海外文化:美國唐人街緩慢衰落

The BBC visits New York's Chinatown for the new year celebrations to see how the community is changing

爲進一步瞭解美國華人羣體的變化，英國廣播公司探訪了紐約唐人街的新年慶祝活動。

Chinatowns are a feature of many US cities, but some of the best known are succumbing to gentrification, campaigners say. Even one of the largest and most vibrant, in Manhattan, is slowly being invaded by luxury shops and apartment buildings.

唐人街是衆多美國城市的一個特點，但社會活動家稱，一些最有名的唐人街正不得不順應社區高檔化（即貴族化）趨勢的發展。甚至其中最大和最有活力的曼哈頓唐人街也正在逐漸被豪華商店和公寓樓所侵蝕。

It's late afternoon and Mei Rong Song is serving a few last customers in Lao San Snack on East Broadway. Giant metal pots steam behind a counter stacked with metal trays of pig's blood, heart and intestines. Mei has run her restaurant for a decade, catering to a wave of immigrants who began arriving in the 1980s from Fuzhou in south-eastern China.

傍晚，在東百老匯的“老三小吃”，梅榮鬆（音譯）正在爲最後幾名用餐的顧客服務。櫃檯上堆放着盛着豬血、豬心、豬腸的金屬託盤，後面巨大的金屬蒸籠正煮着（食物）。梅的餐廳已經開了十年，用餐顧客主要是20世紀80年代開始移民過來的一波來自中國東南部福州地區的移民。

But high rents have been pushing Chinese immigrants out of the area, their place taken by wealthier white tenants.

但高昂的租金使得中國移民逐漸退出該地區，富裕的白人接手這些地方取而代之。

"My shop has Fuzhou speciality foods, and as Fuzhounese people stop living in this neighbourhood there's less and less demand for what I sell," she says. " I don't know that I can stay for more than a year or two."

“我的店供應福州特色食品，但隨着這一街區的福州人逐漸搬遷，我店裏的顧客也越來越少。”她說道，“我不知道我還能在這待一年多還是兩年。”

Rapid immigration led to the formation of US Chinatowns in the late 19th Century, though a long period of exclusion and discrimination for the Chinese began around the same time. The next large wave of arrivals followed the 1965 Immigration Act, but in recent decades older Chinatowns have shrunk.

19世紀後期，頻繁的中國移民使美國形成了唐人街，儘管華人從一開始就遭受了長期的排擠和歧視。隨着1965年移民法案的頒佈，一大波的中國移民接踵而來。但近幾十年來舊的唐人街卻在收縮。

"Chinatowns are turning into a sanitised ethnic playground for the rich to satisfy their exotic appetite for a dim sum and fortune cookie fix," says Andrew Leong, one of the authors of a recent report that charted gentrification in New York, Boston and Philadelphia's Chinatowns.

“唐人街正在變成一個供富人爲滿足異域胃口而獵奇中國點心和籤餅(美國的中國餐館特有的摺疊形小餅，內藏有預測運氣話語的紙條)的清洗改造過的異域情調場所。”Andrew Leong如是說。後者近期參與撰寫了一份描述了紐約、波士頓、費城等地唐人街所在區域高檔化（貴族化）現象的報告。

Washington DC's version is little more than a collection of Chinese restaurants, gift shops and an ornate arch.

（這一高檔化現象在）華盛頓地區所呈現出來的版本（使該地區唐人街看上去就）是一箇中國餐館、禮品商店和華麗拱門的集合體。

This is partly a result of the success of Chinese immigrant families. Many of those from Manhattan's Chinatown have moved to younger Chinese neighbourhoods in Flushing, Queens and Brooklyn's Sunset Park.

（之所以出現這種現象）有部分原因是中國移民家庭（在美國）獲得了成功。他們中的許多人已經從自曼哈頓唐人街搬到了法拉盛、皇后區和布魯克林區日落公園的年輕華人街區。

But up to now, new arrivals in New York have always taken their place.

但是直到現在，紐約的新華人移民始終在接替他們（已搬走的華人）的位置。

Thousands of working-class families still live in Chinatown's humble tenement buildings, protected by the city's rent-control laws. English is seldom used for business. On an icy winter's day, shoppers stop at stalls selling Chinese delicacies, and cluster in a basement fish and vegetable market.

成千上萬的工薪階層家庭仍然居住在唐人街簡陋的公寓樓裏，由城市租金控制法保護着。（在這裏）做生意很少用到英語。在寒冷冬季的一天，顧客們停留在出售中國食品的攤位前，並聚集在一個地下的菜市場。

"It's remained a very dynamic immigrant centre for 100 years because it's retained its ability to be an immigrant gateway - a place where new immigrants come in and are able to find housing and job networks," says Ken Guest, an anthropologist at New York's Baruch College. "East Broadway is the first stop as people try to figure out how to make their way in the US economy."

