A well-husbanded resource
China, we are told, will be the next great economic superpower. It is a country that everyone in business has to take seriously and learn something about. Last weekend, the school attended by Cost Centre Number One held a conference about teaching Mandarin in schools and I discovered that by the time Cost Centre Number Two follows his brother to that school, Mandarin will be a compulsory subject for at least a year.
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This reminded me of a letter once published in the FT about a column I used to write for the paper's previous Saturday magazine, The Business. Letters to the editor are taken very seriously, and having one selected for publication is an honour.
The letter I remembered came from Benjamin James, then as now an employee of the law firm Bircham Dyson Bell and someone I have never met in my life. He mostly complained about the lack of men's fashion coverage in the FT's How to Spend It magazine, but also included a kind comment about my jottings. He went on to say that Mrs Moneypenny "is very popular in China, judging by the number of people asking to read her column when I was there last".
He was not to know that five years later, my Chinese readership would expand as never before. I have recently had a surprising number of e-mails from readers in China and had assumed they had been reading me on FT.com. Indeed, they have been accessing me online, but not in English. Unbeknown to me, the FT has been translating my column into Chinese and I am available to every one of the Chinese edition's registered users - more than 250,000 people.
The first I knew of this was when I received an e-mail from a Chinese reader asking me for the definition of "corporate husband". Apparently in the Chinese edition the FT had translated corporate husband into "economic husband".
I looked up the word "economic" on my favourite online dictionary. It has five different meanings, and the only one that could possibly apply to my husband is "having practical or industrial significance or uses: affecting material resources".
Let me assure you, all my readers in China and elsewhere, that Mr M certainly fits this definition. He has many practical uses and he also affects material resources. Practical uses include changing lightbulbs and getting rid of spiders, although he's not tremendously handy with a power drill and flatly refuses to assemble anything resembling Ikea furniture.
He also affects material resources in both a positive way (he earns a good salary and gets 40 per cent off our household wine through his wine business) and a negative one. True, he doesn't cost much to run in the way of food but his golf club membership is not cheap, and he also belongs to the Marylebone Cricket Club (a posh club, where he is a playing member) and has aspirant tastes when it comes to restaurants. Plus he is Australian and feels the need to visit regularly. Then there is the need to accumulate golf clubs made out of material that would do a space shuttle proud. And the 17 blue sweaters, monthly golf magazines, 600-plus books on cricket, the endless number of ready-made supermarket curries and so on.
A corporate husband, for my readers in China, is a husband who is very supportive of his wife's business. Mr M accompanies me to client dinners and is excellent company; he takes particular care to engage the client's spouse in conversation and make them feel appreciated. He has also been known to play golf with my clients, give up his weekend to stay at their houses and find and deliver fabulous bottles of wine to them when I wish to send them a special present. What more could a girl ask for?
I am delighted to be appearing in the Chinese language edition of the FT, but it did come as a bit of a shock. I immediately e-mailed the man who runs the FT in Asia and suggested that he might have given me some warning. Of course, it is true to say that I (and any other warm-blooded heterosexual woman on the planet) would forgive this man anything. He has film-star looks (although is probably a bit thin for my liking) and, as far as I am concerned, can translate my column into any Asian language he wishes.
On reflection, perhaps I should have realised I was going to be translated into Chinese. The trials and tribulations of being a woman who works full time, with a husband and a home to manage and who is engaged in putting children through a hideously expensive education, are not restricted to the UK. Or even China.
