原著：董刚 译注：骆海辉 传神社区
那个村庄的名字很陌生，而且我并不认识这家人，但是我却记住了他们的名字，不是因为这对双胞胎兄弟在今年的高考中发挥出色，一个考上中国人民大学，另一个考上南开大学，而是，他们的父母每天默默画下的整圆和半圆，这里面全都是情和爱。
This is a story about an ordinary family in a remote village. They became well-known overnight in their place this year because one of their twin sons is allowed into Renmin University of China in Beijing and another one Nankai University in Tianjin. I have learned their names by heart though I am unacquainted with them before. What has impressed me most is not the excellent performance of the twins in their entrance exams to universities. Of course, I know it is not easy for high school graduates to go to a top university, let alone key university directly under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Education. What have engraved in my memory are the semi-circles and circles drawn by their parents every day. In my eyes, they are nothing but pictograms full of love!
这家的父亲叫洪应博母亲叫熊明兰，虽然名字起的挺响亮，但是他们两个人却是都不识字的，因为不识字，当村子里的人离开故土去外地打工赚钱的时候，他们只能呆在家里，靠着土地的收成生活。
Hong Yingbo is the father's name while Xiong Minglan the mother's, both being names in style. However, they are both barely literate. Because of their deficiencies in education, they have to stay at home and make a hard living on farm while most of the fellow villagers are able to immigrate into cities to make money.
和所有人一样，他们也有自己的孩子，还是双胞胎，兄弟俩一个叫洪杰，另一个叫洪双，也许是父母吃了不识字的苦，把所有的希望寄托在两个孩子身上，也许是两个孩子太热爱学习，知道只有知识才能改变命运，从小大到，两个孩子的学习成绩都是名列前茅，从小懂事的孩子一放假就帮着父母干活，在学校里，他们吃的最简单，学的最好，一转眼，他们就要高中毕业了走入社会了，这也就意味着他们将要走进高考，让高考来检验他们的能力。
Like other parents, they also have young children to rear. However, they have to overcome no small difficulties to bring the twins up in rural areas. Because they are often literally embarrassed, they have named the twins Hong Jie (Jie, literally means excellence) and Hong Shuang (Shuang, literally means two), hoping that the two brothers will be both excellent in world. The twins have been indeed as good as gold from childhood. In school, the twin brothers seem so aware of the significance of being knowledgeable that they are keen on studies, always ranking the top list in class. After school, they do their bits to help with farming works. Among their classmates, they are simple in life but superior in studies. With years passing by, they have grown up into high school students, for whom the entrance exams to university would be a chance to test their abilities for the future life in society.
然而，这个家实在是太穷了，父母在土地上的辛劳只能维持家里的生活，哥哥洪双左眼先天性眼睑下垂，是全家心头的忧患。当然，他们也有打工的机会，附近有人建房或者务农需要劳力，他们就会第一个想到洪爸爸，洪爸爸也很珍惜这个机会，总是用最大的能力去做事。
However, the family is too poor to afford a higher education for the twins. They have been suffering extreme poverty, for the parents' hard work in the fields all the year round brings home merely the daily bread. And the elder brother's congenital ptosis - a drooping of the upper eyelid from birth - has also been a big worry for the whole family. So Father Hong has to find himself some odd jobs when villagers in the neighborhood happen to need hands either to build a house or to do farming works. Willing to help him release the financial tensions, villagers would offer such job opportunity first to Father Hong, who would spare no effort to do things well in turn.
农村打工没有城里那么正规，一般当时没有现钱，都是过后有钱了再支付。洪爸爸只需要把自己打工的情况记清楚就行了，可是对不识字的人来说，记账也是一件难事，洪爸爸想了一个办法，如果做了一整天的工，回来之后就在本子上画一个整圈，如果是半天就画个半圆，帐结清多少就划掉多少整圆或者半圆，几年下来，家里记账的本子有好厚一叠，这些整圆或者半圆全都是父母艰辛的记录。
Doing odd jobs in the countryside is quite different from that of in cities. The employee can not be paid in time, for the employer himself might have no money as well. For the inferred payment, the father has to keep a record. But it is no easy work for him to record all he has done, because he does not know how to write. However, Father Hong has his own way: he would draw a circle for a whole day and a semi-circle for half a day of work. When he has been paid each time, he would cross out either a circle or a semi-circle. Years after years, there is a thick pile of such records, telling what roughest and toughest times he has experienced.
世间操心最多的人是我们父母亲，他们是我们最值得感恩的人，富裕或者贫穷只是一种表象，给予的爱才是最真实的，很多时候我们并不知道，我们每一个人成长的背后，其实都有父母划下的整圆和半圆，爱是边界，圆心就是我们。
Of all the people in the world, our parents are the very persons who bother their heads about us. It is our parents that we should give our one hundred and one thanks. No matter being rich or being poor we shall cherish the love from our parents to the utmost. Not all of us, however, have realized that our parents would have drawn such circles or semi-circles in their own way as Father Hong did - with us young children being the center, they are drawing pictogram for love! | 