“一百年來，這裏一直是一個非常有活力的移民中心，因爲它保留了它作爲一個移民門戶的職能，——在這裏，新移民進來之後能夠找到住房和工作（關係）網。”Ken Guest，紐約巴魯克學院的人類學家，“在新移民們盤算如何在美國經濟體制下獲得成功的時候，東百老匯就是第一站。”

Services on offer there include immigration agencies, Chinese doctors, herbal shops, lawyers, phone card companies, banks and wire transfer firms.

在那裏提供的服務包括移民代理，中國醫生，涼茶店，律師，電話卡公司，銀行和電匯公司。

Employment bureaus send people out to jobs in restaurants on Chinese-run bus routes that stretch as far as the Rockies. An estimated 50,000 people are passing through this network at any one time, says Guest.

（唐人街的）就業機構把（前來求職的）人分配到綿延落基山脈的華人經營的巴士沿線上的中餐館去工作。任何時候都有估計50,000人通過這個關係網（找工作），Guest說。

It's this community that has preserved Chinatown's special character. The shop signs, the language, the groceries, the aroma of the restaurants are unlike those of any other Manhattan neighborhood. Visitors to Chinatown have entered a subculture.

正是這樣一個羣體保持了唐人街與衆不同的特徵。店鋪招牌、語言、雜貨店、餐館的風味都與任何其他曼哈頓街區有所區別。遊客來到唐人街意味着進入了一個亞羣體文化氛圍。

Yet things are changing.

然而事情正在發生改變。

The report on gentrification, published by the Asian American Legal Defense Fund, finds that from 2000-2010 the share of the Asian population has fallen from 48%-45% in New York's Chinatown, 57%-46% in Boston's, and 49%-30% in Philadephia's, and that the share of the white population rose in all three cities.

亞美法律援助基金髮布的關於（唐人街）高檔化趨勢的報告發現，從2000年到2010年，亞裔人數（在各地唐人街總人口中的）比重有所下降，紐約唐人街從48%下降到45%，曼哈頓唐人街從57%下降到46%，費城唐人街從49%下降到30%，與此同時，白人比重在這三城中有所上升。

As local government encourages commercial development, low-income families and small businesses have been displaced, the report says.

報告稱，由於當地政府鼓勵商業發展，低收入家庭和小商戶已經被移走了。

The process is less advanced in New York, says Andrew Leong. But even there high-end stores, non-Asian restaurants and luxury apartment buildings have been spreading.

在紐約，這一發展進程還沒有那麼快，Andrew Leong說。但即使在那裏，高端商店、非亞裔的餐館和奢華公寓也呈蔓延趨勢。

Former garment factories have been converted into expensive lofts and landlords have illegally evicted low-income residents, the study says.

研究表明，（這一地區）曾經的成衣工廠已經變成了昂貴的公寓，並且房東們非法驅逐了那些低收入的人羣。

This story is echoed by Zheng Zhiqin, a campaigner who has noticed growing pressure on low-income tenants, many of them Chinese, over the past 10 years.

《中國合夥人》這個故事由鄭zhiqin口述而成。這名老兵見證了過去十年裏低收入租戶們越來越重的生活壓力，這其中許多都是華人。

"They're encouraging people to leave all the time. Sometimes by not providing hot water, or adequate heat, and raising the rents as high as they can," she says. "I see this happening all over Chinatown with my neighbours and friends, and in other buildings in the area."

“他們一直想方設法促使人們離開這裏，有時候停止供應熱水或暖氣，或者極盡所能的提高租金，”她說，“我發現居住在唐人街的鄰居和朋友們普遍遇到過這種情況，這個地區的其他一些公寓也一樣。”

Zheng says big celebrations for Chinese festivals allow immigrants to feel "very much at home" in Chinatown. But this year her landlord, keen to keep the building tidy, asked her for the first time not to hang a traditional bright red scroll from her front door for Chinese New Year.

鄭說，大型的春節慶祝活動讓唐人街的移民們感到如在家般的溫暖。但是今年她的房東極力要求保持公寓的整潔，第一次要求她不要在前門貼春聯。

Increasing numbers of immigrants live outside Chinatown and come in for business during the day, or a weekend shopping trip.

