【经济学人】北京胡同 | 2017.05.18 | 总第918期

SALARY ALLEY runs from the National Art Gallery to Dongsi North Street in downtown Beijing. It is one of the city’s surviving hutong (alleyways) from the pre-Communist period—a lane of single-story houses, grey brick walls and upturned eaves. It is also a microcosm of changes ripping through China’s cities.

钱粮胡同位于北京市中心，从中国美术馆一直延伸到东四北大街，是北京现存的建设社会主义时期留下的一条胡同。胡同就是灰色砖瓦砌成的墙壁，屋檐高高翘起的平房。

• Eaves：屋檐

Salary Alley is poor. Large houses have been subdivided into warrens. Few have kitchens or bathrooms, so the lane is lined with public bathrooms and restaurants which are cheaper than eating at home. The hutong boasts ten eateries, four public bathrooms, nine grocery or hardware shops, a pet hospital, brothel, barbershop, four-star hotel, pool hall and a community-police headquarters. Jane Jacobs, an American urban theorist who extolled the varied life of mixed-use streets, would have loved it.

住在钱粮胡同的人都不富裕。以前的大四合院分成鸽子窝一样的民居，各家都没有厕所，也没厨房。 所以胡同里有好几个公共厕所，和比在家做饭还便宜的小饭馆。胡同里有10家小饭馆，四个公共厕所。九个菜店和杂货店，一间宠物诊所，一间窑子，一个理发店，一个四星酒店，一个台球房，和一个街道派出所。鼓吹街道生活多元的美国的城居理论家 Jane Jacobs 一定会喜欢这样的地方。

• Warrens：易迷路的场所

• Extolled：赞扬

About five years ago, Salary Alley started to gentrify. It already had one of the best Vietnamese restaurants in Beijing. Now it acquired a luxury sushi house, a couple of bars, and—sure harbinger of middle-class demand—a dainty coffee-shop. But recently it has suffered something more like degentrification. Gentrification means protecting old buildings and attracting new businesses, often at the expense of old residents who can no longer afford to live there. Salary Alley is seeing new businesses shut down, buildings torn up and new arrivals, not old residents, forced out.

五年前，政府开始了钱粮胡同的改造升级工程，现在这胡同有了家北京最好的越南餐馆和豪华寿司餐馆，几间酒吧。还有标志中产阶级生活的咖啡馆。升级， 通常就是保护旧建筑，吸引新商业，新居民都搬了进来，生活成本提高，老居民住不下去只好搬走。

• Gentrify：修复或改善

• Harbinger：预兆

• Degentrification：去中产阶级化

The process began last summer when government-hired builders tore off shop fronts (windows, signs, even roofs), plastered over the gaps and went home, leaving the lane looking as if it was being demolished, rather than renewed. Since then, in the name of returning the hutong to its pre-Communist appearance, windows have been bricked up, glass doors replaced, commercial signs removed and houses refaced with old-style “bricks”—actually tiles made to look like them. Fake bricks are commonly used in Chinese renovations. A flea market close to Salary Alley was shut and the stallholders—mostly migrants from the central province of Hunan—sent home.

去年夏天开始， 政府以恢复解放前老胡同风貌为由，雇建筑商整条巷子看上去像是被摧毁，而不是翻新。扒掉建筑门面（窗户，广告牌，甚至是屋顶），补好墙上的裂缝，然后翩然离去，一样。从那以后，打着让胡同恢复建设社会主义时期外貌的旗号，政府堵死了窗户，换下玻璃门，摘掉商业广告牌，房子外面贴上假砖块——实际上由空心砖仿制而成。在中国房子翻新会普遍使用假砖。钱粮胡同附近的一个旧货市场被迫关门，摆摊儿的都回了老家。

• Demolished：摧毁

Three of the alley’s restaurants have also been closed. All of the shopkeepers say business has suffered. The street entrance to one corner store has been bricked up; customers must climb three steps to place their order at a high window. If you want a cold drink, the owner gives you a photograph of the inside of the fridge so you can see what he has.

巷子里的三家饭店关门了。所有店主都说生意不好做。胡同口一间店的门脸砌高了。顾客得爬三台阶才能够得着窗口。如果你想买杯冷饮，店主递给你一张店里冰箱的照片，这样你才能知道他卖哪些冷饮。

The government says it wants to correct architectural violations, brick up entrances that do not comply with building codes and buy back land so it can be renovated and sold. Those motivations sound reasonable. But they are not the real ones.

政府说，这是为了拆除违章建筑，封堵违建的门脸。把地产买回来改造后再卖出去。 这听起来合理，但实际上不是那么回事。

One of the government’s motives is to squeeze out migrants, a brutal tactic in its campaign to control the capital’s size. On Salary Alley, most shopkeepers are from the coastal province of Shandong. Like the market traders from Hunan, they are vulnerable. “If the government lets us do business, we will do business,” says one fatalistically. “If not, we will return home.”

政府的目的就是要把外来移民赶走，钱粮胡同的店东小贩们很多是山东的或是湖南的。他们抱怨说： 政府让俺们做生意，俺们就能做，不让，俺们就做不了。

• Tactic：策略

The government says it needs to repair the alleyways, many of which are indeed dilapidated. Yet on Salary Alley, most of the buildings being “protected” were rebuilt after 1980, while the few ancient ones are mouldering away. Building fake brick walls hardly counts as beautification. “I like variety,” says a shop owner. “For the government uniformity is beautiful.”

 政府说是要改造胡同，这胡同的确很糟。 不过钱粮胡同很多被保护的房子都是1980年以后才盖的。在房子外面贴一层假砖皮，很难说是保护。 一个店老板说，我喜欢不一样的房子，可政府说整齐划一才是好看。

• Dilapidated：失修的，衰败的

This year the city’s government says it will wall up or tear down 16,000 unlicensed shops and extensions. Not only are these illegal but also dangerous, it argues. Yet a microbrewery near Salary Alley was shut despite being up to date with all its paperwork—because it was in the way of another piece of city-mandated reconstruction. A local bar owner complains that his establishment passed inspections for years—until one day everything was mysteriously declared to be illegal. He is shuttering it.

期待您的翻译，明天会有针对这句话的长难句解析哟~钱粮胡同一个酿酒铺子老板说，他的房子所有手续齐全，全部合法， 但是仍然被勒令关门，原因不过是挡了新城改计划的路。另一老板抱怨说，他的酒吧都通过检查好些年了，咋现在突然成了违法的了。

China’s capital says it wants to be a global city. That will require allowing its street life to flourish as it does in New York or London. The government seems to have decided that greater control is needed. Salary Alley is suffering the chill.

北京表示希望将自身打造成全球化的城市。这得保证其街头生意像纽约和伦敦一样蓬勃发展。政府似乎已经下定决心要加大控制力度。钱粮胡同处境如同寒冬一样。

翻译 ▍木三阳

审核 ▍小太阳Kiki

图文编辑 ▍澜意

责任编辑 ▍毛毛