The first five minutes of the Netflix series “3 Body Problem” were hard to watch.

網飛版《3體》的前五分鐘讓人不忍直視。

I tried not to shut my eyes at the coldblooded beating of a physics professor at the height of the Cultural Revolution in 1967. By the end of it, he was dead, with blood and gruesome wounds all over his head and body. His daughter, also a physicist, watched the public execution. She went on to lose hope in humanity.

面對那些畫面，我盡量不把眼睛閉上：1966年，在文化大革命的高潮中，一名物理教授遭到殘忍的毆打。他被活活打死，遍體鱗傷，身上到處都是血。同為物理學家的女兒眼看著父親在眾目睽睽之下被殺戳，讓她對人類失去了希望。

I made myself sit through this violent scene. I have never seen what was known as a struggle session depicted blow-by-blow on the screen. I also felt compelled to watch it because of how the series, a Netflix adaptation of China’s most celebrated works of science fiction, has been received in China.

我強迫自己看完了這個暴力場景。此前，我從未在螢幕上看到「批鬥會」被如此活生生地展現出來過。由於這部網飛根據中國最著名的科幻作品改編的劇集在中國引起的反響，我也覺得必須看完這個場景。

On Chinese social media platforms, commenters objected that the series is not set entirely in China; that the main characters are not all Chinese but instead racially diverse; that one of the main characters has been switched from a man to a woman and, in their eyes, the actress was not pretty enough. They cited many other supposed flaws.

在中國的社群媒體平台上，評論者對這部劇集表達了各種不滿：情節不都發生在中國；主要人物不都是中國人，而是不同種族的人；原著中的一個男性主角在劇中變成了女性，而且在他們眼裡，扮演她的女演員不夠漂亮。他們還列舉了許多其他在他們看來是錯誤的東西。

“The Three-Body Problem,” an apocalyptic trilogy about humanity’s reactions to a coming alien invasion that sold millions of copies in Chinese and more than a dozen other languages, is one of the best-known Chinese novels in the world published in the past few decades. Barack Obama is a fan. China doesn’t have many such hugely successful cultural exports.

原著《三體》是一部預示末日的三部曲之一，寫的是人類如何應對即將到來的外星人入侵的故事。《三體》的中文版和翻譯成十幾種語言的其他版本的銷量數以百萬計，是過去幾十年來世界上最著名的中國小說之一。美國前總統歐巴馬也是《三體》的粉絲。中國沒有幾個如此成功的文化輸出產品。

Instead of pride and celebration, the Netflix series has been met with anger, sneer and suspicion in China. The reactions show how years of censorship and indoctrination have shaped the public perspectives of China’s relations with the outside world. They don’t take pride where it’s due and take offense too easily. They also take entertainment too seriously and history and politics too lightly. The years of Chinese censorship have also muted the people’s grasp of what happened in the Cultural Revolution.

但網飛版的《3體》並沒有在中國引起人們的自豪和慶祝，而是引發了憤怒、嘲笑和懷疑。這些反應表明多年的審查和思想灌輸已如何塑造了公眾對中國與外部世界關係的看法。該自豪的時候他們無動於衷，而且太容易被冒犯。他們也把娛樂太當真，但對歷史和政治卻太過漫不經心。多年的審查制度還削弱了人們對「文革」中發生的事情的了解。

Some commenters said that the series got made mainly because Netflix, or rather the West, wanted to demonize China by showing the political violence during the Cultural Revolution, which was one of the darkest periods in the history of the People’s Republic of China.

一些評論者說，製作該劇的主要原因是網飛（或更確切地說是西方）想妖魔化中國，手法之一是展示「文革」期間的政治暴力，那是中華人民共和國歷史上最黑暗的時期之一。

“Netflix is just pandering to Western tastes, especially in the opening scene,” said one person on the social media platform Weibo.

「網飛只是在迎合西方口味，尤其是在劇情開場時，」一名用戶在微博上寫道。

The blockbuster books and their author, Liu Cixin, have a cultlike following in China. That’s not surprising because Chinese society, from senior leadership, scientists, entrepreneurs to people on the street, are steeped in techno utopianism.

