中國股民如賭徒 Gamblers on Chinese stocks abandon their fortune to fate
Any gambler who has spent time in the casinos of Macau knows More or less exactly what is going on with the wild volatility in the Chinese stock markets, which has wiped out millions of dollars worth of shares in a few weeks.
任何一名在澳門賭場玩過的賭客，或多或少都瞭解中國股市的大漲大跌到底是怎麼回事。幾周之內，中國股市就蒸發掉了數萬億美元的市值。
The sudden panic reminded me of the way a table of baccarat players at the city’s Lisboa casino will — with irrational violence of mood — suddenly abandon a table and rush towards another, where the i ching or “winds of fortune” have mysteriously alighted according to supernatural laws that no one understands or wants to understand.
這波突如其來的恐慌讓我想起了，澳門葡京娛樂場(Lisboa Casino)裏的一桌百家樂(baccarat)玩家是怎樣帶着強烈的非理性情緒，突然離開一桌、奔向另一桌——因爲“運氣”已依據某些無人明白、也無人想明白的超自然法則神祕地降臨在另一桌上。
I know that feeling well. In darker days, I used to hole up at the old Lisboa (Macau’s most venerable old-style casino, owned by Stanley Ho, the redoubtable property developer and champion ballroom dancer) and while away my nights descending through the vertically stacked casinos, one by one, with ever-diminishing handfuls of chips. When I embarked on these self-defeating ventures (as any casino executive will tell you, the punter always loses to the house), I had no idea how the Chinese approached matters of luck, fortune and sudden wealth gained not by hard work or cunning but by the act of throwing yourself into the flow of the i ching. For the favourite Chinese game at the tables is baccarat punto blanco, virtually the only card game played in commercial casinos that involves no skill or intelligence whatsoever.
我非常瞭解那種感覺。在比較陰鬱的日子裏，我曾躲進老葡京娛樂場（澳門最令人仰慕的老式賭場，所有者是令人敬畏的地產開發商兼交誼舞高手何鴻燊(Stanley Ho)），在那裏消磨夜間時光，逛完這一層的賭場再逛下一層，手裏的籌碼不斷減少。當我展開這些自我挫敗性質的冒險時（任何一位賭場高管都會告訴你，賭客總是會輸給賭場），我真不知道中國人是如何對待運氣、機會的，也不知道他們如何對待不是通過勤奮或動腦子、而是通過聽任運氣擺佈而獲得的意外之財。賭桌上最受中國人歡迎的遊戲是北美百家樂(Punto Banco)，它幾乎是商業賭場裏唯一一種不需絲毫技巧或智慧的紙牌遊戲。
To play this form of baccarat requires nothing but passivity and resignation. The punter — less a player than a participant in forces outside his or her control — is handed a trio of cards and turns them willy-nilly. There is a strange pleasure in accepting this way of relating to money. Win or lose, it is not your fault but the fault of cosmic “winds.”
玩這種百家樂遊戲，玩家只需要做到被動和順從。賭客——與其說是玩家，不如說是參與了自身無法控制的力量的人——會收到三張牌，然後不管願意不願意都要把這三張牌翻開。接受這種與錢建立聯繫的方式，讓人有一種奇怪的喜悅感。不管輸贏，都不是你個人的責任，而是宇宙之“勢”的責任。
This superstition is cemented into the casino’s physical structure — both in the gigantic jade statues of the goddess of luck and in the vertical boards of numbers by each baccarat table, which show every player the direction in which each “wind” is blowing at that moment. Winning or losing trends for that table are tabulated as lines of numbers thought to show where the momentum lies.
這種迷信被牢牢嵌入了賭場的物理結構中，比如巨大的玉質幸運女神雕像，以及每張百家樂賭桌旁邊的數字立板。立板向每名玩家展示，此時此刻每種“氣”正吹向哪個方向。賭桌的輸贏趨勢被標記爲成行的數字，這些數字據信展示了運勢所在。
Around the tables there is a mood of collective hysteria and suspension of disbelief. The gamblers seem at times to go into trances, mesmerised by what they think is the movement of luck swinging in their direction (or indeed away from it). When a table’s numbers shift, the players hare off to a more propitious one. Yet they have no control whatsoever over their outcomes at any table. It is mystifying but, when you are a participant, exhilarating precisely because you have surrendered control.
賭桌周圍，賭客們全都陷入了歇斯底里，瀰漫着懷疑情緒。他們似乎時不時地進入恍惚狀態，癡迷地關注着那些他們認爲代表運氣正朝自己擺過來（或擺離自己）的變化。當桌旁的數字發生變化時，玩家們就朝着一個更幸運的賭桌飛奔過去。但他們其實控制不了自己在任何一桌的結局。這令人困惑不解，但當你參與其中時，反而恰恰會因爲交出了控制權而興奮不已。
Investing on the Shanghai stock exchange, though, is surely different. There, one would think, skill, shrewdness and prudence would pay better dividends than trusting to the impersonal forces of luck. Yet the Chinese refer to playing the stock markets as chao gupiao — “stir frying” stocks. They do not see it as long-term investing but as a kind of gambling in order to grow rich as quickly and effortlessly as possible. Like a fling at the baccarat table, a stir fry is fast and tasty; it needs little thought. The “player” is entering a collective state of hope and superstition.
不過，在上海證交所投資股票肯定是不同的。人們會認爲，在那裏，相對於聽憑客觀運勢擺佈，技巧、機智和審慎能給你帶來更大的紅利。然而，中國人卻把投資股市叫作“炒股”。他們不把這當作長期投資，而是當作一種賭博，目標是儘可能快、儘可能不費力地致富。正如在百家樂賭桌上恣意行樂一樣，“炒”又快又好玩，基本不需要思考。“玩家”正在進入一種集體的希冀和迷信狀態。
Most Chinese investors are private citizens of relatively modest means, many of whom have borrowed to make their purchases. They have not necessarily devoted painstaking analysis to their trades, and when the market tumbles they stampede. The stock market problem is mainly one of confidence.
大多數中國投資者是財富相對不多的散戶，其中許多人借錢買股票。他們未必潛心分析了他們的交易，當股市大跌時，他們會競相出逃。股市的問題主要是信心問題。
But confidence is what a casino runs on, and what a gambler in that casino also runs on. An American executive who runs a big Macau casino once told me that, although the house could finely calculate the mathematical odds for or against the player at any given game, it could never calculate how the Chinese would react to good or bad luck. “That,” he said wearily, “is pure psychology.”
但信心是賭場運行的基礎，也是賭場中賭客下注的基礎。一名在澳門經營一家大型賭場的美國高管曾告訴我，儘管賭場能精確計算出某一給定遊戲中玩家輸贏的數學概率，但說到中國人對好運氣或壞運氣會作何反應，賭場卻永遠也算不出來。“那個，”他疲倦地說，“純粹是個心理問題。”
