背景介绍：
《官僚之夏》是一部反映1970年代日本官场生态的小说，描绘了主人公 Kazagoshi Shingo 拒绝为等级制度服务，坚守为国家效力的信念。该书出版于1975年，正值日本战后经济繁荣期，公务员权势显赫。然而，时至今日，日本公务员队伍面临人才流失困境，精英人才转向创业领域，公共部门人才短缺问题严峻，成为亟待解决的社会议题。
Youngsters are fleeing Japan’s
once-mighty civil service
日本年轻人正在逃离曾经强大的公务员队伍
Why would anyone sane and talented work for it?
一个理智而有才华的人为何会为它工作？
“We work for the nation, not for the cabinet minister,” crows Kazagoshi Shingo, the hero of “The Summer of Bureaucrats”, a Japanese novel. Kazagoshi, an official at the ministry of trade and industry, refuses to rise from his seat to greet his minister, a politician only nominally above him in the hierarchy.
“我们为国家效力，而非仅为内阁大臣服务，”日本小说《官僚之夏》中的主人公 Kazagoshi Shingo 高声疾呼。Kazagoshi 作为通商产业省的一名官员，毅然拒绝起身迎接其上司——一位在等级制度上仅略高于他的政客。
Published in 1975, the book captured the power of Japanese mandarins during the post-war boom, when graduates from elite universities clamoured for jobs in marquee ministries. Top bureaucrats had status and power akin to top bankers. They made the machinery of the Japanese state whir.
此书于1975年面世，精准捕捉了战后经济繁荣时期日本官员所享有的权势，彼时，精英大学的毕业生们竞相涌入各大政府部门谋求职位。高层官员的地位与权力堪比顶级银行家，他们共同驱动着日本的国家机器轰鸣向前。
These days it is winter for Japan’s once-mighty civil service. Talented cadres are fleeing harsh work conditions in search of greater opportunities and more flexibility. The number of elite “career-track” civil servants who quit within their first ten years on the job has hit record highs in the past two years.
时至今日，日本曾一度强盛的公务员队伍已步入寒冬。才华横溢的干部正纷纷逃离恶劣的工作环境，追求更多机遇与更大灵活性。过去两年间，精英“职业路径”公务员在职业生涯前十年内离职的人数创下历史新高。
Applications for civil-servant positions fell by 30% between 2012 and 2023. The share of graduates from the University of Tokyo, Japan’s top university, among those who passed the career-track exam declined from 32% in 2000 to less than 10% this year. Today’s best and brightest prefer jobs at startups.
自2012年至2023年，公务员职位的申请量下降了30%。尤为值得关注的是，日本顶尖学府东京大学毕业生在公务员考试应试者中的占比，已从2000年的32%锐减至今年的不足10%。当前，最为杰出与聪慧的人才更倾向于投身创业公司。
That may be welcome news for Japan Inc. But the exodus of talent from the public sector also has worrying implications. Even though their power has waned since Kazagoshi’s era, bureaucrats still play an outsize part in Japan’s policymaking process.
对于企业界而言，这或许是个利好消息。然而，公共部门的人才流失亦带来了令人忧虑的影响。尽管自 Kazagoshi 时代以来，官僚们的权势已有所削弱，但他们在日本政策制定过程中依旧扮演着举足轻重的角色。
Parliamentarians have skeleton staffs and often turn to mandarins for legislative support. In Japan civil servants “play a political role”, notes Steven Vogel of the University of California, Berkeley.
国会议员依赖骨干人员，常向官员寻求立法上的支持。加州大学伯克利分校的史蒂文·沃格尔指出，在日本，公务员“履行着政治职能”。
At a time when Japan faces complex challenges, from managing an ageing population to grappling with new technologies such as artificial intelligence, it can ill afford a hollowed-out civil service.
面对诸如管理人口老龄化及应对人工智能等新技术等复杂挑战，日本无法承受一个空心化的公务员队伍。
The future of the bureaucracy is a pressing issue as the ruling Liberal Democratic Party prepares to elect a new leader on September 27th to replace Kishida Fumio, the outgoing prime minister.
随着执政的自民党筹备于9月27日选举新领导人以接替即将卸任的首相岸田文雄，官僚机构的未来成为了亟待解决的问题。
Kono Taro, a leading candidate, has served thrice as minister for administrative reform (in addition to stints atop the digital, defence and foreign ministries, among other posts); he made a name for himself in part by waging war against outdated technologies still prevalent in the Japanese state, such as fax machines and floppy disks. Keizai Doyukai, a big business association, called overhauling the bureaucracy an “urgent” matter for upcoming reform.
主要候选人河野太郎曾三度担任行政改革大臣（并兼任数位、防卫和外交大臣等职务），其声名鹊起部分归因于他对在日本依然盛行的传真机和软盘等过时技术的“宣战”。经济同友会强调，对于即将推行的改革而言，彻底革除官僚主义是一项“紧迫”的任务。
You need only visit Kasumigaseki, Tokyo’s central government district, late at night to grasp the problem. After the subways close, taxis mass around ministry buildings as if they were nightclubs.
只需在深夜时分前往位于东京的中央政府所在地霞关，便能深切体会到这一问题的严峻性。地铁停运后，出租车如同夜总会门前的车辆一般，在政府大楼周围聚集。
Often the cause of late nights is last-minute requests from lawmakers to prepare answers for hearings the next day. When responding to such queries, bureaucrats tend to finish work around 1am—leaving a few hours to sleep before attending parliament. One former foreign ministry official who quit to be a consultant recalls working 100 hours of overtime each month during his first two years.
立法者常于最后一刻要求准备次日听证会的答复，官员们往往因此熬夜至凌晨1点左右才能完成工作——在出席议会会议前，他们仅有数小时的休息时间。一位离职后转行成为顾问的前外交部官员回忆道，在其任职的头两年里，每月加班时间超过100小时。
The Japanese government is a microcosm of the worst of the country’s office culture. Some now refer to Kasumigaseki as a “black” workplace—code for exploitative conditions and a harsh work culture.
日本政府，无疑是这个国家最为糟糕的办公室文化的缩影。如今，霞关在某些人眼中已被冠以“黑色”工作场所之名——剥削性条件与严酷工作文化的代名词。
Archaic and analogue ways of doing business still reign. An insular, seniority-based promotion system constrains the career prospects of recruits. Bullying by politicians is all too common, and goes unpunished. “If you are sane, why would you do this work?” says one parliamentarian. “The smart ones are leaving—and we feel it.”
古老且相似的经营模式依旧占据主导地位，狭隘的、以资历为基础的晋升制度严重制约了新员工的职业发展。政客恃强凌弱的行为屡见不鲜，且往往未受应有惩罚。一位议员感叹道：“若你理智尚存，为何会选择这份工作？聪明人正在离去——我们深有体会。”
重难点词汇：
hierarchy [ˈhaɪərɑːki] n. 等级制度；层次结构
mandarin [ˈmændərɪn] n. （尤指中国清朝的）官员；满清官吏；普通话；（尤指中国的）柑橘
clamour [ˈklæmə(r)] n. 喧闹；叫嚷；强烈要求 v. 大声叫嚷；强烈要求
bureaucrat [ˈbjʊərəkræt] n. 官僚；官僚主义者
cadre [ˈkɑːdrə(r)] n. 干部；骨干；框架；骨干人员
exodus [ˈeksədəs] n. 离去；迁出；（尤指为逃避战争或迫害的）成群外出
prevalent [ˈprevələnt] adj. 流行的；盛行的；普遍的
insular [ˈɪnsələr] adj. 狭隘的；岛屿的；偏狭的
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