這部暢銷書及其作者劉慈欣在中國有著狂熱的追隨者。這並不奇怪，因為中國社會從高層領導、科學家、企業家到街頭百姓，都沉浸在技術烏托邦主義中。

The English translation of the first volume was published in the United States in 2014. The same year, the e-commerce giant Alibaba pulled off a blockbuster initial public offering in New York, and the world started viewing China as an emerging tech and manufacturing power instead of just a copycat of Western technologies.

三部曲第一卷的英文譯本於2014年在美國出版。中國電子商務巨頭阿里巴巴也是那年在紐約完成了轟動一時的首次公開募股。世界開始將中國視為一個新興的技術和製造大國，而不只是一個模仿西方技術的國家。

The Netflix series portrays China as a scientific giant, speaking to the universe. Mr. Liu’s vast imagination and his probing of the nature of good and evil are key to his books’ success.

網飛版《3體》把中國描繪為能與宇宙交流的科學強國。劉慈欣豐富的想像力以及他對善惡本質的探究是作品成功的關鍵。

He doesn’t seem to view China or even the Earth as exceptional. In a television interview in 2022, he said that the crises described in any science fiction novel are shared “by humanity as a whole.” He added, “From the perspective of the universe, we are all part of a whole.”

他似乎並不認為中國甚至地球有什麼特別。他曾在2022年的一次電視採訪中說，任何一部科幻小說裡描述的危機都是「人類共同面對的危機」。他還說：「從宇宙的眼光來看，我們就是一個整體。」

The Netflix series adopted a Chinese word “Santi,” or three body, as the alien’s name. The book’s English translation uses “Trisolarian.” When was the last time that a Chinese word made it into the global pop culture? But few people celebrated that on Chinese social media.

網飛在改編中延用了中文音譯「三體」作為外星人的名稱。而原著《三體》的英文翻譯使用的是Trisolarian。上一次中文詞進入全球流行文化是什麼時候？但中國社群媒體上很少有人慶祝這點。

Instead, many comments zeroed in on how unflatteringly China is portrayed and how few Chinese elements are included in the series. Netflix isn’t available in China but viewers flocked to see pirated versions of “3 Body Problem.”

許多評論反而集中在該劇對中國的描繪多麼有損形象、劇中的中國元素多麼少等問題上。雖然網飛的服務範圍不包括中國，但不少人已看過《3體》的盜版。

The story in the Netflix version takes place mainly in Britain, not Beijing. The actors are racially diverse, including Latino, Black, white, South Asian and Chinese. Some comments call the diverse casting “American-style political correctness,” while others question why the series casts ethnic Chinese only as villains or poor people, which is not true.

網飛版《3體》的故事主要在英國展開，而不是在中國。演員來自不同種族，包括拉丁裔、黑人、白人、南亞人和華人。一些評論稱這種多元化的選角是「美國式的政治正確」，還有一些評論對該劇只讓華人演員扮演惡棍或窮人（這不是事實）提出了質疑。

If their main complaint about the Netflix adaptation is that the creators took too much liberty with the plot and the main characters, their other major complaint is that the opening scene about the Cultural Revolution is too truthful or too violent.

如果說他們對網飛版《3體》的主要抱怨是創作者對情節和主要角色的改編太隨意的話，他們的另一大抱怨則是，該劇開始時的「文革」情景太真實或太暴力。

Some doubted the necessity of mentioning the political event at all. Others accused the show of exaggerating the level of violence in the struggle session.

有些評論者對是否有必要提及該政治事件表示懷疑。還有些評論者指責劇作誇大了「批鬥會」的暴力程度。

Scholars believe that 1.5 million to 8 million people died in “abnormal deaths” in the decade from 1966 to 1976, while more than 100 million Chinese were affected by the period’s upheaval.

據不同的學者估計，有150萬到800萬中國人在1966年到1976年的十年動亂期間「非正常死亡」，逾1億人受到波及。

Any discussion of the Cultural Revolution, a political movement that Mao Zedong started in 1966 to reassert authority by setting radical youths against those in charge, is heavily censored in China. Mr. Liu, the author, had to move the depiction of the struggle session from the beginning of the first volume to the middle because his editor was worried it couldn’t get past the censors. The English translation opened with the scene, with Mr. Liu’s approval.

