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Somewhere near the middle of his time at Stuyvesant, a vague sense of discontent started to emerge within Mao. He had always felt himself a part of a mob of "nameless, faceless Asian kids," who were "like a part of the decor of the place." He had been content to keep his head down and work toward the goal shared by everyone at Stuyvesant: Harvard. But around the beginning of his senior year, he began to wonder whether this march toward academic success was the only, or best, path.
当毛在史岱文森待了大约一半日子时，他的心中开始隐约产生不满。他始终觉得自己是那一大群“没有姓名、没有个性的亚洲孩子”中的一分子，就像是“这地方的一个装饰品”。他一直心甘情愿地埋头苦读，向着当时史岱文森所有学生的目标一哈佛努力。然而升上高二没多久，他就开始怀疑，这条通往学业成功的征途，是否是唯一的，或者最好的道路。
You can't help but feel like there must be another way, he explains over a bowl of pho. "It's like, we're being pitted against each other while there are kids out there in the Midwest who can do way less work and be in a garage band or something—and if they're decently intelligent and work decently hard in school…"
“你总会忍不住觉得一定还有另外一条路，”他边吃着面前的一碗越南河粉，边解释道。“我们这些亚裔孩子在互相较着劲，而中西部的孩子们需要做的功课则少得多，可以参加车库乐队之类的活动，如果这些人本身相当聪明，在学校里学习也很用功的话……”
Mao began to study the racially inflected social hierarchies at Stuyvesant: where, in a survey undertaken by the student newspaper this year, slightly more than half of the respondents reported that their friends within their own ethnic group. His attention focused on the mostly group whose members seemed able to manage the crushing workload whilt still remaining socially active. "The general gist of most high school movies is that the pretty cheerleader gets with the big dumb jock, and the nerd is left to bide his time in loneliness. But at some point in the future," he says, "the nerd is going to rule the world, and the dumb jock is going to work in a carwash."
毛开始研究起史岱文森高中内部受种族影响的社会等级制度。史岱文森学生报今年做了一项校内调査，过半受调査者都声称他们的朋友和自己来自同一民族。他尤其关注大多数白人团体，这些人似乎可以在应付繁忙学业的同时，仍然坚持着活跃的社交活动。“大多数高中生电影的狗血情节是漂亮的啦啦队长跟了四肢发达、头脑简单的肌肉男，而书呆子则被晾在一卑，寂寞地独自打发时日，”他说，“但在将来的某一天，这个书呆子将会统治世界，而肌肉男却只能在洗车场工作。”
At Stuy, it's completely different: If you looked at the pinnacle, the girls and the guys are not only good-looking and socially affable, they also get the best grades and star in the school plays and win election to student government. It all converges at the top. It's like training for high society. It was jarring for us Chinese kids. You got the sense that you had to study hard, but it wasn't enough.
“但是在史岱文森，情况完全不同：如果你看一下尖子生队伍，那些男生女生绝不仅仅是相貌出众、八面玲珑，他们获得优异的成绩，是校园剧的明星，并且在学生会选举拔得头筹。所有这些荣誉都集聚在顶端，就好像在为进入上流社会进行训练。这让我们这些中国孩子很受震动。你会觉得努力学习很必要，但光这样是不够的。”
