,438+0". Why are the students in the classroom? ! !

It is estimated that this senior who is qualified to change the text thinks that the habit of Harvard University library students studying in the early hours of the morning is formed from childhood!

Of course, I heard that the latest version of the broken jar directly canceled the time. I have nothing to say.

In addition, there is actually another genre, Always by Your Side or Dad's Responsibility, which is adapted from Yang's translation. This version is set in Little Rock, USA, but because it appeared later than the "Los Angeles" version, its influence is limited to all kinds of "old duck soup for the soul".

Finally, I have to thank the 18th Route Anti-Intelligence General for bringing us such an escalating story.

By the way, another classic folk song text, Little Edison saves his mother. This is an American biographical film "Young Tom Edison" adapted from 1940. This part was edited by the screenwriter himself to beautify the protagonist Edison.

Edison became a chicken soup figure in the United States at the end of 19, so since then, various unrealistic Edison deeds and famous sayings have circulated in American society. Whether it is beautifying Edison or hacking him with Tesla, it is actually Americans who take the lead.

The original "Little Tom Edison" only said one operation. I'm not sure if it's appendicitis. In fact, there are more than one kerosene lamp in his house in the movie, but many; But the mirror has only one side. If I remember correctly, the mirror in the movie was even stolen from the store, so Edison was beaten by the shopkeeper when he returned the mirror after saving his mother (Edison was always beaten in the movie).

It seems that this story was first introduced to China as an English version of Shanghai Jiaotong University around 1979. At least in 198 1, there was an irrational China appendicitis operation. I don't know if there is an earlier version, which needs textual research.