文化大革命是毛澤東1966年發動的一場政治運動。他為了重塑自己的權威，號召激進的年輕人與當權派作鬥爭。國內有關「文革」的討論都受到嚴格審查。由於編輯擔心小說通不過審查，劉慈欣只好把「批鬥會」從第一卷的開頭移到了小說的中部。小說英文版以「批鬥會」開始，得到了劉慈欣的認可。

“The Cultural Revolution appears because it’s essential to the plot,” Mr. Liu told my colleague Alexandra Alter in 2019. “The protagonist needs to have total despair in humanity.”

「文化大革命在書中出現是因為它對情節至關重要，」劉慈欣曾在2019年對我的同事亞歷山德拉·阿爾特說。「主人公需要對人類徹底絕望。」

With the topic increasingly taboo, it’s hard to imagine that Mr. Liu would be able to publish a book with that premise now.

隨著中國越來越避諱「文革」的話題，很難想像劉慈欣現在能出版一本以此為前提的書。

In 2007, the independent filmmaker Hu Jie made a documentary about Bian Zhongyun, a vice principal of a middle school in Beijing who was among the first to be beaten to death by the Red Guards. Her husband took photos of her naked, battered body, and Mr. Hu used them at the start of his documentary. The opening scene of “3 Body Problem” reminded me a great deal of it. Mr. Hu’s movie was never publicly screened in China.

2007年，獨立電影製片人胡傑拍了一部關於卞仲耘的紀錄片。卞仲耘是北京一所中學的副校長，是最早被紅衛兵打死的人之一。她的丈夫給她赤裸的、遍體鱗傷的屍體拍了照片，胡傑在紀錄片的開頭使用了這些照片。《3體》的開頭場景讓我想起了這部紀錄片。這部紀錄片從未在中國公開放映過。

Someone on social media recently reposted an old article about Ye Qisong, one of the founders of the study of physics in modern China. In 1967, around the time that the struggle session of the series took place, Mr. Ye, who shared the same family name of the physicist in the opening scene, was detained, beaten and forced to confess crimes he didn’t commit. He went crazy and wandered the streets in Beijing, begging for food and money. The article was circulated widely online before it was censored.

最近有人在社群媒體上轉發了一篇關於葉企孫的舊文。葉是中國近代物理學研究的奠基者之一，與《3體》開場「批鬥會」上的物理學家同姓。葉企孫在1967年被污衊為「特務」，遭到關押、毆打，被迫供認所謂的罪行。他曾一度精神錯亂，流落在北京街頭，向行人乞討食物和錢。文章在網上廣泛流傳後遭到了審查。

There’s a cottage industry of making videos on Chinese social media about “The Three Body Problem.” But few dare to address what led the daughter, a physicist, to invite the aliens to invade the Earth. A video with more than 5 million views on the website Baidu referred to the Cultural Revolution as “the red period” without explaining what happened. Another video with more than 8 million views on the video site Bilibili called it “the what you know event.”

在中國的社群媒體上，關於《三體》的影片內容頗為盛行。但很少有人敢在影片中提出，是什麼原因導致身為物理學家的女兒請外星人來入侵地球。百度網站上一段播放量超過500萬次的影片將文化大革命稱為「紅色的年代」，但沒有解釋發生了什麼。影片網站嗶哩嗶哩上另一段點擊量超過800萬次的影片稱文革為「你懂的事件」。

It's not surprising that fans of the book may have heard of the Cultural Revolution, but they don’t have a concrete idea about the atrocities that the Communist Party and some ordinary Chinese committed. That’s why the reactions to the Netflix series are concerning to some Chinese.

這本書的粉絲可能聽說過文化大革命，但他們對於中共和一些普通中國人在「文革」期間犯下的暴行沒有具體概念，這並不奇怪。這是國內對網飛版《3體》的反應讓一些人感到擔憂的原因。

A human rights lawyer posted on WeChat that because of his age, he saw some struggle sessions when he was a child. “If I lived a bit longer, I might even get to experience it firsthand,” he wrote. “It’s not called reincarnation. It’s called history.”

一名維權律師在微信上寫道，他的年齡足夠大，讓他在小時候看到過一些批鬥會。「如果我活得更久一點，我甚至可能會親身體驗，」他寫道。「這不叫轉世。這就是歷史。」