I don’t think it ever occurred to me that enrolling as the first and only Western student in a Chinese chef’s school was a difficult or a strange thing to do. It was an impulsive decision, like going to China in the first place. I wanted to learn more about Sichuanese food, and I didn’t even consider as an obstacle the fact that I would have to study in Sichuanese dialect, in a big rowdy class of boys who weren’t necessarily going to accept me.
我应该从来没想过，做中国一间厨师学校第一个也是唯一一个正式的西方学生很困难或者很奇怪。那是个一时兴起的决定，来中国也是个一时兴起的决定。我想多了解、多学习川菜，因此要面对一群有可能不会接受我、欢迎我的吵吵闹闹的男生，还要学四川话，我甚至都没觉得这是个障碍。
Of course I had been used to sharing my family home in Oxford with foreigners, and to negotiating cultural difference on a daily basis. It had been no surprise to come down to breakfast and find a Sicilian engineer or a Turkish porcelain tycoon drinking coffee with my parents. Family camping holidays around the British Isles or Europe were never very organised. My father plotted our routes, choosing roads on the basis that they appeared as wiggly lines on the map and were therefore likely to be scenic. We rarely had a firm idea about where we would stay, and often had to pitch camp spontaneously by the side of the road.
当然啦，以前我在牛津的家里经常和外国人同住，每天都会处理和适应文化差异。早晨下楼吃早饭，看见一个西西里的工程师或者土耳其的瓷业巨头在跟我爸妈喝咖啡，这是司空见惯的事儿。假日的时候全家人去英国或者欧洲大陆某地露营，从来没达到过有条不紊的理想状态。爸爸负责计划路线，选择的时候主要是看地图上各条路的弯曲程度，越蜿蜒应该风景就越好。我们很少会看准一个要安定下来的地方，而总是开着开着就在路边停下，就地扎营。
The same applied to living in China in general. The country was still in the stranglehold of the decaying communist system. Stuffy bureaucrats made key decisions in every state-run institution and state-owned restaurant. If you obeyed the rules and tried to make arrangements through official channels, whether they were for a cooking lesson or a trip to a forbidden part of the country, you would be thwarted at every turn. Everything would be impossible: the system, it seemed, was designed to say ‘no’. Yet in other ways, China was positively anarchic: anything was possible. You just had to improvise.
不仅是旅行，在中国的生活大体上也是这样子。这个国家还被逐渐僵化的计划经济体系把控着。国有机构和国营餐馆中，都是人员冗余的官僚集团说了算。中国在外国的背包客圈儿里是个传奇，一路上遇到的服务人员全都摆着臭脸、态度粗暴，而且无论问什么问题，他们总是令人沮丧地丢出永恒的答案：“没有。”要是你遵守各种条条框框，通过官方渠道办事，不管是报名烹饪课还是去中国的某个“禁地”旅行，那几乎每走一步都会遭遇挫败。一切都是不可能的，仿佛整个体制的设定就是对任何要求说“不”。然而，要是走别的渠道，中国又仿佛是个“无政府主义”的地方。这里的“无政府主义”是个褒义词：一切皆有可能，你只是需要一点临场发挥。
In China, my travelling was similarly open-ended. I would just have the thought of going to a particular place, and then go there, without paying any attention to logistics. This was probably the only way to deal with China in the mid-nineties, because if you did stop for a moment to consider the horrifically dangerous roads, the joltingly uncomfortable buses, the hassle from the police and the long hours it took to get anywhere, you would be unlikely to venture out at all.
我在中国旅行也有着类似的“开放式结局”。我可能想好去某个地方，然后说走就走，根本不去注意交通食宿这些杂事。也许在二十世纪九十年代中期的中国，这是唯一的旅行方式。因为你要是犹豫了那么短短一刻，考虑下危险的道路、颠簸不舒服的大巴、“找麻烦”的警察和随便去哪里都要花上很长的时间，你可能就一步都迈不出去了。
I spent most of my holidays in China travelling into fei kai fang di qu (‘areas that are not open’). I had to use subterfuge to buy bus tickets, to travel before dawn, and to disguise myself, on several occasions, as a Chinese peasant. Upon arrival in a forbidden area, it became a matter of persuading minor officials and policemen to do things that were against their better judgement. Mostly, they were flummoxed at being faced with a friendly twenty-something Englishwoman chatting merrily to them in Chinese. They would offer me tea and cigarettes, listen to my charm offensive, and eventually agree to waive the fine, let me stay for a little longer, or allow me to take photographs of the local monastery. I was always aided in my outrageous negotiations by the fact that communications in remote areas were lousy: the doubtful policeman would invariably try to telephone his superiors in the nearest town for advice on how to handle the crisis, but the lines were always down. It was just him versus me.
