Bonnie Tsui 徐灵凤，美籍华人，1976年出生于纽约皇后区，后搬至长岛，毕业于哈佛大学英语和美国文学系，现在是一名旅游记者。上个世纪60年代，徐灵凤的祖父母和父母相继移民美国，虽然在美国出生，但她是在唐人街的氛围下长大的。2009年，徐灵凤在经过五六年的筹划之后终于出版了《美国唐人街》（American Chinatown: A People’s History of Five Neighborhoods）一书，介绍了美国的五大唐人街，讲述了发生在那里的居民身边的故事以及唐人街在美籍华人移民过程中的作用。该书获得《纽约客》（New Yorker）杂志推荐，并曾荣登旧金山文史类最畅销书籍第五名。
Rebecca Sheir: Chinatowns sprung up in the U.S. during the Gold Rush. But since then, the neighborhoods have seen gradual yet significant changes―not so noticeable to the average visitor, perhaps, but quite 1)drastic to those who’ve called these communities home. We headed to the nation’s biggest Chinatown, in New York City. We started on the unofficial main street, Mott Street: a narrow but 2)bustling 3)thoroughfare lined with 4)souvenir shops, tea houses and restaurants, and packed to the gills with people. Our guide on this cold windy day?
丽贝卡?谢尔：美国的唐人街从淘金潮时代开始兴起。但从那以后，美国各地的唐人街逐步发生着显著的变化，也许一般游客并不太注意这些变化，但对于那群将这些社区称之为“家”的人来说，这些变化是相当巨大的。我们前往美国最大的唐人街――纽约市的唐人街。我们从莫特街出发，这是纽约华埠的一条主街，狭窄而又忙碌的主干道两旁满是纪念品商店、茶楼和餐馆，还有熙熙攘攘的人群。在这个寒风萧萧的日子里，我们此次探访的向导是？
Sheir: She got to know Manhattan’s Chinatown at a very early age.
Tsui: I was 5)baptized here, and all the members of my family were.
Sheir: We’re standing in front of the Church of the Transfiguration.
Tsui: Sort of the 6)adjacent street is the funeral row. So it all begins and ends here in Chinatown for a lot of Chinese Americans.
Sheir: The church used to offer services 7)solely in Cantonese, the dialect that dominated North America’s Chinatowns for decades. But these days, the church presents services in Mandarin, too, which Bonnie says reflects Chinatown’s current population.
Tsui: You’ll hear a lot of different dialects. You won’t just hear Cantonese, and you won’t just hear Toisanese, which is a sort of 8)subdialect of Canton province. You’ll hear Fujianese, and you’ll also hear a lot of Mandarin. So it’s a real 9)potpourri these days.
Sheir: Another big change, she says, is with industry. Traditionally, Chinatown’s twin trades were clothing and food. Tsui: Of course, the garment industry is sort of dying off a little bit now, but for a long time, it basically employed all of the women in Chinatown, you know? And my grandmother worked as a 10)seamstress for decades.
Sheir: And your grandfather worked in a fortune cookie factory?
Tsui: My grandfather worked in a 11)fortune cookie factory.
Sheir: The garment industry may have 12)shrunk, but the food business is going strong―from groceries and markets…
Tsui: People are picking out 13)crab and 14)shrimp and fresh vegetables.
Sheir: …to restaurants.
Tsui: Fay Dah bakery is…that place has great gai mei bao.
Sheir: But here’s the thing: Not all of Chinatown’s food 15)establishments are necessarily Chinese.
