Sichuan pepper, flower pepper, prickly ash, hua jiao… It is the original Chinese pepper, a native spice used long before black pepper stole in over the tortuous land routes of the old Silk Road. It is also the space dust of the spice world. An unexpected first encounter with it can be disconcerting, to put it mildly. I offered some to a stranger, once, at the annual Oxford Food Symposium, without a word of warning: he thought I was trying to poison him, and hasn’t spoken to me since. Actually, I should have been more careful, remembering my own first experience of Sichuan pepper, during a visit to Chongqing in 1992. ‘The dishes were all flavoured with a particular spice which I found utterly unpalatable,’ I wrote in my diary. ‘It tasted like a powerful combination of aniseed, lemongrass and chilli and numbed my mouth with an unbearable taste. I ate very little other than soup and rice.’
四川的花椒，又称蜀椒、川椒、巴椒，是中国最早的“椒”。作为本土香料，它早在胡椒顺着那迂回曲折的丝绸之路进入中国喧宾夺主之前，就开始使用了。花椒相当于香料世界的“跳跳糖”。要是猝不及防与它初次邂逅，也许会惊慌失措，这还算比较婉转的说法了。有一次，我在牛津的年度饮食座谈会上给一个陌生人尝了尝，没有提前打招呼，结果他以为我想下毒害他，从那以后再也没搭理过我。其实我应该更小心才对，不能忘了一九九二年我去重庆时第一次体验花椒的情景。“菜里全都放了一种我觉得特别难吃的调料，”我当时在日记里写道，“吃着就像八角、香茅和辣椒混了很多在一起，味道很重，我嘴都麻木了，味道真是受不了。我就只喝了汤，吃了米饭，其他菜都没怎么碰。”
The air in the orchard has a mesmerising, citrussy smell. The pimpled green berries, just beginning to blush pink, cling in ones and twos to the thorny stems of the trees. Despite the drizzle and the grey sky, I’m elated. I pluck a pair of peppercorns and rub them in my hands. The fragrance comes quickly, perfuming the air around. It is overwhelming, so fresh and zesty, so redolent of wood and wildness. I close my eyes. And then I put some pepper between my lips. In its green astringent newness, it puckers my tongue immediately, and then, a few seconds later, the tingling hits. That incomparable tongue-numbing sensation of Sichuan pepper, a fizzing that starts stealthily and rises to a mouth-streaming, breathtaking crescendo that can last for twenty minutes, before it slowly, gradually dies away. It is stronger even than I expected, and I laugh in surprise. For years I have dreamt of tasting Sichuan pepper on the tree, and here I am, in Qingxi itself, my lips singing.
园子里飘散着令人迷醉的味道，有种柠檬与柑橘的清香。外表凹凸不平的绿色小果子们才刚刚开始泛出点粉色，一颗挨着两颗地一串串挂在那长满刺的树枝上。天气不太好，灰蒙蒙的，还有点儿毛毛雨，但我依然兴高采烈，摘下两颗花椒子在手里揉搓一番。那种芬芳很快散发出来，把周围的空气都弄得香香的。这味道彻底将我淹没，那么清新爽利，让人兴致盎然；那么原始野性，带着树木的馨香。我闭上双眼，放了点花椒到双唇之间。是绿色的味道，带着点苦涩，又非常新奇，立刻就让我舌尖一卷；几秒过后，那种微妙的刺痛感来了。四川的花椒给舌头带来的麻酥酥的感觉真是无可比拟，你还没觉察到自己已经暗暗地开始“嘶嘶”，很快就满口生津，味蕾被吸引得无法呼吸，这感觉能一直持续二十分钟，然后再逐渐缓慢地褪却。这感觉比我预想的还要强烈，我惊喜地大笑起来。这么多年了，我一直梦想着尝尝刚从树上摘下来的花椒，现在我终于来了，就在著名的花椒产地清溪，我的双唇在歌唱啊。
I smile to read that now, knowing how the gentler cooking of Chengdu turned me into a Sichuan-pepper addict. And I have developed a better strategy for introducing it to other people. Psychological preparation is essential (‘Are you sitting comfortably? Then let me explain…’). Instructions must be followed precisely. ‘Put this pepper husk into your mouth, chew it two or three times at the front of your mouth and then spit it out immediately! Do not carry on chewing, wondering why nothing is happening, or it may overwhelm you (the tingling sensation takes a good ten seconds or so to develop). Now sit back and wait!’ This more subtle approach tends to win people over, if only because of the wild novelty of the sensation, and I’ve seen many of my friends succumb to its charms.
现在读到这些，我脸上都会泛起微笑，因为更为温柔的成都菜已经让我对花椒上了瘾。而且要把这香料介绍给对它并不熟悉的人，我也制定了更好的策略。核心是心理准备。（“您坐得舒服吗？那我来解释一下……”）一定要让对方准确遵循你的指导。“把这颗花椒子放进嘴里，先放在嘴前端咬个两三次，然后马上吐出来！不要一直嚼一直嚼，想着怎么没什么味道，等有味道了你就受不了了（麻酥酥的刺痛感差不多要十秒左右才会浮现）。现在坐好了，等着！”这种更温柔的办法比较容易赢得人心，再加上那种野性而新奇的感觉，我见证了很多朋友臣服于花椒的魅力。
In all my years of research for my Sichuanese cookery book, I never actually saw a Sichuan pepper tree. For that, you have to go to the high, dry slopes of various places in northern and western Sichuan. But of all the pepper grown in the province, none is better than that of the remote county of Hanyuan in the southwestern mountains, and within Hanyuan County itself, nothing compares to the sumptuously aromatic pepper of Qingxi Township. Even within Qingxi there are finer distinctions for aficionados: if you want to reach the very pinnacle of peppery perfection, you must accept nothing less than pepper harvested from the trees of niu shi po, the Ox Market Slopes, at the village of Jianli just outside Qingxi itself. Once, this pepper was sent in tribute to the imperial court. ‘Qingxi Tribute Pepper’, they still call it here.
我为川菜食谱做了那么多年的研究，还从没亲眼见过花椒树呢。要看这种树，你得去川西北的几个地方，爬上高高的土坡。但全四川省的花椒，最好的还要数西南山区的偏远小县汉源；而汉源县的花椒，最好的又来自小镇清溪，那里的花椒有着特别奢侈的香味。就连清溪镇内，花椒也有等级之分。要是想得到金字塔尖完美的花椒，你只能买从清溪镇外不远的建黎乡牛市坡的树上采摘的。曾经，这里的花椒是送到皇宫的贡品，到现在当地人还将其称为“清溪贡椒”。
I’m not sure why it took me so long to go to Qingxi, when I’d wanted to for many years, but I only made it there, for the first time, in 2001. Most of my Chinese acquaintances would have baulked at the idea of accompanying me on a gruelling journey into the impoverished backwoods of the province, but one old friend, Mu Ma, was game. So, one morning in June, we set off from Chengdu by long-distance bus on the hard eight-hour ride to Hanyuan County.
我也不知道为什么等了这么久才去清溪。想去已经想了很多年了，但一直到二零零一年，我才真正去到那里。说到要陪我去四川贫穷偏僻的小山村，一路上路又难走、条件又差，我在中国的熟人大多面露难色，但老朋友穆玛却欣然答应。于是，六月的一天早上，我们从成都出发，坐上长途大巴，准备经历八小时的漫长旅途，前往汉源县。
I met Mu Ma in the course of my food investigations in Chengdu, and we hit it off immediately. He’s an academic who spends his time travelling around remote villages in south-west China, researching and documenting traditional crafts and rituals before they disappear. Since knowing me, he’s taken more of an interest in beancurd workshops, kitchen ranges and bakeries. Mu Ma’s shaggy black hair always looks untidy, even if it’s just been cut. He speaks in Chengdu dialect, and teaches me local nursery rhymes, like the Sichuanese equivalent of ‘Jack Sprat and his wife’:
我在成都进行美食调查时遇见了穆玛，简直是一见如故。他是个学者，经常在中国西南地区的偏僻乡村周游，调查和记录那些快要消逝的传统手艺和仪式。认识我之后，他对乡村里的豆腐作坊、厨房烟火和烘烤锅炉更感兴趣了。他蓬松的黑发总是乱乱的，就算理过也无济于事。他说一口成都话，会教我当地的童谣，有一首大概相当于英国的《杰克和老婆》（1）：【注：（1）这是一首英文童谣，全文是：“Jack Sprat could eat no fat， His wife could eat no lean， And so betwixt the two of them， They licked the platter clean。”（杰克不吃肥，老婆不吃瘦；两人正正巧，吃光盘中肉。）】
Ni chi fei, wo chi shou (You eat the fat, I eat the lean)
你吃肥，我吃瘦，
Cai ban shang (On the chopping board)
菜板上，
Qie la rou (Slicing the bacon)
切腊肉，
Yao mei ken gu tou (Little sister can gnaw on the bones)
幺妹啃骨头。
Mu Ma doesn’t give a damn about karaoke and fancy restaurants. When he’s on the road, he takes very little with him besides a toothbrush, and stays in the most basic kind of guesthouse. He seeks out archaic teahouses and restaurants, old-fashioned printing houses and dilapidated monasteries; and spends hours in conversation with pedlars, peasants, and artisans.
