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Higher rice-yields allowed farmers to turn more land to other uses—fruit, vegetables, fishponds—so that people not only ate more, but ate well. And this message was for the world, as well as China.
更高的水稻产量让农民能够把一部分土地用来种植水果蔬菜，或是建造鱼塘等其他用途，这样人们既能吃饱饭，饮食又丰富。这样的经验不仅让中国人受益，甚至还惠及了全球。
Once his rice grew well, he sent seeds to the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines. Then he travelled widely, all across Asia and to Africa and America, as well as inviting foreign students to the Hunan Hybrid Rice Research Centre in Changsha to instruct them. A fifth of all rice grown globally now comes from hybrids that were his.
在发现杂交稻的优势后，袁隆平立即将种子送到位于菲律宾的国际水稻研究所。之后，他游历亚洲、非洲和美洲，还邀请外国学生到长沙的湖南杂交水稻研究中心来学习。现在，全球五分之一的水稻出自他的杂交品种。
For this he won the Medal of the Republic, China’s highest, and the World Food Prize. An asteroid was named after him. There was talk of the Nobel, too. All that seemed just smoke to him.
他因此获得了中国的最高奖项“共和国勋章”，以及世界粮食奖。有一颗小行星也被命名为“袁隆平星”。坊间还有传言说他将获得诺贝尔奖。这些美誉于他而言不过是过眼云烟。
Though he was rich, from his shares in a seed company that used his name, he looked like a peasant, wiry as a twig, with his face leathered by sun and his big hands rough from “playing in the mud” all day.
虽然他经济富裕（入股了一家以他的名字命名的种子公司），但他还是保持着质朴的农民形象，身材瘦削，皮肤黝黑，一双大手因整天“与泥巴打交道”变得粗糙。
He was far happier in his short-sleeved work-shirts, out in his rice, or stripped off swimming in any wild river he could find, than in a tang suit in some conference hall. At social gatherings, he would offer round the first cigarettes and the nimblest jokes.
比起穿着唐装端坐在会议厅里，他更喜欢套着短袖工作服在稻田里穿行，或者脱下衣服扎进河游泳。与人社交时，他会先给大伙递烟意思一番，再讲个笑话逗趣；
When he lost at mahjong, no one was more delighted to pay the penalty of creeping through under the table.
打麻将输了，他也乐呵呵地接受钻桌底的惩罚。
Why he had become an agronomist was tricky to explain. His mother, whom he adored, did not want him to do it.
他为什么成为农学家，这事儿说来话长。袁隆平很尊敬他的母亲，而母亲其实不希望他从事农业工作。
He was a city boy anyway, born in Beijing, though he enjoyed the countryside and the thought of growing luscious things, like the grapes Charlie Chaplin could pick at his kitchen door in “Modern Times”.
虽然在北京这座大城市出生，但是袁隆平很喜欢乡村，喜欢种植甘美的作物，比如《摩登时代》中查理·卓别林在厨房门口就能摘到的葡萄。
As he made his way to the Anjiang agricultural school, in a charcoal-fuelled bus struggling through the mountains, he had doubts himself. What settled his vocation was famine.
在去往安江农校的路上，他乘坐一辆烧木炭的客车，在高山峻岭中颠簸前行，他的内心也曾有疑虑。最终，饥荒让他坚定了自己的从农之路。
译文由可可原创，仅供学习交流使用，未经许可请勿转载。
