Decadence

12月18日，中國首屆“人造美女”選美大賽總決賽將在北京舉行，屆時20名17至62歲的人造美女將在舞臺上盡情展示她們精心修飾的美麗。據悉，這也是世界上首屆人造美女選美賽事，引起了路透社、美聯社等三十多家世界知名媒體的關注，外電報道如下：China will soon host the finals of the country's first beauty contest in which every contestant has gone under the knife. Twenty "man-made" beauties will parade their surgical nips and tucks next Saturday in the hope of taking home the country's first Miss Artificial Beauty crown. The contest is the latest addition to China's beauty pageant scene after Miss World was held in the southern island of Hainan for two years in a row. Beauty pageants were once considered reviled displays of western decadence but have become big business in Communist-ruled China following more than two decades of economic reforms. "I wanted to convey a message to society -- that the pursuit of beauty is ageless," said 62-year-old Liu Yulan, the oldest contestant who turned to plastic surgery to smooth facial wrinkles and fill out her drawn cheeks. Another contestant, who did not make the Miss Artificial Beauty finals, spent $36,000 in her quest for the perfect body, according to a Chinese Web site. Decadence表示“頹廢，墮落，衰落”，例如：The 1890s in Europe are widely regarded as years of social decadence.（19世紀90年代的歐洲被普遍認為處于社會頹廢時期。）19世紀末期，英法兩國曾興起一種文學運動，以高雅美學、技巧和追求新感覺為特征，被后人稱作Decadence（頹廢派文藝）。 （中國日報網站編）