穆玛对卡拉OK啊、高档餐厅啊这些东西完全不热衷。外出调查研究的时候，他带一把牙刷，再加上很少的生活必需品，住最简陋的招待所。他去寻找那些古色古香的茶馆和饭馆、旧式的印刷作坊和荒废颓败的寺庙，花很多时间与小贩、农民和工匠们交谈。
When we finally arrived in Qingxi, we were accosted by a band of raggedy children, who, excited by this outlandish visitor who said she’d come in search of pepper trees, whooped and laughed as they led us through the lanes. The village houses were ramshackle, higgledy-piggledy, their wooden gateways leading into courtyards stacked with old pots and pans. Sun-bleached corncobs and dried chillies hung from the eaves. Beyond the last houses lay the pepper orchard where I had my first taste of the fruit.
我们一路跋涉，终于到了清溪，结果一群穿着破烂衣服的孩子一下子围上来说话。看到这稀奇古怪的外国人，还说是来找花椒树的，他们兴奋得很，大喊着、笑闹着领我们走在小街上。村里的房子都是一副摇摇欲坠的样子，杂乱无章地挨挤在一起。木头门里面的院子里堆满了老旧的坛坛罐罐，屋檐下挂着被太阳晒干的玉米棒子和辣椒。路快走完、房子快消失的时候，就来到开篇那片花椒园了，我在这里第一次尝到了新鲜的花椒。
You fei you you shou (There’s fat and there’s lean)
有肥又有瘦；
Sichuan pepper is one of the spices mentioned in the ancient Book of Songs, where its shiny and abundant seeds are a symbol of fertility (a seed and a son sound the same in Chinese: zi). ‘Pepper houses’ (jiao fang), they used to call the chambers of Han Dynasty imperial concubines, because the spice was mixed into the mud used to plaster their walls, in the hope that the women would produce sons and heirs. Rural people exchanged bunches of Sichuan peppercorns as love tokens; the spice is still imbued with erotic symbolism because of the way its berries hang in pairs, like testicles. Even today, in remote parts of Sichuan Province, peppercorns are thrown over brides and grooms, an aromatic confetti.
中国古代诗歌总集《诗经》中就曾提到花椒，认为那闪亮而丰富的种子是“多子”的象征。汉朝皇妃们的寝宫称为“椒房”，因为糊墙用的泥土中掺了花椒，寓意皇嗣绵延。平民百姓会用一串串的花椒作为定情信物。到现在，这种香料仍然蕴含着强烈的情色象征意义，因为很多果实都是一双一双挂在枝头的，让人联想起男性睾丸。时至今日，四川的偏远地区还保留着古老的习俗，婚礼的时候要朝新郎新娘扔花椒，就像现代婚礼中抛洒的五彩纸屑与糖果，不过更充满了四溢的芳香。
In another month or two, the children told us, the peppercorns would be dark pink all over, dried by the hot sun, and they would split open to reveal their seeds, black and shiny like the eyes of birds. The young men would then strip the peppercorns from the branches, gather them in bamboo baskets, and lay the split, pimpled berries out in the sun to dry. When they were ready, the local girls would sit on their doorsteps, woven bamboo baskets on their knees, tossing the peppercorns to shake out their tasteless seeds, saving the aromatic husks.
孩子们跟我们说，再过一两个月，花椒就全部变成深粉色了，再加上被炽热的阳光晒后，果实会爆开，露出里面的种子，黑黑亮亮的，像鸟儿的眼睛。村里的年轻人会把花椒子从枝头摘下来，放进筲箕，将这些表面凹凸不平、已经裂开的果子铺在阳光下干透。晒好了，村里的女孩子们就坐在门槛上，膝头放着篾条编好的篮子，把花椒子放进里面翻来覆去地摇，将没味道的种子都摇出来，保留味道浓郁芬芳的外壳。
After my first, striking taste of the fresh pepper, Mu Ma and I left the orchard with our retinue of children, and entered the gates of the Confucian temple opposite, a derelict timber-framed mansion. Once, it must have been splendid; now, it barely whispered of its former glory. A little bridge led over an ornamental pond, but the heads of the statues on its stone balustrades had been knocked off by Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution. The old temple hall had been brutally boarded up and carved into utilitarian rooms, and there were faded revolutionary slogans on the walls. Moss and weeds grew among the flagstones, and the paint on the buildings was peeling. We discovered it was being used as a social centre for the elderly, and on that day they were having a feast, so a dozen round tables had been laid in the courtyard.
与新鲜花椒初见，“惊鸿一尝”之后，穆玛和我跟着那群还围在旁边的孩子离开花椒园，进入对面的文庙。这座木结构的大庙早已是年久失修。它曾经一定是无比辉煌壮丽的，现在几乎找不到旧日的蛛丝马迹了。造景池上架着一座小桥，但石栏杆上雕像的头已经在“文革”中被红卫兵砸掉了。古老的庙堂中简单粗暴地竖起了好些隔板，变成能用的小房间，墙上还有褪色的革命标语。石板上遍布青苔、荒草丛生，墙漆也四处剥落。我们发现这里是老年人活动中心，那天他们要聚餐，所以院子里摆着十几张圆桌子。
The pepper is also a medicinal herb. It was unearthed in the grave of the Han Dynasty noblewoman found at Mawangdui; accompanying prescriptions written on silk advised its use in treating ulcers. It is thought to be a stimulant and diuretic, good also for relieving flatulence and encouraging digestion. Moths and other destructive insects shy away from the pepper’s powerful aroma, so it is traditionally used as an insect repellent in wardrobes and granaries. Ingested in large quantities, it is severely toxic — which is why several ancient texts mention its use as a means of forced suicide.
花椒还是一味草药。马王堆汉墓的贵族妇女坟中有花椒出土，还有写在丝绸上的药方，指明了其在治疗溃疡中的作用。有理论认为，花椒是一种兴奋剂和利尿剂，还有利于缓解肠胃胀气、促消化。在花椒强烈的味道之下，飞蛾和其他害虫不会接近，所以传统上经常用花椒来做衣柜与谷仓中的驱虫剂。要是大量摄入，会严重中毒，所以好些古代文章中都提到，有人强迫别人大量摄入花椒，造成自杀的假象。
As I entered, a flock of old ladies and men rushed up to me, beaming. ‘Miss Rose, welcome!’ They behaved as if they knew exactly who I was. At first I was perplexed by their familiarity before it dawned on me that they must be thinking I was Rose Acock, an Englishwoman who had been running poverty-relief projects in rural Hanyuan for years. I had never met Rose, but we had been in email contact once or twice. There clearly hadn’t been any other Englishwoman in Hanyuan for a while, let alone another named after a flower. ‘I’m not Rose, I’m Fuchsia,’ I found myself explaining a hundred times. The villagers were astonished to hear this, but no less friendly.