Tsui: One thing to note about Chinatown is that it welcomed Chinese immigrants in its history in all the Chinatowns across the country. For example, the one in L.A. became a welcoming
谢尔：她很小的时候就对曼哈顿的唐人街很熟悉。
徐：我在这里受洗，我们全家人都是。
谢尔：我们现在站在圣公会显圣容堂前面。
徐：附近的街道有排墓地，因此对于唐人街的很多美籍华人来说，这里是开始的地方，也是结束的地方。（译者注：指新生和死亡。）
谢尔：教堂过去只使用广东话这种独霸北美唐人街几十年的方言来主持教会活动，但近些年来，也开始使用普通话了，邦妮说这反映出如今唐人街的人口构成状况。
徐：你可以听到很多不同的方言，不会只听到广东话，也不会只听到广东省的一种分支方言――台山话。你会听到福建话，也会听到很多人说普通话，所以现在这里简直是个大杂烩。
谢尔：还有一个很大的变化，她说，是与行业有关的。传统意义上，唐人街的贸易以服装和食品为主。
徐：当然，现在服装行业已有点儿逐渐衰败的趋势，但是在过去很长一段时期里，它给唐人街的女性提供了充足的就业岗位。我的祖母就曾做了几十年的裁缝。
谢尔：你的祖父曾在福饼工厂工作，对吧？
徐：我的祖父曾在福饼厂工作。
谢尔：服装行业大不如前，但是饮食行业却如日中天，从杂货铺到市场……
徐：人们正在挑选虾蟹和新鲜蔬菜。谢尔：……到餐馆。
徐：飞达饼屋，这里的鸡尾包很好吃。（译者注：鸡尾包为广东话音译。）
谢尔：但有个问题：并非所有唐人街的食肆都是由中国人经营的。
徐：值得注意的是，唐人街历来欢迎四面八方的中国移民。举个例子，洛杉矶的唐人街成了东南亚移民如越南
spot for Southeast Asian immigrants: Vietnamese, Cambodian, Thai.
Sheir: Many of whom, Bonnie says, just feel more comfortable in Chinatown.
Tsui: You can think about Chinatown as a revolving door, right? So a lot of people come and a lot of people leave.
Sheir: And on any given day, you’ll find a bunch of these people in Columbus Park, as they play chess, listen to live music. Bonnie calls the park Chinatown’s living room.
Tsui: You know, a lot of the apartments are so small that people come outside and hang out, and it’s wonderful to see life go by.
Sheir: We meet a woman named Kitty who’s been coming here for decades. She moved to Chinatown from Canton province in 1969, and says the biggest change she’s seen in the neighborhood?
Kitty: The food, no good. The bakery, the coffee and…it’s no good.
Sheir: But not just the quality of the food, the price. In fact, Kitty says just about everything costs too much nowadays….
Kitty: Like the rent, too high; the water, too expensive; the heat, expensive; tax property, too expensive.
Sheir: …which is why Kitty eventually left Manhattan’s Chinatown for the less pricey Flushing, Queens, what Bonnie Tsui calls “a satellite Chinatown.” But while this 16)relocation might benefit the people departing, Bonnie says it’s not so great for the urban center they’re leaving behind. Washington, D.C.’s Chinatown has been fading for years. San Francisco’s is seeing increasing outward migration. And as for New York’s, Bonnie goes so far as to say it’s fighting for its life.
Tsui: When the working class starts moving out of a neighborhood, it loses that 17)vitality, you know? I mean, and there are different pressures not just of…of rising rents, but also the relationship between Chinatown and China is changing.
Sheir: And a lot of that has to do with the economies of the U.S. and China. The International Monetary Fund predicts China’s economy will be bigger than America’s by 2016. And that means more work and higher 18)wages for people back home. So as our friend, Kitty, points out:
Do you know people who moved here and then decided to move back to China?
