A couple of weeks back, I was sit-ting under a mango tree in western Kenya, when Senator Barack Obama's half-sister Auma says to me: "My daughter's father is British. My mom's brother is married to a Russian. I have a brother in China engaged to a Chi-nese woman."

幾星期前，我坐在肯亞西部一棵芒果樹下，這時參議員歐巴馬同父異母的妹妹歐瑪告訴我：「我女兒的爸爸是英國人。我媽的弟弟和俄羅斯人結婚。我有個弟弟在中國，還和一個中國女人訂婚。」

My understanding is that this half brother living in China is Mark. He's the son of Obama's father and an American woman named Ruth, whom Obama Sr. met while at Har-vard in the 1960s and brought back to Kenya. That was after his marriage with Obama's mother in Hawaii end-ed. Another son from the union with Ruth, called David, was killed in a motorcycle accident. In all, Obama Sr. fathered eight children by four women.

據我所知，這位同父異母住在中國的弟弟叫馬克，他是歐巴馬的父親和一個叫露絲的美國女人所生的兒子，老歐巴馬1960年代上哈佛大學時認識露絲，並把她們母子帶回肯亞。那是在他和歐巴馬的母親在夏威夷的婚姻結束之後的事。和露絲所生的另一個兒子叫大衛，在一次車禍中喪生。老歐巴馬前後總共和四個女人生了八個子女。

I've been thinking about this be-cause not enough has been written about Obama's family. As Auma sug-gested, it's unusual in the extent of its continent-crossing, religion-melding, color-fusing richness. But the Benet-ton-ad family is less unusual than it may seem. This is the age of globalized, far-flung families.

我一直在思考這個問題，因為有關歐巴馬家庭背景的報導不多。誠如歐瑪所說的，跨越不同的洲，融合不同的宗教，結合不同的膚色，其文化豐富的程度非比尋常。但這個有如斑尼頓廣告五顏六色的家庭，其實比表面看來還要正常。這是全球化下遠距家庭的時代。

More needs to be written because if Obama gets the Democratic nomina-tion, you know the Republican attack machine, through innuendo and oth-erwise, will go after his identity, just as it went after Senator John Kerry's in 2004.

如果歐巴馬獲得民主黨提名角逐總統，有關他的家世背景必須多加著墨，因為大家都知道共和黨的攻擊機器，透過諷刺影射批評等手段，必會緊咬住他的身分認同不放，就像2004年緊咬柯瑞參議員不放。

The difference is that Obama is much more certain and coherent about who he is than Kerry was. He has built his identity in a shifting world; that resonates with a lot of Americans. But you can already see the headlines: Obama has brother in China! You can hear the whisperings about a polygamous father.

不同的是，比起柯瑞，歐巴馬對他是誰比較明確一致得多。他在這個瞬息萬變的世界建立自己的身分和定位，引起很多美國人感同身受。但你彷彿已經可看到斗大的標題：歐巴馬有個弟弟在中國！你也可以聽到有關爸爸一夫多妻的耳語。

That not enough has been written about his family is strange in that Obama himself devoted a remarkable book, "Dreams From My Father," to his quest to fill the void left by an ab-sent Dad. As Auma said to me: "He was trying to figure out who he was. He needed to be whole to be able to do what he's doing now. He went about it the right way. A big chunk of his life was missing. It's very healthy that he now knows he has these roots here."

對歐巴馬的家庭著述不多之所以不尋常，是因為歐巴馬自己寫了一本很了不起的書《我父親的夢想》，尋根並填滿因父親缺席所留下的真空。就像歐瑪告訴我的：「他想搞清楚他到底是誰。他必須要很健全完整，才能做他現在正在做的事。他用正確的方法著手去做。他生命中有一大塊不見了，現在他知道他的根在這裡，是很健康的事。」

Those roots were discovered dur-ing Obama's first visit to Kenya two decades ago. During that trip, as re-counted in his memoir, he encoun-tered Ruth in Nairobi. She is de-scribed as "a white woman with a long jaw and graying hair." But who is Ruth, a woman who divorced Oba-ma's father, remarried, and gave the family name of her second husband to her two sons by Obama Sr. In the book she says to Barack Obama: "But your mother remarried. I wonder why she had you keep your name"

歐巴馬20年前第一次到肯亞就找到他的根。他在回憶錄中重述，在那趟旅程中，他在奈洛比碰到了露絲，他形容她是個「白種女人，長長的下巴，灰色的頭髮。」但這位和歐巴馬的父親離婚的女人露絲又是何許人也。她已經再婚，並把她和老歐巴馬所生的兩個兒子冠上第二任丈夫的姓。書中，她告訴歐巴馬：「你媽媽已經改嫁，不知道為什麼還叫你保留原來的姓名。」

As for Ruth's son, and Obama's half brother, Mark, the one in China, he's described as studying physics at Stan-ford in the 1980s. "The things Mark studies are so complicated only a handful of people really understand it at all," Ruth enthuses. But Mark, "a black man of my height and com-plexion," tells Obama his work's a breeze. He expresses limited interest in their shared father who died in 1982 at 46: "Life's hard enough with-out all the excess baggage," he muses.

至於露絲的兒子、歐巴馬同父異母的弟弟，那個在中國的馬克，書中說他1980年代末上史丹福大學，主修物理。「馬克研究的東西太深奧複雜，只有一小撮人真正了解，」露絲充滿熱情地說。但馬克，「一個身高和外貌和我相去不遠的黑人」告訴歐巴馬，他的工作易如反掌。他對他們共同的父親1982年以46歲之年去世似乎興趣缺缺。「生命中即使沒有那些多餘的包袱，也已經夠沉重了，」他若有所思地說。

If nominated, Obama's family bag-gage will get pored over. Four years ago, Bush's people cast Kerry as un-American for speaking French. A Republican camp campaigning at the sorry nadir of Bush's handiwork will try to portray the war hero John Mc-Cain as more American and patriotic than his opponent.

歐巴馬如果獲得提名，他的家庭包袱將受到詳細檢視。四年前，布希人馬因柯瑞會說法文，而把他打成非美國人。共和黨陣營，在以布希令人扼腕的卑劣手法競選時，將試圖把戰爭英雄馬侃形塑成比對手更美國也更愛國。

But things are different. Less fearful, Americans are less willing to be ma-nipulated. They've backed Obama this far in part because they're sick of the narrow American exceptionalism of Bush's divisive rule. Never before have U.S. fortunes been so tied to the world's. Isolationism is not merely wrong, it's impossible.

但今非昔比。比較不恐懼的美國人，較不願意被操弄，他們力挺歐巴馬至今，部分因為他們唾棄布希統治下狹隘的美國「例外主義」。美國的財富和命運從來沒有如此和世界緊緊綁在一起。孤立主義不只錯誤，根本不可行。

If elected, Obama would be the first genuinely 21st-century leader. The China-Indonesia-Kenya-Britain-

Hawaii web mirrors a world in flux. Obama's bridge-building instincts come from somewhere. For an expectant and often alienated world, they are of central significance.

如果順利當選，歐巴馬將是第一位正港廿一世紀領袖。中國、印尼、肯亞、英國、夏威夷所織成的網，反映一個不斷變動的世界。歐巴馬搭橋的本能和直覺來自某個地方。對一位充滿期待但往往疏離的世界，他們具有核心價值。