越來越多的中國移民不再住在唐人街了，只是在白天來做生意，或者週末來購物。

Cynthia Koo, a 26-year-old start-up employee who went to elementary school in Chinatown, says that all but one of her childhood friends have left the neighbourhood. Her mother used to work in the garment industry before its rapid decline in the 1990s and her father manages a Chinatown restaurant that she says now serves non-Chinese communities.

26歲的初級僱員Cynthia Koo曾在唐人街讀過小學，她說她所有兒時的夥伴中僅剩一人還留在這一街區。她的媽媽曾經在一家成衣製造廠工作，她的爸爸經營了一家唐人街餐館，20世紀90年代（唐人街）開始迅速衰落，如今餐館裏的顧客不再是中國移民了。

"I think it's a little sad," she says. "It definitely from my experience feels a lot less lively."

“我覺得這有點難過，”她說，“我深切感覺到（這裏）少了許多活力。”

But some argue that Chinatown has to adapt in order to survive. Wellington Chen, who runs a community network formed to help the neighbourhood recover after the 9/11 attacks, thinks the focus on gentrification is misplaced.

但是一些觀點主張唐人街應該適應環境以生存下去。陳Wellington 經營着一家專門用於幫助911襲擊後社區恢復的社區網站。他認爲只關注高檔化問題是一種認知錯位。

"At the end of the day the narrow splitting of us versus them - the class differentiation, the gender, the race thing - that's nonsense," he says. "The best communities, just like the best individuals, are the ones that can adapt to changes very flexibly, nimbly, quickly."

“最終我們之間細小的分化也會使我們之間產生階級分化、性別、種族之類的東西，這些毫無意義，”他說，“最優秀的羣體，就像最優秀的個體一樣，能夠靈活的機敏的迅速的適應各種改變。”

Chen supports Chinatown's Business Improvement District (BID) scheme, which uses levies from local business owners to pay for projects to spruce up the area. Keen to make the area more welcoming to outsiders, Chen would like to see waiters speaking better English and has expressed support for the construction of an eye-catching Chinatown arch.

陳支持華埠商業發展區（BID）計劃，該計劃用本地商戶的稅金支付本地區環境改善的費用。陳極力主張使這一區域更好的接納其他人，他希望服務員說着更流利的英文，還有醒目的唐人街牌樓建設能夠得到專門的支持。

It's ideas like this that feed Andrew Leong's fears of an "exotic playground" for wealthy visitors.

正是這種主張使Andrew Leong產生關於迎合富裕遊客的“異國情調場所”的憂慮。

Some recent research suggests that gentrification can actually benefit an area's original residents. Though vulnerable tenants can be pushed out, those who stay may benefit from improving services and better credit ratings.

最近的一些研究提出，真正能從高檔化進程中獲益的是該地區的原住居民。雖然弱勢租戶會被迫離開，那些留下的或許可能受益於改善的服務和更好的信用評級。

But Peter Kwong, a professor at New York's Hunter College, says that while this may apply to struggling communities in areas suffering from industrial decline, it doesn't apply to Chinatown.

但紐約亨特學院的教授Peter Kwong卻認爲，雖然這可能適用於一些因工業衰退的艱苦努力的社區，然而它並不適用於唐人街。

That explains local resistance to the BID and to "rezoning" laws that allow for future property development, he says.

他說，這也解釋了爲什麼當地阻撓BID計劃和“改劃分區”法律，這條法律允許有未來財產的發展。

"Manhattan is practically all gentrified - this is one of the last areas," he says. "There is a lot of money targeting this area, that would like to see this place [become] a destination for tourism - a quaint place, kind of a hip place for rich people with an ethnic flavour."

“曼哈頓幾乎全部高檔化了，華埠是最後的幾塊街區之一，”他說道，“有很多熱錢看準這一地區，就是想看看這裏變成旅遊目的地，一個離奇有趣的地方，那種讓有異域民族偏好的富人趨之若鶩的地方。

Bonnie Tsui, author of the book American Chinatown, says that when Chinese communities decline "there is this larger sense of loss of that everyday vibrancy that a neighbourhood like Chinatown has".

《美國唐人街》的作者Bonnie Tsui說過，當華人羣體衰落，“對於一個像唐人街那樣每天充滿活力的街區，就是這種巨大的失落感”。

Visitors "like that concentration, they like that richness of experience, they like that people are speaking in a different language because it feels foreign yet familiar," she argues. "They don't really see that in many neighbourhoods any more."

參觀者“那麼的專心，他們喜歡那樣豐富的經歷，他們喜歡人們講着不同的語言，因爲這感覺像在外國而又似曾相識，”她解釋說，“他們根本無法在衆多其他街區看到（像在這裏看到的）那樣。