今天推送一篇分析中国服装行业劳动力和机器人应用的文章《shirt tales》，发表于年初1月5日《经济学人》周刊，看机器人技术如何帮助中国企业应对人工成本上涨的影响。
文章很长，翻译费时费脑，分四篇推送。
07
Walk through Esquel’s biggest factory in Foshan in the Pearl River Delta and it is clear that even here the robots are coming. The hundreds of workers sitting, heads down, in pink caps are a sight to behold. They are also outnumbered by machines. On some lines, robotic arms swish, trimming collar bottoms and pressing plackets. The devices do fiddly jobs like making sure that tiny pearl-coloured buttons for Banana Republic have the word Banana on the top. Israeli cameras, adapted from military devices, use artificial intelligence to scan for flaws in the fabric, automating one of the most mind-numbing of jobs.
溢达最大的工厂位于珠三角佛山市，也将大批量应用机器人。工厂里坐着数百名工人，带着粉色帽子低着头。机器数量已超过工人数量。在部分生产线，机械臂嗖嗖地挥动着，修剪衣领端头，按压女裙开口。设备完成这些繁琐的工作，就好像要确保珍珠色的纽扣上的字母完好无误。工厂采用被改编之后的以|色|列|军|方照相机，加入人工智能技术，自动完成最琐碎最令人厌烦的工序之一——扫描纺织品上的瑕疵。
the Pearl River Delta 珠三角
behold v. (old use or literary)看见
outnumber v. 超过
swish v. 嗖嗖地挥舞
trim v. 修剪
placket n. 女裙开口
Banana Republic 中、南美洲发展中国家
adapt v. 改写；调整
flaw n. 瑕疵
fabric n. 纺织物
mind-numbing adj. 令人厌烦的
08
Some workers have been displaced but productivity has improved, keeping the firm’s profits stable despite a tripling since 2006 of its average monthly wage in China, to 4,500 yuan ($650). At first workers reacted to the machines rather as English Luddites eyed automated looms. But now they help design them. Esquel managers joke that they do so out of laziness—they want to make their jobs easier. Take “Sister Yan”, a matron in black dress and sensible shoes, who started on the factory floor aged 21. She worried about the shoddy quality of many of the hand-stitched garments, and helped the firm’s engineers to design mechanisms to do the job better. Now she is a senior manager, and with “Brother Ming”, the chief engineer, shares credit for several industrial patents. Tian Ye, an Esquel executive, quips that the increasingly tech-savvy seamstresses are no longer strictly blue-collar workers but nor are they yet white-collar ones either. Instead, he says, they are “checked or striped”.
虽然工人月均工资自2006年以来已上涨至三倍达到4500元（约650美元），但这家公司采用机器取代部分人工，既提升了产量，又稳定了利润。一开始，工人们看到机器就好像英国纺织工人当年看到自动织布机一样。但是现在他们却协助设计这些机器。溢达工厂经理开玩笑说工人们这么做是为了偷懒——他们希望把工作变得更轻松。严姐是一名中年妇女，身穿黑色连衣裙和朴实而舒适的鞋，从21岁开始就在这家工厂上班。她担心手工缝制衣服质量不高，帮助公司的工程师设计机械提升制衣质量。她现在担任高级经理，和总经理明哥共同取得了几项工业专利。田野（音译）是溢达的一名领导，打趣说越来越多技术娴熟的女工不再是严格意义上的蓝领工人，也不是白领工人。
Displace v. 取代
Triple v. 三倍
Matron n. 妇女
Sensible adj. 朴实而舒服的
Shoddy adj. 粗制滥造的
Tech-savvy adj. 技术娴熟的
Seamstress n. 女裁缝
Strip v. 除去；脱去
09
Automation is also expected to help Esquel in the trade standoff with America. Despite the frictions, Marjorie Yang, Esquel’s chairman, is in effect doubling down on China. She touts a 2bn yuan investment in a new factory in Guilin, a picturesque region, including a yarn-spinning division so high-tech that visitors are not allowed to walk the floors. So far Esquel’s products have been spared American tariffs. American clients are nervous, so if need be the firm could shift some production to its factories outside China, such as in Mauritius, while moving other lines back home.
溢达希望生产自动化助其克服|中|美|贸|易|僵局。即使在|中|美|贸|易|摩擦的当口，溢达主席Marjorie Yang依然加倍了在中国的投资。她声称在风景如画的桂林投资了20亿人民币建立一家新工厂，新工厂包含一个不允许来访者在厂房内行走的高科技纺纱模块。到目前为止，溢达产品还未受到美国关税制裁。但美国客户还是紧张，如有必要，溢达可以把部分产能转移到国外，比如毛里求斯，同时把其他生产线转回国内。
|贸|易|战|：trade dispute/conflict/spat/friction/standoff
Tout v. 标榜
Picturesque adj. 优美的
Yarn-spinning n. 纺纱
Spare v. 免得
Mauritius n. 毛里求斯
下篇再续~
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