钱眼先生中国奇遇记
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人说，中国将成为下一个超级经济大国。商界人士都必须对中国认真考虑一番，并掌握一些与中国有关的知识。上周末，成本中心1号所在的学校，召开了一个关于在学校教中文的会议，我发现，在成本2号追随他哥哥进入这所学校时，中文将成为一门必修课，至少要学一年。
这让我想起曾发表在《金融时报》上的一封读者来信，内容与我过去为该报原先的周六版杂志――商业(The Business)――撰写的一个专栏有关。读者来信都会受到编辑认真对待，能有一封信被选出来发表，是一种荣誉。
我记得，这封信出自本杰明?詹姆斯(Benjamin James)之手，他当时和现在都供职于律师事务所Bircham Dyson Bell，这个人我生平从未遇到过。他主要是在抱怨，《金融时报》如何消费(How to Spend It) 杂志缺少男性的时尚内容，不过对我的文章有些好评。他接下去表示，“根据上次在中国期间所遇要求阅读钱眼太太专栏的人数判断”，钱眼太太“在中国很受欢迎”。
他当时没有想到，5年之后，我在中国的读者群将以前所未有的速度扩大。最近，我收到了来自中国读者、数量惊人的电子邮件，我本以为他们都是通过FT.com看到我的文章的。事实上，他们是在网上读到我的文章，语言却非英文。我还真不知道，《金融时报》一直在把我的专栏译成中文，FT中文网逾25万注册用户（编者注：最新数字为30万）都可以看到我的文章。
我第一了解到这种情况，是当我收到一封来自中国读者的电子邮件时，他在邮件中询问“corporate husband”的定义。显然，《金融时报》中文网把这个词翻译成了“经济型丈夫(economic husband)”。
我从自己最喜欢的网上字典中，查找“经济的（economic）”一词。上面有5个不同的解释，其中只有一个可能适用于我丈夫，即“具有实际或工业的意义或用途：影响物质资源”。
中国和其它地方的读者们，请你们放心，这种解释确实适用于钱眼先生。他有许多实际的用途，也的确影响着物质资源。他的实际用途包括：更换灯泡、消灭蜘蛛，不过，他不是很擅长使用电钻，并且完全拒绝组装任何类似宜家(Ikea)家具那样的东西。
他影响物质资源的方式既有积极的一面（他挣钱不少，同时，由于他从事葡萄酒业务， 我们家自己喝的酒可以享受40%的折扣），也有消极的一面。不错，他在吃的方面是花不了多少钱，但他的高尔夫俱乐部会员卡可不便宜，他还是玛丽勒本板球俱乐部(Marylebone Cricket Club)的会员。这是个时髦的俱乐部，他是那里参加比赛的选手。在餐厅方面，他也有着不俗的品味。此外，他是个澳大利亚人，因此觉得自己必要定期回国看看。他还需要攒一堆质地上佳的高尔夫球杆，其制作材料不逊于航天飞机。再有，他还拥有17件蓝色毛衫、高尔夫月刊、600多册板球方面的书籍，以及不计其数的超市速成咖喱等等。
对于我的中国读者而言，一位有经济头脑、有企业头脑的丈夫，就是一个非常支持妻子事业的丈夫。钱眼先生陪我与客户聚餐，是个非常优秀的同伴；他特别注意让客户的配偶参与谈话，并让他们觉得自己受重视。据我所知，他还和我的客户一起打高尔夫，整个周末都呆在人家家里，并且在我希望送客户一份特殊礼物时，他会找出数量惊人的美酒，并把它们贡献出来。一个女子还能再奢求什么呢？
我很高兴自己的文章出现在《金融时报》中文网上，但当时的确感到有些惊讶。我立即给负责《金融时报》亚洲业务的人发了一封电子邮件，告诉他应该事先给我提个醒。当然了，确实可以这么说：我（和这个星球上其他任何异性恋热血女性）都会原谅这位男士所做的一切。他有着电影明星般的相貌(尽管按照我的喜好来看，他可能有些偏瘦)，而且就我而言，他可以把我的专栏任意译成任何一种亚洲语言。
回头想想，我应该意识到自己的文章会被译成中文。一个需要全职工作、照料丈夫和家庭、要为子女异常昂贵的教育费用而打拼的女人，她所面临的考验和磨难，不仅并不局限于英国；甚至也不局限于中国。