我一进门，就有一群老爷子、老太太快步走上来，个个笑容满面。“罗斯小姐，你好！欢迎你！”看他们那样子，还真跟我很熟似的。一开始，他们这种“自来熟”搞得我不知所措，接着才意识到他们肯定以为我是罗斯·艾可可，她也是英国人，在汉源农村做了多年扶贫工作了。我没见过罗斯，但通过一两次电子邮件。显然，汉源很久没出现过别的英国女人了，更别说又出现一个名字里带花的［“罗斯”（Rose）是玫瑰的意思，而我的名字“Fuchsia”也是一种花（2）］。“我不是罗斯，我是扶霞。”我解释了几百遍，等村民们终于明白过来时，他们大吃一惊，但热情不减。【注：（2）这种花叫做“灯笼海棠”，即我们通常所说的“倒挂金钟”。】
Mu Ma started inspecting the few temple relics: a worn stone tablet inscribed with Chinese characters; an elaborate, dragon-coiled basin for burning incense. Some old ladies stood around him, telling stories of the place. After a while I became aware of a couple of khaki uniforms mingling with the villagers in the temple. They loomed closer, and soon I had a policeman at my side, studiously casual. He watched me as I scribbled in my notebook. Then he asked me for my ID. I rummaged in my bag for my passport. He made a big deal of his scrutiny, giving me a sly, disconcerting smile. I began to feel nervous. As far as I knew, there was no reason why I shouldn’t be there. But the policeman was intimidating, and long years of experience of such things had taught me that it was best, in such situations, to play humble.
穆玛开始细细查看庙里的几处文物古迹：磨损的汉字碑刻，制作精巧的盘龙香炉。几个老太太围站在他身边，讲着这个地方的故事。过了一会儿，我发现庙里的村民人群中混着几个穿卡其制服的人。这些警察慢慢走了过来，很快其中一个就站到我身边，故意装出一副随意的样子。我记笔记的时候，他看着我，然后叫我出示身份证。我从包里翻出护照。他小题大做地详细查看了一番，冲我狡黠地一笑，令人不安。我有些紧张了。当然，我来这儿的理由正当充分。但这个警察有点吓人，而且经历这种事情很多年了，我很清楚，在这种情况下，最好恭顺卑微些。
‘What are you doing here?’ he asked.
“你来这儿干啥子喃？”他问道。
I realised as I said this how absurd it must sound. Sichuan is internationally famed for its tourist attractions: the giant Buddha at Leshan, Mount Emei with its ‘sea of clouds’, and the coloured lakes of Jiuzhaigou. Two hundred years ago, Qingxi was a flourishing transport hub on the cha ma dao, the ‘tea-horse way’ that connected inner China with Tibet and India; now it was a forgotten backwater. What would the policeman make of a foreigner who chose, instead of Jiuzhaigou, a trip to a shabby town in one of the most impoverished counties in the province?
一说出口，我才意识到这话听着多荒唐可笑。四川有很多驰名中外的景点：乐山大佛、峨眉云海、九寨沟的五彩海子。两百年前，清溪是连接中国内陆与西藏和印度的茶马古道上一处繁忙的交通枢纽，现在却只是一个停滞不前的落后乡村。我一个外国人，不去九寨沟，居然跑到四川最穷的一个县，还来到这么个小镇的山沟里，警察会怎么想？
‘I’ve come to see the Sichuan pepper trees.’
“我来看花椒树。”
‘This isn’t a closed area, is it?’ I asked. He just gave me a hard glance, handed back my passport, and continued to observe me as I walked, self-consciously now, around the temple. He assigned a young policeman to watch over me. Barely more than a teenager, lanky and awkward in his uniform, this boy was plainly unsure what to do with the dangerous alien in his charge. I led him out of the temple and back into the village streets, and he stayed within a metre of me at all times, following me into courtyards, up lanes, and into fields.
“这儿不是非开放地区吧？”我问道。他狠狠瞪了我一眼，还回护照。我绕着庙子晃悠起来，他就一直观察打量我，搞得我十分紧张。接着他叫一个年轻警察好好盯着我。这警察才二十出头的样子，瘦长的身子穿着宽大的制服，显得奇怪笨拙。这孩子真是完全不知道该怎么对待这个上级让自己负责监视的危险外国人。我带着他出了寺庙，回到村里的小街上，他一直和我保持着一米的距离，跟着我走进每家的院子，走上迂回的街道，走进农人的田野。
‘What are you doing here?’ he asked me again, with a pointed glance at my notebook and pen.
“你来这儿干啥子喃？”他又问了我一遍，瞥了瞥我的笔记本和笔。
I couldn’t understand the senior policeman’s paranoia. Perhaps he was being defensive in that faintly nationalistic Chinese way, reluctant to let a foreigner see the ‘backwardness’ of rural China. Perhaps he was just a product of his education: thirty or forty years ago, every foreigner was seen as an imperialist spy, intent on subverting the Maoist political system. When we had finished exploring the village, he insisted on giving us a lift in his police jeep back to our hotel in the nearby county town, Jiuxiang. He warned us not to go out.
我没法理解那个老警察到底为什么一副如临大敌的样子。可能他就是带着那种在中国比较普遍的轻微的民族主义，不愿意让一个外国人看到中国农村的“贫穷落后”［我经常会不自觉地向中国人解释，外国人很少，几乎可以说从来不用“backward”（落后）这个词。很多人都像我一样，喜欢去探索中国偏远地区美丽而少人涉足的风景与传统建筑。描述清溪这样的地方时，我绝不可能想到“落后”这个词］。也许，这个警察只是习惯了这么想、这么办：三四十年前，无论哪个外国人都被看作帝国主义的间谍，妄图颠覆破坏中国的政治制度。我们在村里走得差不多了，他非要开那辆吉普警车送我们回旅馆——就在附近的县城九襄。他警告我们，回了旅馆就不要出门了。
Of course, as soon as he had dropped us, we left the hotel and went off in search of supper in the old town centre. The main street was an alley of wooden houses with panelled fronts and low-tiled roofs. Some were already boarded up for the night, others were still open for business. A seamstress leant over her puttering sewing machine at a table in the street. There were makers of funeral wreaths, vendors of incense, cigarettes and snacks. Night was falling by the time we stumbled upon the old pai fang, an amazing memorial gateway covered in a froth of extravagant carvings.
当然，他一走，我们就出了门，去古镇中心寻觅晚饭。主街是一条小巷，两旁都是木房子，板搭门、瓦屋顶；有些已经关门过夜了，有的还开着做生意。一位女裁缝坐在街上的缝纫台边，伏着身子在老式缝纫机上忙碌；另外还有做花圈寿衣的手艺人，卖香烛纸钱、烟酒零食的小贩。夜色渐临，我们猛然发现镇上的老牌坊，好一座艺术品啊，上面的雕刻精美极了。
We ate rice and vegetables in a crumbling restaurant where the cook shook his wok over the flames of a coal-fired stove. When we finally made it back to the hotel, the police were waiting for us. They left me alone, but interrogated Mu Ma for an hour. They took down the details of his work unit. They asked him, again, what I was doing there. ‘It’s for her own protection,’ they claimed. Some time ago, they told him, a Japanese tourist ran out of money here, stayed ‘outside’ in a farmhouse, and was murdered. ‘It’s for her own protection.’ I slept uneasily, the sound of the frogs like a ghostly chorus outside.
我们在附近一个小餐馆吃了点简单的米饭素菜，店里的炉子是烧煤的，厨子就举着炒锅在煤炉上颠锅。等回到旅馆，发现警察正在等我们。他们没管我，但围着穆玛盘问了一个小时，又问他我来这儿干啥。“这是为了保护她。”他们宣称，还跟穆玛说，之前有个日本游客跑到这儿来，没钱花了住在“外面”一家农舍，结果被杀了。“这是为了保护她。”那一夜我睡得很不安稳，窗外的蛙鸣像幽灵的合唱。
Before I left Qingxi, I persuaded a villager to give me a small pepper plant, which I planned to take back with me to England. It was a slender thing, bedded in a little earth, swaddled in a plastic bag. I carried it back with me to Chengdu, where I cared for it tenderly, and then to Beijing. But at Beijing airport I had a sudden crisis of conscience. Britain was engulfed in the foot-and-mouth epidemic, and there was a crackdown on the import of fresh foods and agricultural products. I was afraid of being caught with my pepper plant. And so I left it, forlorn in its wrapping, on a table in a Beijing airport cafeteria. I thought about it all the way home, and for weeks afterwards.
