It strikes me as strange now — that for so many years of childhood our school day began with the Pledge of Allegiance. As strange as 10pm public service announcements on TV asking parents if they knew where their children were, or being told to crouch under our desks in the case of a nuclear bomb, or, for that matter, the whole cold war. The transformation of life into history has a way of revealing the peculiarity of things we blindly accepted while living through them. Yet, even as early as kindergarten, the daily pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America (and “the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible”) was a bone in my throat.
如今回想起来，我觉得很奇怪——为何我们童年的那么多年里，学校的一天总是从宣誓效忠开始。这种怪异，和晚上10点电视上播放的公益广告要家长确认知不知道自己孩子在哪儿一样，和老师教我们一旦发生核弹袭击就要躲到课桌底下一样，甚至和整个冷战本身一样。等到生活变成历史，人们才会逐渐看清，那些在当时被我们习以为常的事其实多么诡异。然而，早在幼儿园时，每天向美利坚合众国(United States of America)的国旗宣读效忠誓词（以及“其所代表的共和国——在上帝之下、不可分割的一个国家”）这件事，对我而言就像喉咙里的一根硬骨头。