人、柬埔寨人、泰国人最喜欢去的地方。
谢尔：他们中的很多人，邦妮说，只是觉得在唐人街待着更舒适。
徐：你可以将唐人街看成是一扇旋转门，对吧？所以人们来来去去。
谢尔：每天，你都会看到哥伦布公园有很多人，他们下棋、听戏曲。邦妮把公园称为“唐人街的客厅”。
徐：你知道，多数公寓很狭小，所以人们到室外活动，如此看时光流逝的感觉很好。
谢尔：我们遇到一个叫凯蒂的女士，她在这里度过了几十年的时光。1969年，她从广东移民来到唐人街，她告诉我们所见到的周围最大的变化是什么呢？
凯蒂：吃的，不行。面包、咖啡……不好。
谢尔：变化的不仅仅是食品的质量，还有物价。事实上，凯蒂说如今所有东西都涨价了……
凯蒂：比如房租、水、暖气、房产税，都太贵了。
谢尔：……所以凯蒂最终离开了曼哈顿的唐人街，搬到生活成本相对较低的皇后区法拉盛。邦妮?徐把那里称为“唐人街的卫星城”。尽管搬家对那些离开的人来说于经济上有益，但邦妮说，对城镇中心来说却不是这样。华盛顿特区的唐人街近年来萧条了；旧金山的唐人街如今也不断有移民向外迁出；而纽约的唐人街，邦妮说现在也是在挣扎求存。
徐：当工薪阶级开始迁出华人社区，这里就失去了活力，你知道吗？我的意思是，这不仅仅是来自于租金上涨的各种压力，还有唐人街和中国变化之间的关系。
谢尔：这种关系与中美经济有关。国际货币基金组织预测，到2016年，中国经济将赶超美国。这意味着，回国将会有更多的工作机会和更高的薪酬。因此如我们的朋友凯蒂所说：
你认识的人中有来到这里后来又决定回国的吗？
Kitty: Yeah. A lot of new people come here, right? They
cannot find a job, right? And in the main country where they
have a house, at least they don’t pay that kind of money like
that.
Sheir: But even more well-off people who come to America for
an education often head back. There’s even a term for them. Can you talk about the sea turtles?
Tsui: The sea turtles. Well, so they have been 19)lured back by
20)incentives from the Chinese government.
Sheir: Like cash bonuses, financial aid, tax breaks, housing
assistance.
Tsui: And so before it would have been a 21)no-brainer that
they would have stayed in the U.S.. And, you know, now it’s
just not a given. There’s competition.
Sheir: So where do you see New York City’s Chinatown in, I
don’t know, two decades, three decades?
Tsui: I certainly can’t say for sure, but there are certain trends
that we can look at.
Sheir: One being the 17% drop in the population of New York
City’s Chinatown over the past decade.
Tsui: And that seems like it’s significant. Perhaps this points
to Chinatown becoming more of a cultural and symbolic
22)touchstone as it has for many Chinese Americans. But
maybe it becomes less of a functional, you know, living,
working, daily life kind of place that at least New York
Chinatown has always been.
Sheir: So many are left wondering...
Tsui: What is the future of Chinatown? We don’t know, but
these are important things to look at as we go forward.凯蒂：有。很多人初来乍到，对吧？他们没法找到工作，对吧？但是在国内，他们有房子，至少不必支付这笔（比如租房的）费用。
谢尔：甚至于越来越多来美国接受教育的家境富裕的人也回国去了。有个词是用来形容他们的。
你们会谈论“海归”吗？徐：海归，就是那些被中国政府的激励政策吸引回国的人。
谢尔：（政府会给他们提供）诸如现金分红、财政援助、减免赋税和住房补助。
徐：过去人们想都不会多想就留在美国，但是现在不一定了，要好好考虑一下。
谢尔：那么，你怎么看纽约市唐人街的将来，二十年甚至三十年以后会是什么样？
徐：我真的不敢下定论，但我们仍可有所期待。
谢尔：在过去十年，纽约市的唐人街人口减少了17%。
徐：这看起来很关键。或许这说明了唐人街正成为很多美籍华人眼中文化象征的试金石。但是也可能它正逐渐失去诸如居住、工作、日常生活这些以往纽约唐人街发挥的功能。
谢尔：所以留给我们的问号还很多……
徐：唐人街的未来是什么？我们不得而知，但这些确实是我们前行时必须考虑的重要问题。