离开清溪之前，我求一个村民给了我一小棵花椒树苗，打算带回英国去。那是很细很细的一棵苗，根部包了点土，装在塑料袋里。我把它带回了成都，精心照料，又带去了北京。但在北京的机场，我突然惊慌失措地想到，英国正因为口蹄疫而风声鹤唳，生鲜和农产品的进口受到限制。我害怕带这株花椒树入境会被抓住，于是就把它给遗弃在首都国际机场一家咖啡厅的桌子上了。回家的一路上以及回家后的几个星期，我都在想着它。
The roads were as bad as I remembered. We took a comfortable modern bus from Chengdu to Ya’an, ‘The City of Rain’, but after that it was juddering country buses and potholed roads. The landscape was soft and amorphous. The sun shone vaguely through the mist. We crawled up mountain roads, the bus horn honking incessantly, through a landscape of steep terraced fields, green with winter vegetables, bordered by bamboo and pine. Little frothy cataracts spilt down from the heights to the boulder-strewn river bed, far below.
路还是和记忆中一样烂。我们从成都坐了一辆很舒适的现代大巴去了雨城雅安，但下了大巴以后，就得坐着乡下的公交车在坑坑洼洼的路上颠簸。这里有着轻柔而流动的风景，太阳在迷雾中射出微光。公交车顺着山路蜿蜒而上，喇叭不停地响，窗外掠过陡峭的梯田，里面种着冬天的蔬菜，还是一片绿；田埂上是竹子和松树；悬崖上不断有细细的瀑布飞流直下，汇入底下布满鹅卵石的河床。
Five years later, Mu Ma and I returned to Hanyuan in midwinter, just before the Chinese New Year. I had been in Shanghai for a few months, exploring the tastes of eastern China, and was hankering for mountains and wild open scenery. And I’d wanted for a long time to go back to Qingxi, to find out more about my most beloved spice.
五年后，穆玛和我在隆冬时节回汉源旧地重游。刚好是春节前，我已经在上海待了几个月，探询华东的舌尖味道，心里正热切渴望爬爬山，看看野外开阔的风景。而且我早就想再去一次清溪，再多研究一下我最爱的那种香料。
Higher and higher we climbed, the bumpy road clinging to craggy hills. There were precarious patches of cultivated green on even the highest slopes, farmhouses nestling amid plumes of bamboo. In the coal-mining area near Yingjing, we passed a ramshackle workshop open to the street. Everything in it was covered in a thin layer of coal dust, including the old man working there with pieces of metal. It looked like a scene from an old black-and-white film, except that there amid his grimy pots and pans, on a grimy chopping board, was a single lettuce, so vividly green that it appeared to glow. We juddered past, honking. Processions of lumbering trucks passed us. Some old men in army-issue greatcoats and fur hats with ear-flaps played Chinese chess outside a teahouse.
山越走越高，崎岖的路紧贴着陡峭的山。最高的山坡上都有人开垦田地，看上去十分危险。竹林如烟如羽，农舍点缀其间。在荥经县附近的煤矿区，车子经过一个大门朝街面开的作坊。房子一副要倒的样子，作坊里面的一切都蒙着一层薄薄的煤灰，包括在里面摆弄一块块金属的老头。一切看着就像黑白老电影里的场景，不过那些脏兮兮的锅碗瓢盆之间，灰不溜秋的菜板上摆了一根莴笋，绿得那么鲜亮，好像都发光了。车子吭哧吭哧地摇晃过去，按着喇叭。一串笨重的卡车从另一条车道上开过。几个穿大衣、戴耳罩皮毛帽的老头在一家茶馆外面下象棋。
The following morning we rose early and went to the bus station, where we haggled for a lift to the village of Jianli where, on the Ox Market Slopes, the finest Sichuan pepper is said to grow. Eventually we agreed a price with the driver of another loaf-of-bread van, a jovial man with round spectacles that echoed the roundness of his face. As he waited for a last passenger to fill up the van, we chatted for a while. ‘To look at you,’ he said to me, ‘one would imagine that you are not Chinese. Are you a foreigner?’ Later, talking to Mu Ma, he referred to the ying guo xiao huo zi, the ‘young English lad’. Staring at him in amazement, I told him that I was actually a woman, and no longer particularly young. The other passengers laughed at him. ‘Sorry, my eyes aren’t that good,’ he said. I sighed as I thought of him driving us along a rutted track into the mountains. But it couldn’t be helped. Finally we set off, crammed into the tiny van with a pepper farmer and his daughter, who carried agricultural supplies in baskets on their backs.
第二天我们起了个大早，去了车站，想搭车去号称出产最好花椒的建黎乡牛市坡。一番讨价还价之后，我们又跟一个面包车司机谈好了价钱。他圆圆的脸上架着圆圆的眼镜，一副乐天派的样子。面包车要等坐满人才走，所以我们聊了会儿天。“看你这样子，”他跟我说，“应该不是中国人吧。你是外国人吗？”接着他跟穆玛讲话，说我是“英国小伙子”。我错愕地盯着他说，我是女的，而且也不年轻了，怎么也谈不上“小伙子”。别的乘客都笑他。“不好意思哈，我眼力不行。”他说。我想着眼力不好的他要开车带我们走蜿蜒的山路，不禁叹了口气。但这也是没办法的事。人满以后我们终于出发了，小小的车厢里还挤了一个椒农和他女儿，他们背上都背着篓子，里面装着农用品。
As we drove over the last pass before Hanyuan, the mountains were frosted with snow, the pine trees heavy with it, and then we were engulfed by a freezing white mist, dream-like. Finally we emerged into the arid Hanyuan landscape. Barren in winter, the fields were filled with battalions of spiky pepper trees. Just before we reached Qingxi, the way was blocked by a multiple pile-up, so we had to leave the bus, walk past a crumpled mess of lorries, and hitch a lift in the loaf-of-bread van belonging to an insurance company. ‘Are you Miss Rose?’ asked the driver as he rattled at dangerously high speed over the potholed road.
我们经过到达汉源前的最后一站，群山都覆盖着薄雪，树上更是厚雪压松枝。接着车子就开进了一片冰冷的白雾中，像突然闯入了一个梦。终于，荒凉的汉源出现在我们眼前。冬天这里是一片肃杀萧瑟，田里全是光秃秃、长满刺的花椒树，像规整的军队。快到清溪的时候，前面的路因为连环撞车被封了。我们只能下车，经过一连串被撞得面目全非的卡车，搭了个保险公司的顺风面包车。“你是罗斯小姐吗？”司机一边问，一边在坑洼的路上高速危险驾驶。
The valley was flooded with the cool blue-green of winter garlic. Every household around here once reared oxen to plough the land, and the Ox Market Slopes, where we were headed, was where all the beasts from the surrounding area were bought and sold. ‘But now people use machines to till the earth,’ said the farmer’s daughter, ‘so they don’t keep oxen. It’s too expensive to feed them all year round when they are only used for occasional work.’ Still, there were a number of specialist beef restaurants along the road, cashing in on their local history.
山谷里种满了蒜苗，是幽幽的蓝绿色。这片儿的每家人都曾赶牛耕田，我们要去的牛市坡就是十里八村集中买卖家畜的地方。“但是现在大家都用机器耕地喽，”椒农的女儿说，“所以也不养牛了。偶尔用来耕一下田，却一年到头都要喂，成本太高了。”不过，一路上还是看到了好几家专做牛肉的餐厅，靠贩卖地方历史挣钱。
The Ox Market Slopes lie at 1700 metres above sea level, 200 metres higher than Qingxi itself. And that, said the farmer, along with the dry climate and the sandy soil, was the secret of the famous tribute pepper. We left the van outside the local government office, where a man was practising Tai Chi in the yard, and a black hen pecked. The village head, warming his hands over a charcoal brazier, offered us tea, and then asked a woman who worked with him to take us around. So we tramped through the crunchy snow, and walked through an orchard of pepper trees. ‘This area produces about ten tonnes of pepper a year,’ said our guide, as we surveyed the prickly trees and the snow-blurred terraces of the valley. ‘And it’s the finest of all. They call the tribute pepper wa wa jiao, “baby pepper”, because each pair of peppercorns also has a pair of tiny, embryonic peppercorns, or “babies” (wa wa) at its base.’
