雙語閱讀 楊瀾：真實面對自己
TV host Yang Lan is one of China"s biggest celebs. Will the propriety and pragmatism that got her there keep her from becoming the mogul she wants to be? A story of fame, ambition, and reality in modern China.
"We have some work to do." Yang Lan, one of China"s most famous women, doesn"t so much say the words as turn them into a command. It is the last day of taping for her reality show, New Girl in the Office, and in a sweltering Beijing studio, Yang is coaching an audience of college-age women. Despite the heat, the students sit ramrod straight, their eyes glued to the regal star who stands before them in her gold Prada gown and Prada shoes. ("I wanted it to feel more formal," she says later.) She is about to teach them how to clap.
"There are three forms of applause: First, fast and furious," Yang tells the women. They clap feverishly. "When the comedian says funny things, there"s the appreciative clap." They clap slowly. "The third is like when a political consultative conference is about to end, and you want it to be over so bad." They flatten palms together robotically.
Yang"s face melts, but just a little, into the smile of a teacher pleased with her charges. Pleasant but not too warm, genuine but slightly distant, that smile has, over the past 20 years, become one of the most recognizable in the world"s biggest media market. Yang"s rise to fame has been unique in modern China. Two decades ago, she answered an open casting call for a slot as cohost on a new Chinese TV variety show. She was picked for her pluck -- when asked during her audition whether she would "dare" to wear a bikini, she replied that at nude beaches in France, it would be too conservative to wear even a bikini -- and has since parlayed her never-say-fail attitude into stardom. She has interviewed both Bill and Hillary Clinton, Henry Kissinger, and Kobe Bryant. When the Shanghai Expo was casting celebrity spokespeople, they chose seven men (including Yao Ming and Jackie Chan) and Yang.
She has sought to turn that fame into a full-fledged business empire. Yang has created new programming for TV -- including one of the first shows targeting women -- and set up sites on the burgeoning Chinese-language Web. She has bought print publications; she sells credit cards; she"s even hawking a co-branded jewelry line with Celine Dion. She and her husband, Bruno Wu, are one of China"s richest couples; Forbes has estimated their wealth at about $300 million. All of which has led the foreign press -- and her own handlers -- to rarely miss an opportunity to call her the Oprah of China.
Yang Lan, 42, has done wonders to achieve what she has so far, being careful to maintain her above-the-fray image while morphing with the fast-shifting landscape. "You do what you can do," she says with a sigh in lightly accented, fluent English. Some of her ventures have succeeded -- her interview show has been one of the past decade"s megahits -- while others, including her Sun TV network, have been huge flops. Through it all, she has held on to her biggest asset: her fame. Liu Yingqi, vice president of China Life Insurance Co., which sponsors New Girl in the Office, says, "She"s the audience"s Yang Lan, society"s Yang Lan."
「我們得做一些功課。」楊瀾，中國最有名氣的女性之一，並不經常以這種命令的語氣說話。她的真人秀節目《尋找杜拉拉》正在北京的一間悶熱的錄影棚里錄製最後一期節目。楊瀾正在指導一群女大學生觀眾。雖然天氣很炎熱，學生們腰桿兒挺得筆直，目光緊緊地黏在了站在他們面前穿著Prada 的金色長裙和皮鞋的明星女王。她將要教這些觀眾如何鼓掌。
「鼓掌的類型有三種：首先，快速而熱烈，」楊對這些女性聽眾說。他們熱情地鼓起掌來。「當喜劇演員說到一些好玩的事情，應該報以欣賞式的掌聲。」觀眾們鼓掌的頻率放慢了。「政協會議閉幕就屬於第三種，這時你們的掌聲傳達出來的情緒應該不是歡快的。」這些觀眾一起機械式地鼓動他們的手掌。
楊的臉上出現了老師滿意於自己的職責那樣的微笑，愉快但並不太溫暖，真誠但又保持一些距離。這種微笑在過去的20年里，已經成為了世界上最大的媒介市場中最為人們熟悉的面孔之一。楊在現代中國一舉成名的過程非常獨特。20年前，她在為一檔新的綜藝節目《正大綜藝》選拔主持人的比賽中因自己的勇氣而獲得賞識。當評委們問道她敢不敢穿比基尼時，她回答說在法國的裸體浴場，即使穿著比基尼也會被人們認為過於保守。從那以後她抱著絕不認輸的態度進入了綜藝圈。她採訪過包括柯林頓、希拉里、基辛格以及科比在內的諸多名流。當上海世博會挑選名人代言時，他們選擇了楊瀾和其他7個人。
她試圖把這種名望轉變為成熟的商業帝國。楊瀾創辦了包括第一批針對女性的欄目在內的新的電視節目，還建立了一個中文站點。她收購過出版商，賣過信用卡，甚至還與席琳?迪翁一起聯合創辦珠寶品牌。她和她的丈夫吳征是中國最為富有的夫妻之一，《福布斯》估計他們的財富價值在3億美元左右。所有這些使得外國媒體以及她的同行們一有機會都會稱她為「中國的奧普拉」。更多信息請訪問：http://www.24en.com/
42歲的楊瀾創造了一個奇蹟，她一邊精心保持著自己在熒幕上的形象，一邊體驗商界這片變化莫測的領地。「要做那些力所能及的事情。」說這話時，她操著流利的英語微微嘆了口氣。她的冒險有的成功了——她的訪談節目至今仍被人們認為是過去十年的經典，而包括她的陽光衛視網路在內的其他項目卻是巨大的失敗。一路走來，她憑藉的是她最大的資本：她的名望。劉英齊，中國人壽保險公司副主席，也是這次《尋找杜拉拉》節目的贊助者說「她是觀眾的楊瀾，社會的楊瀾」。
待續
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