牛市坡海拔一千七百米，比清溪镇要高两百米。农民说，再加上干燥的气候和沙土，这就是“清溪贡椒”闻名天下的原因了。面包车停在乡政府门外，院子里有个人在打太极拳，一只乌鸡在啄着地上的虫子。乡长伸手在炭炉上烤火。他给我们上了茶水，然后叫来一位女同事带我们四处转转。我们踩在嘎吱作响的雪上，穿过一片花椒林。“这个地方一年大概出产十吨花椒。”我们的女向导说。她带我们看那些布满荆棘的枝条与河谷中一级级的雪野：“都是最好的。他们把贡椒叫做‘娃娃椒’，因为每一对花椒下面还有一对胚胎一样的小花椒，是它们的娃娃。”
Our driver was still waiting outside the government offices, and there was one more sight to see before we returned to Qingxi. High above Jianli, just off the main road, stood a concrete post proudly emblazoned with the slogan: ‘Hanyuan County, the home of flower pepper’. Just below it, less conspicuous, there was an old stone tablet engraved in Chinese characters. This stone is known as the mian gong bei, the ‘Tribute exemption stele’. When we had visited Hanyuan five years before, it had lain, in pieces, under a bed in the local government offices, but a dawning awareness of the county’s history and its tourism potential had seen it repaired and brought to this prominent spot.
来时的司机还在乡政府外头等着，回清溪之前我们还有个地方要去看。建黎乡的主路边立着一根高高的水泥柱子，上面刻着一句骄傲的标语：“汉源县，花椒之乡”。就在柱子下面，没那么显眼的地方，有块旧石碑上面也刻着字。乡民把它叫做“免贡碑”。五年前我们到汉源的时候，这块碑还碎成几块躺在乡政府。但近几年大家对于本乡历史的自豪慢慢觉醒，而且这还有潜在的旅游价值，于是石碑被修复了，安在了这个很重要的位置。
Back in the village, we were invited into a run-down farmhouse by some old women, a great-grandmother and a grandmother, who were looking after a two-year-old child while the wife of the household was out working. They gave us some of their home-grown pepper. ‘If you have a stomach ache,’ said the grandmother, ‘take ten peppercorns in your hands, rub them, and then swallow them with cold water. You’ll find it very effective.’
回到乡里，两个老太太邀请我们去了她们的家。她俩一个是太奶奶、一个是奶奶，一起照顾两岁的孩子，儿媳妇也出去打工了。老太太给了我们一些自家种的花椒。“肚子痛的话，”奶奶说，“手里头抓十个花椒，揉一下搓一下，用冷水吞下去，有用得很。”
Its worn characters told the tale of how the pepper farmers of the region won protection from the extortions of corrupt local officials in the last days of the Qing Dynasty. At that time, the imperial court demanded an annual quota of pepper in tribute, and its representatives in Qingxi were harsh in their exactions. They squeezed the peasants dry, driving them into desperate poverty. Eventually the peasants could bear it no more, and they petitioned the higher levels of government for mercy. In an act of imperial benevolence, the tribute tax was abolished, and the stone was set up in Jianli as a guarantee of the government’s promise.
石碑上磨损的字迹讲述了清朝末年本地椒农如何免除被当地腐败官员以上贡之名盘剥压榨的故事。当时，朝廷每年要求清溪上贡一定数量的花椒，而清溪的朝廷官员则借此搜刮民脂民膏。农民们都被榨干了，陷入绝望的贫穷中。最终农民们忍无可忍，向更高级的政府请愿，求官员放农民一条生路。朝廷大发慈悲，皇帝批准停止征收贡品。建黎乡就立了这块石碑，保证政府言出必行。
We piled back into the van and juddered our way to the main road, talking about pepper. And the local official, our guide, let slip that, in a modern version of the old tribute system, 40 jin of the choicest Jianli pepper is bought each year by the Ya’an government, and sent as a gift to Zhongnanhai, the Communist Party leadership compound in the heart of Beijing. ‘All these shops,’ she said, waving a hand at the rows of little booths along the main road, ‘they say they sell tribute pepper, but you can’t really find it around here. The best stuff is bought up by officials and people with the right personal connections. Most of what you see on sale here is grown in other parts of Sichuan, and wrapped up in Qingxi packaging.’
我们又挤回面包车上，颠簸地开向主路，一路都在聊花椒。作为我们向导的女乡官说：每年雅安市政府要征收四十斤精选的建黎花椒，送到北京心脏地区的中南海作为礼物。“这些店儿啊，”她朝主路边一排排小摊挥挥手，“都说他们卖的是贡椒，其实这儿根本找不到贡椒。最好的都被那些有门路、有关系的人买走了。这儿市面上的，基本上都是四川其他地方产的了，加了个清溪的包装而已。”
Mu Ma and I had lunch at one of the beef restaurants on the main road: a bubbling hotpot that rang and sang with Sichuan pepper. Later, we drove back down to Qingxi. Outside the Confucian Temple that we’d visited five years before, a crowd of peasants in brightly coloured clothes were milling around, negotiating prices for sacks of seed corn. Soon there was a tap on my shoulder. A stocky man told me to accompany him into the government offices, which I suddenly noticed were directly opposite the temple gate. ‘Actually, I want to go and look at the temple,’ I told him. But it was clear that refusal was not an option. He frogmarched me into the building, and up some concrete stairs into a freezing, smoky office overlooking the seed market. He invited me to sit down, and brewed me some green tea with water poured from a thermos flask.
我和穆玛在主路边一家牛肉馆吃了午饭，端上来是热气腾腾的牛肉火锅，还冒着泡，花椒在汤里翻腾跳跃。吃完饭，我们就坐车回到清溪。五年前去过的文庙外有一群穿着鲜艳衣服的农民在转来转去，商量每袋谷种的价钱。很快就有人拍了拍我的肩膀，转头一看，是个矮壮结实的男人，叫我跟他去一趟政府。我突然发现，原来县政府就在文庙对面。“我其实想去庙里看看。”我跟他说。但很显然他的要求是不能拒绝的。他几乎是“押送”着我进了政府大楼，爬上水泥楼梯，进入一个冷冰冰的全是烟味的办公室，窗口刚好能俯瞰种子市场。他请我坐下，从热水瓶里倒了点水，给我泡了绿茶。
I braced myself for the usual tedious interrogation. Would he keep me there for hours with his paranoia and political innuendoes? Would he make me write a self-criticism, signed with a fingerprint, like that jittery policemen I’d once met in a Tibetan area of northern Sichuan? Would he assign a teenaged policeman to watch over me? But it turned out that my host, the Secretary of the Qingxi branch of the Chinese Communist Party, was a new kind of party man.
我做好了准备，要迎接见怪不怪的冗长盘问。他会不会把我扣在这儿好几个小时，说些无端妄想的话，表达些含沙射影的政治观点？他会不会让我写份检讨，按手印画押，就像我在川北藏区遇到的那个神经过敏的警察？他会不会也派个二十出头的警察来监视我？然而，原来我遇到的这位是清溪镇委书记，是个“新型党员”。
I was surprised and delighted. He was the first Communist Party cadre I’d ever met who understood that he might make a better impression on a foreign writer by being hospitable than by treating her like a criminal or a spy. Had he been on some new Party PR course, I wondered?
我又惊讶又高兴。我还是第一次遇到这样的党员干部：他明白，面对外国作家，不用把她当个罪犯或者间谍，友好亲切一点才能留下好印象。
When I explained to him that I was a food-writer and researcher interested in Sichuan pepper, his plump, generous face lit up. ‘Welcome, welcome!’ he said, and immediately disappeared into an adjacent office, re-emerging moments later with a glossy, full-colour calendar celebrating Qingxi tribute pepper. Proudly, he pointed out its features: the poems, the account of Qingxi’s 1346-year history as a county seat, the close-up photographs of the famous wa wa jiao. ‘Look,’ he said, pointing, ‘Can you see the “babies”, the wa wa? That’s the sign of authenticity.’ He was keen, he told me, to spread the word about Qingxi and its pepper to the outside world.
我向他解释说，自己是个美食作家和研究者，对花椒很感兴趣，他那开朗的圆脸都放光了。“欢迎啊，欢迎！”他说着就进了旁边一间办公室，过了一会儿拿出一本装帧精美、颜色鲜艳的台历，上面图文并茂地歌颂了清溪贡椒。他还自豪地介绍了这本台历的内容：各种相关的古诗、清溪作为县府一千三百四十六年的历史、著名的“娃娃椒”的特写照片。“你看哈，”他指着照片，“你看得到‘娃娃’不？这说明是真资格的贡椒。”他告诉我，自己很热切地想要向外面的世界宣传清溪和清溪花椒。
I asked the Party’s Secretary’s advice about buying Qingxi pepper. ‘I’ve heard that it’s not always genuine,’ I told him, ‘And that some dealers import pepper from other places, and pass it off as the real thing.’
我说想买点清溪花椒，请这位镇委书记给点意见。“我听说不一定能买到真的，”我对他说，“有些商贩还拿外面的花椒冒充。”
Half an hour later, he was back with two paper bags, proudly emblazoned with a printed history of Qingxi tribute pepper. The Secretary seized a bag and we smelled the pepper, which was wonderful. The skin of the peppercorns was dark pink and pimply; inside they were silky white. ‘Do please show me the wa wa,’ I said. He looked closely at one pair of peppercorns, then another, and another. Then he shouted in rage. ‘This is not real wa wa jiao! You see, some of them have the wa wa, but others don’t, they must have mixed them up, diluted them!’ He was fuming. The Mayor was summoned again. ‘Look, this is no good, go again, don’t ask in the shops, go and find some peasant who has kept by a small supply of the best stuff. There must be some around.’ (No wonder it was hard to find the real thing, if even the mayor of Qingxi was fobbed off with fake tribute pepper. I tried not to smile.)
半个小时后，他拿着两个纸袋回来了，袋子上骄傲地印刷着清溪贡椒的历史。书记拿了一袋，我们一起闻了闻，这香味太妙了。花椒是深粉色的，表面凹凸不平，里面是如丝般的洁白。“请给我看看‘娃娃’。”我说。他凑近一对花椒仔细看了看，又选了一对，再选了一对。接着他生气地喊起来：“这不是真的娃娃椒！你看嘛，有的有娃娃，有的没娃娃！肯定是有其他的混进来了！”他气得冒烟，又把那个人喊来了：“你看嘛，根本不好。再去买，不要去那些店店儿，去找农民，他们手头留了些最好的，肯定有。”（怪不得很难找到真货，那些商贩竟然敢拿假贡椒来蒙本地官员。）
‘No problem,’ he said, and stabbed out a number on his mobile phone. Minutes later someone else came into the room. He turned out to be the Mayor. ‘Look here,’ the Party Secretary said to the Mayor, ‘Can you get a jin or so of Qingxi Tribute pepper for Miss Fu? Make sure it’s good stuff.’ The Mayor rushed off on his errand.
“没问题，”他说，一边拿起手机拨了个电话。几分钟后，他的一位同事进来了。“你看哈，”镇委书记对那个人说，“能不能给扶小姐搞一斤左右的清溪贡椒，要好的哈。”那人赶紧跑去落实。
After a while a number of rather smartly dressed adults entered the courtyard. The bad boys melted away with their cards and cigarettes. The adults stood awkwardly around, looked at us for a bit, and then left. I guessed that they were government officials, but they left Mu Ma and me alone.
过了一会儿，一些衣着光鲜的成年人走进院子。坏孩子们带着他们的卡片和香烟消失了。大人们尴尬地站在周围，看了我们一会儿，然后离开了。我猜他们是政府官员，但他们让穆玛和我一个人呆着。
‘Yes yes,’ said the Secretary. ‘But please won’t you join us for dinner a little later on?’ So he gave me his phone number and we arranged a time and a place.
“好的，好的，”书记说，“但是请你等一下是不是跟我们吃个晚饭呢？”他给我留了电话，我们讲好时间地点。
Eventually the Mayor returned with an unlabelled plastic bag of pepper. The peppercorns were still attached to tiny fragments of twig. Their scent was overwhelming, it flooded the room. So we scrutinised the peppercorns, and indeed they all came with their wa was. Everyone was happy. ‘Thank you so much,’ I said. ‘And now perhaps I will go and look around the temple.’
最后，那人提着一个塑料袋回来了，里面装着花椒，袋子上没有任何标签和宣传，还带着小小的枝条。打开一闻，芳香扑鼻，弥漫在整间办公室里。我们仔细检查了那些花椒，每一对都有“娃娃”，真是皆大欢喜。“太感谢您了，”我说，“下面我就去文庙里随便转转看看吧。”
Back at the temple, I met up again with Mu Ma. In the main gateway a small band of naughty boys were sitting around a table, gambling and smoking cigarettes. The ringleader appeared to be about eleven, and was puffing away on his cigarette like an old roué, dealing cards and shuffling piles of bank notes. The others all looked wildly delinquent as they shouted and laughed, and chucked their cards and cash about the table. The ancient temple custodian looked on, quiet and resigned.
我和穆玛又在文庙汇合。阔别五年的庙堂重新打通了，进行了华丽而俗艳的修复。颜色鲜亮的巨大孔子像高高在上地俯瞰着我们。庙堂外破烂的石碑和石头香炉还是几百年如一日地伫立着。文庙的看门老头指着石碑边一团血糊糊的污渍和一地杂乱的鸡毛说：“学生考试之前都来杀鸡拜孔子。”
Since our last visit the main temple hall had been opened up and gaudily restored. A huge statue of Confucius in bright, primary-school colours loomed overhead. Outside, the crumbling stele and stone incense burner stood as they had for centuries. The elderly custodian of the temple pointed out the chicken feathers that were stuck to the side of the stele in a clotted, bloody mess. ‘Students,’ he said, ‘killing chickens as sacrifices to Confucius before their exams.’
自从我们上次访问以来，大殿已经被打开，恢复了华丽。头顶上隐约可见一尊色彩鲜艳的小学孔子雕像。屋外，摇摇欲坠的石碑和石香炉像几百年前一样矗立着。寺院的老看门人指了指粘在石碑边的鸡毛，鸡毛凝结成一团，血迹斑斑。“学生们，”他说，“在考试前杀鸡祭奠孔子。”
It took five strong men to manhandle the struggling pig into the yard, and pin it down on the slaughter bench, where it shrieked and wailed like a stricken human. Then the butcher plunged his knife deep into its throat, and the blood gushed out in a torrent of purplish red. The pig continued to scream and writhe for what seemed like ages. Finally, it was dead, and the courtyard ran crimson with blood. The butcher made a cut in its hind leg, and poked in the nozzle of a bicycle pump. Then he stepped on the pump, and the pig plumped up (‘Easier to butcher,’ he said).
得要五个壮劳力同时出马，才能把拼命挣扎的猪抬到院子里，捆在屠宰板上。行将受刑的猪发出尖利可怕的呼号，恰似惊慌失措的人类。接着屠夫就把刀深深插进猪的喉咙，紫红色的鲜血四处飞溅、汩汩不断。猪继续尖叫翻扭，让人难受，感觉时间漫长。最后，它死了，院子也被血染红。屠夫在它后腿上一割，往鼻孔上塞了个自行车打气泵。接着踩气泵，猪就慢慢胀起来了（“很好杀的。”他说）。
It was la yue, the month of winter sacrifices. Almost every household had been rearing a pig in preparation for the New Year, and now it was time for the killing. By the roadside, fires burned under communal stoves. Steam rose from huge basins of simmering water. We watched a man rounding up his family’s pig in the courtyard of his house in the centre of town. The animal grunted, bristly with apprehension. Inside, the butcher was waiting, with his sharp willow-leaf knife.
隆冬腊月，正是冬祭之时。几乎家家户户都养着猪为春节做准备。现在猪养肥了，可以宰了。路边很多共用的炉子，烧着火。巨大的锅盆里煮开咕嘟咕嘟的水，冒着浓浓的蒸汽。我们目睹镇中心一个院子里有个男人套了自己的猪。那猪吭哧吭哧的，又怒又怕。屠夫就等在屋里，柳叶刀正霍霍地磨着。
Mu Ma was busy taking notes as dinnertime approached. I reminded him that we were supposed to be meeting the Party Secretary before six. ‘I’ll join you later,’ he said. So I left on my own. I hitched a lift on the back of a young bloke’s motorbike, and almost flew down the hill, wind flicking through my hair, gazing at a sun-drenched landscape of peppered slopes and mountains salty with snow.
快到晚饭时间了，穆玛还在忙着记笔记。我提醒他咱们六点前就要去见那位书记。“我后面再来找你。”他说。于是我一个人走了。我搭了个小伙子的摩托车，几乎是飞着下山的。风在我的头发之间呼啸，阳光普照着遍野的花椒树和盐一样覆盖着群山的白雪。
One man sliced off the pig’s head with a large knife, and then they hung the decapitated carcass from a wooden frame. They carved it up, there in the yard, ready for salting. A woman with wet hands unravelled yards of looping intestines on the bench while a little boy ran around with a pair of trotters dangling from a piece of string. Inside the house, the women were salting chunks of fatty meat and packing them into waist-high clay jars. A few days later, they would cook them in lard, and lay them down in jars for the rest of the year.
一个人拿把大刀割下猪头，接着把身子挂在一个木架子上，就在院子里当场分解好，准备抹盐。女人把手打湿，在炉台上处理一圈圈的猪大肠；小男孩提着用绳子挂好的一对猪蹄子在院子里跑来跑去。屋子里面，女人们正给一块块肥肉抹盐，放进齐腰高的瓦罐里。几天后拿出来熬了猪油，放进罐子装好，能用一整年。
The strong men hauled the great flabby beast on to the stove bench, where they dipped each part of its body in turn into the basinful of steaming water. Another man stoked the fire underneath with pieces of wood. The pig’s face, pale and lifeless, stared out at strange angles as they manipulated it on the bench. The blanched body parts were scraped clean of hair. The men were quiet and earnest as they went about their work.
壮劳力们把这已经绵软无力的大家伙抬到炉台上，分别把猪身的各个部位往那盆滚开的水里焯一下。还专门有个人往炉膛里添柴烧火。他们在炉台上操作时，猪的脸一片苍白、了无生气，眼珠子的角度非常奇怪，直勾勾地盯着某个地方。焯水之后变白的部位被趁热拔了毛。做这事的时候，男人们很安静也很认真。
In the Mountain Villa restaurant, all the Party and government officials of Qingxi were assembled around a large, circular table in a private room. I recognised among them the smartly dressed people I had seen earlier in the temple. (So I had been right.) The Party Secretary was warmly welcoming, and raised repeated toasts to my health. ‘Welcome to Sichuan! Welcome to Hanyuan. Even more welcome to Qingxi!’ he cried. One or two other officials made attempts to be friendly, but it was clear that the rest of them harboured some lingering doubts about my presence. They glanced uneasily at my notebook as I scribbled. Although I listed the names of the dishes we ate in Chinese characters, my copious notes were in English, so they couldn’t tell for sure if I was writing about more than just the food.
在山庄餐厅，清溪的所有党政干部都来了，围坐在包间的大圆桌前。镇委书记很热情，频频举杯祝我身体健康、万事如意。“欢迎来四川，欢迎来汉源，更欢迎来清溪！”他高声说道。另外一两个官员试图友好相处，但很明显，他们中的其他人对我的存在怀有一些挥之不去的疑虑。我乱写的时候，他们不安地瞥了一眼我的笔记本。虽然我用中文列出了我们吃的菜的名字，但我的大量笔记都是英文的，所以他们不能肯定我写的不仅仅是食物。
‘Well, thank you,’ I told him, ‘I am honoured.’
“嗯，谢谢您，”我对他说，“我很荣幸。”
‘Actually this is the first time the Qingxi government has received a foreign visitor,’ said the Mayor, at my side, a little abashed. (Even the famous Rose, it seemed, had not yet dined with him and his colleagues.)
“其实这是清溪政府第一次接待外宾。”坐在我身边的镇长有些局促不安地说。（似乎著名的罗斯都还没跟他和同僚们吃过饭。）
The dinner was scrumptious, Sichuanese rustic cooking at its best. We began with slices of wind-dried sausage, tingly with Sichuan pepper and chilli, and chunks of delicious corn-fed chicken dressed in chilli oil. There was jia sha rou (slices of fat belly pork with glutinous rice and sweet red-bean paste, turned out of a steaming bowl and sprinkled with sugar); tea-fragrant salted greens stir-fried with minced pork; a whole pork knuckle, dressed in a lavish fish-fragrant sauce and sliding lazily off the bone; stewed brown beans with Sichuan pepper oil; a magnificent chicken stew with tian ma, an expensive medicinal tuber; and a slow, hearty stew of beef with carrot. The ingredients were locally produced and they tasted stupendous. It was the best Chinese meal I’d had in months, better than anything I’d had in the glamorous restaurants of Shanghai, and I couldn’t stop eating. Rosy with wine and exhilarated with pleasure, I too proposed a toast: ‘May the outside world understand and adore your Qingxi hua jiao!’ The officials were delighted, and raised their cups in unison.
桌上的菜都非常美味可口，可以说是最棒的乡土川菜了。最先上的是切成薄片的风吹香肠，吃上几片唇舌就被花椒和辣椒勾出过瘾的刺痛感；好吃的红油土鸡块；夹沙肉（猪五花肉片中间夹上糯米和甜豆沙，上锅蒸至酥软，撒上糖上桌）；茶香咸菜炒碎肉；烂得肉都从骨头上微微剥离的鱼香肘子；炖芸豆配花椒油；用昂贵的药材天麻炖的土鸡，鲜美异常；还有一道充满心意、文火慢炖的红烧胡萝卜牛肉。食材都是本地土生土长的，吃着实在美味惊人。那是我几个月以来吃得最好的一顿中餐，比我在上海那些豪华餐厅吃到的任何东西都要美妙，我停不下嘴。酒红了脸，菜起了兴，我也举杯说：“愿外面的世界能了解并喜爱你们清溪的花椒！”官员们面露欣喜，共同举杯畅饮。
Mu Ma wandered in when the meal was almost finished, rudely, I thought, but I didn’t say anything. We all rose from our seats, and Mu Ma used my camera to take a picture of me standing at the centre of two rows of officials, smiling, with the pepper trees and the mountains in the background. A local law officer offered us a ride back to our hotel in his police jeep, and the Party Secretary invited me to join him later at the bar of his own hotel, for drinks and karaoke. We parted on friendly terms.
这顿饭快吃完了，穆玛才慢悠悠地走进来。我觉得他有点不礼貌，但什么也没说。大家都站起来，穆玛拿着我的相机帮我们合了影。官员们站成两排，我站在中间，微笑着，背景是远山和花椒树。一位法院的官员开着警用吉普载我们回了宾馆。镇委书记还邀请我晚点去他自己的宾馆喝喝酒、唱唱卡拉OK。
Mu Ma was still hungry, so we had to find a place to eat. But he was behaving strangely: he wouldn’t look me in the face and would barely speak to me. ‘What’s going on?’ I asked, eventually. He wouldn’t say. But when I pressed him, all his fears flooded out. ‘What are you doing, accepting the hospitality of these local officials? You think they are generous, but I bet as far as local people are concerned, everything they give you, all that meat, all that wine, all that precious pepper, is paid for with money that they have screwed out of the peasants. I suspect they are just using you, trying to win you over. How can the local people see these officials as anything other than blood-suckers, greedy and idle? Look at them, running hotels and karaoke bars, hosting dinner parties at public expense. You’ve seen how poor people are here. When you said, at the pig slaughter, that you were going for dinner at the Mountain Villa, the family we were with all exchanged meaningful looks. And after you’d gone, they told me that’s the place where the officials go, where they spend public money on food and drink. They hate the officials, and now they think you are one of them. As far as they are concerned, you have been eating and drinking at the expense of all the poor peasants of Qingxi.’
穆玛还饿着肚子，我们还得找个地方让他吃饭。但他表现得有点奇怪。我感觉他好像有点儿生我的气。“怎么了？”我问。他不愿意说。但晚点我又追问，他坦白说，之前跟我们聊过天的那些村民，听说我跟当地官员们吃了饭，很吃惊也很不高兴。“他们不知道你在干什么，还要让那些当官的接待你。你可能觉得这些当官的很大方，但是农民觉得他们给你的所有东西，大鱼大肉啊、好酒啊、珍贵的花椒啊，都是花的公家的钱。你也看到了，这里的人有多穷。杀猪的时候你说你要去山庄吃饭，那家人互相都看了一眼。他们觉得，你是在花清溪这些贫苦农民的钱去大吃大喝。”
I was upset by Mu Ma’s outburst, but angry too, and defensive. ‘What was I supposed to do?’ I asked him. ‘I’m not like you, able to blend into the background. I’m a foreigner, I’m totally conspicuous. People in these remote places treat me like a visiting dignitary — or a spy. What do you expect me to do when the local party secretary orders me into his office? Cause a scene by resisting? Anyway, I’m a writer, I have to see all sides of Chinese society. I want to know how things work here.’ There was truth in my excuses, but I knew perfectly well that I had revelled in that dinner. Corruption and poverty had been the last things on my mind as I sipped my soup and let the steamed pork belly melt in my mouth. Grumbling, Mu Ma accepted that it was different for a foreigner. ‘But I still think you should avoid these people.’
穆妈的爆发让我很不安，但我也很生气，而且很守势。“我该怎么办？“我问他。“我不像你，能融入背景。我是外国人，我很显眼。在这些偏僻的地方，人们把我当作一个来访的显贵或间谍。当当地党委书记命令我进他的办公室时，你希望我做什么？用反抗来制造一个场面？不管怎样，我是一个作家，我必须看到中国社会的方方面面。我想知道这里的情况。我的借口是真的，但我很清楚我在那顿晚餐中狂欢。腐败和贫穷是我最后想到的事情，因为我啜着汤，让蒸猪肚在我嘴里融化。穆妈发牢骚，承认这对一个外国人来说是不一样的。“但我还是认为你应该避开这些人。”
His words hit me like a thump in the stomach. It was true that corruption was rife all over China. Indeed, in the autumn of 2004, Hanyuan County itself had hit the international headlines. Venal local officials tried to evict tens of thousands of local farmers from their land to make way for a hydroelectric dam, and then to cheat them out of their compensation funds. The outraged peasants rose up against them, staging a sit-in by the dam construction site, just a few miles upriver from Qingxi. The central government, nervous at any sign of unrest, sent in top-ranking officials to reassure the populace, and paramilitary police to crush the riots before they spread. There were days of rioting, with mass attacks on government offices. Farmers were shot and killed: no one knew how many, because of the news blackout imposed on the whole county. Reading about this, I’d remembered about that paranoid policeman I’d met in 2001, and his vigilance had made more sense.
他的话使我如坐针毡。诚然，中国到处都是腐败现象。事实上，2004年秋，汉源县本身就登上了国际头条。贪得无厌的地方官员试图将数万当地农民赶出他们的土地，为一座水电站大坝让路，然后骗取他们的赔偿金。愤怒的农民起来反抗他们，在大坝建设工地静坐，离清溪i只有几英里远。中央政府对任何骚乱迹象都感到紧张，派出高级官员安抚民众，并派出准军事警察在骚乱蔓延前镇压骚乱。有几天发生暴乱，政府办公室遭到大规模袭击。农民被枪杀：没有人知道有多少人，因为全县都被封锁了。读到这篇文章，我想起了2001年遇到的那个偏执的警察，他的警觉更有意义。
He didn’t need to mention the riots of 2004. Had any of the officials I’d met been involved in the forced evictions, the compensation scam, and the violence? The Party Secretary had seemed genuinely warm and friendly, and had only recently been assigned to this job, perhaps in an attempt to clear the bad air after the riots. He certainly hadn’t been around at the time. And the centre of the troubles had been a few miles away. But less than three years ago, this whole county had been under paramilitary control. After the turmoil, one local man, charged with killing a policeman, was secretly executed before he could appeal. The people of Hanyuan county, if not Qingxi itself, had even more reason to hate their local leaders than most Chinese peasants. A century after the pepper farmers had won their battle over tribute tax, some of them were again struggling to protect their livelihoods from the extortions of their leaders. And I realised that I had been so absorbed in the food that I’d forgotten all about it.
他不必提2004年的暴乱。我见过的官员有没有参与过强制拆迁、赔偿骗局和暴力？这位党委书记似乎真的很热情友好，最近才被派去做这项工作，也许是为了消除骚乱后的不良气氛。他当时肯定不在。麻烦的中心就在几英里之外。但不到三年前，这个县还处于准军事控制之下。骚乱过后，一名被控杀害警察的当地男子在上诉前被秘密处决。汉源县的人民，如果不是清溪自己，比大多数中国农民更有理由憎恨他们的地方领导人。一个世纪后，辣椒种植户赢得了他们的贡税之争，他们中的一些人再次努力保护自己的生计免受领导人的勒索。我意识到我太专注于食物了，以至于忘记了一切。
A week after leaving Hanyuan, I was woken abruptly in the vagueness of the night by a bad dream involving a pig.
离开汉源一周后，我突然被一个恶梦惊醒，梦到一头猪。
The next morning, we woke early, and packed our things to return to Chengdu. The pepper in my bag had scented all my clothes, and the room. We walked to the bus station in a haze of its aroma, as the roosters were crowing, and the street vendors kneading dough for their morning buns. The first ramshackle bus to Ya’an was just leaving. ‘Are you Miss Rose?’ asked the conductor, as I bought my ticket.
第二天，我们起了个大早，收拾好东西准备回成都。包里的花椒让我所有的衣服都沾上了味道，整个屋里也是一股味道。我们在花椒之味的环绕下走向车站。公鸡正在打鸣，街头小贩们正在揉面准备蒸包子馒头。我们刚好赶上去雅安的头班车，我在破破烂烂的车上买票，售票员问我：“你是罗斯小姐哇？”
We stopped at a small restaurant where Mu Ma dined simply on beancurd, vegetables and rice, exchanging friendly banter with the owners in Sichuan dialect. My belly felt uncomfortably full of chicken, pork, and beef. I was torn between gratitude at the kindness of the Party Secretary, whom I’d instinctively liked, and a feeling of guilt provoked by Mu Ma’s words. In the end I called the Party Secretary and told him that I was tired and wouldn’t make it to his karaoke bar.
我们走进一家小餐馆，穆玛简单吃了点豆腐青菜和米饭，用四川话跟店主开着善意的玩笑。我的肚子里填满了鸡肉、猪肉和牛肉，真不舒服。镇委书记一副面善的样子，我喜欢他也感激他，但穆玛的话又唤起我心中的歉疚，两种情绪撕扯着我，更难受了。最后我打电话给党委书记，告诉他我累了，不能去他的卡拉OK酒吧。
Then I woke up.
然后我醒了。
I was taking care of the pig. It was enclosed in a sty at one side of an outhouse with high ceilings and whitewashed walls. One day I came in to tend to it and discovered it at the far side of the room. This was alarming, as it was supposedly penned in, and I realised it must have leapt over the wall of its sty. Then I climbed on to a thin ledge because I needed to reach something. It was a precarious position, but I clung to a little cupboard attached high up on the wall to help me balance. But then the pig reared up on its hind legs and tried to attack me, snarling and snapping. Dark, hairy, and vicious, it leapt into the air like a dog. I seized a thin bamboo cane and hit it in the face several times, but it was strong, and the cane was flimsy. Slowly the cupboard started coming off the wall, and I became desperate, knowing that I couldn’t hold myself up for much longer, thrashing at the pig.
我在照顾猪。它被围在一个猪圈里，在外屋的一边，有着高高的天花板和粉刷过的墙壁。有一天，我进来照料它，发现它在房间的另一边。这是令人震惊的，因为它应该被写在里面，我意识到它一定是跳过了猪圈的墙。然后我爬到一个很薄的壁架上，因为我需要够到一些东西。这是一个不稳定的位置，但我坚持一个小橱柜高挂在墙上，以帮助我平衡。但后来猪用后腿站起来，试图攻击我，咆哮着，啪的一声。黑暗，多毛，凶恶，它像条狗一样跳到空中。我抓起一根细细的竹竿，重重地打了几下，但是很结实，而且竹竿很薄。慢慢地，碗橱开始从墙上掉下来，我绝望了，因为我知道我再也撑不住自己了，扑打着猪。
And I wondered, was I dreaming of the pig at all?
我在想，我是不是在做梦呢？
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