年轻而富有冒险精神的我，在中国的大多数假期都是在“非开放地区”旅行。那些地区有这个国家最美、最原始的处女地。我必须用各种托词和借口买车票，天不亮就出发赶路，在好些情况下还需要乔装打扮成中国农民。一到某个“禁地”，就要对着某些小官和警察好说歹说，让他们行些不愿意行的方便。大多数时候，看着面前这个二十多岁、笑容友好的英国姑娘用中文跟他们愉快地交流，他们脸上都是一副困惑的表情。他们请我喝茶、给我递烟、看着我发动“魅力攻势”，最终同意不罚款，让我多待几天，或者同意我拍当地佛寺的照片。偏远地区的通讯条件总是很差，这对我那些离谱的“谈判”很有利。警察不知道该怎么办的时候，一定会想给附近城镇的上级打电话，想问问如何处理眼前的“危机”。但线路一般都不通，于是就剩下我和他。
In my twenties I relished the challenge of this cloak-and-dagger travel. It was fantastically exciting for a start, wandering off into Tibetan counties that had barely seen any foreigners since the early twentieth-century missionaries. Strange though it may sound, I also adored the sport of my skirmishes with the Chinese police. I was not a Tibetan, who might be sent to a prison camp on trumped-up political charges, or a peasant at the mercy of the vagaries of some local official. I knew enough about Chinese political sensitivities to avoid doing anything stupid. So there was nothing at stake: the worst that might happen was that I might be fined and packed off back to Chengdu.
二十多岁的我相当享受这“十面埋伏”的旅行带来的挑战。旅行的本身就特别棒、特别令人兴奋。我在西藏的城镇里到处漫步：自二十世纪初的外国传教士之后，这些地方就没怎么来过外国人。我感觉自己太荣幸、太奢侈了，能够在商业旅游汹汹而来之前体验这些非凡离奇的化外之地。听起来可能很奇怪，我觉得和中国的“有关部门”起点小冲突、小争执也挺好玩的。我算是了解中国的政治敏感点，不会做什么真正的傻事。我不过就是想找找乐子、享受旅行而已，而且也没什么大危险：最糟糕的情况不过就是被罚个款，然后收拾收拾回成都。
Liu Yaochun and I first met when we were fixed up together as conversation partners by the history faculty at Sichuan University. Most of my foreign student friends were introduced by their teachers to dull language partners, with whom they had a few strained conversations about cultural differences before deciding to abandon the experiment. But Liu Yaochun was different. The elder son of two illiterate peasants from one of China’s poorest regions, he had managed to win a place at Sichuan University by sheer brainpower. By the time I met him, he was already embarking on the postgraduate history degree that would lead him into a career in academia. (To me, he always seemed like a human advertisement for the social mobility created by Chinese communism.) He turned out to be fantastic company: original, funny, and full of ideas. We spent many hours talking to each other in a wild mix of English and Chinese, about history, culture, politics, philosophy, morality and religion. It is to him that I owe most of my Chinese language skills, and he says the same about me with reference to his English.
刘复兴和我认识在川大，我们被安排成练习双语对话的搭档。我的很多留学生朋友的对话搭档都是老师介绍的，特别无趣，进行几次关于文化差异的紧张对话之后就决定放弃了。但刘复兴与众不同。他来自中国最穷困的地区，父母都是大字不识的农民。他是家里的长子。就是这么一个农民的儿子，竟然完全凭智力和刻苦进了川大。我俩认识的时候，他已经在读博士学位了，准备追求学术事业。（在我眼里，他就像个真人广告，宣传着共产主义带来的中国社会流动性。）他是个特别棒的伙伴：有创意、有意思、有想法。我们经常中英文“乱炖”地聊天，一聊就是好几个小时，天南地北地说着历史、文化、政治、哲学、道德和宗教。我的中文技巧大部分都是他教的，他也觉得我对他的英语有很大帮助。
So I became brazen in my attitude to China. I just went ahead and asked, fully expecting everything to fall into place as I wished, somehow (‘La Principessa’, my Italian friend Francesca called me). And as often as not, the initial ‘no’ became ‘yes’. It was hard and time-consuming work to make things happen, but then I had the time, and the youthful energy, not to care.
所以我在中国的脸皮真是厚得很，总是直愣愣地开口提出各种要求，满怀期待地觉得任何事都能以某种方式符合我的预期。（“公主殿下”，我的意大利朋友弗朗西斯卡给我取了个外号。）常常遇到这样的情况：一开始对方会说“不”，后来经不起软磨硬泡，成了“好”。要达成目的很难，也需要很多时间。但那时候我有时间啊、年轻啊、精力旺盛啊，根本不在乎。
Studying at the Sichuan cooking school, battling against the chauvanism of my classmates and struggling with the language of professional Chinese cookery, was just another of the bizarre adventures I was encountering so often that they had come to seem an entirely normal part of life. By then it didn’t require any particular courage or determination. I just got on with it. Far more difficult, in a way, was the time I spent with my friend Liu Yaochun and his family, passing the Chinese New Year in their remote village in the north of China.
在四川烹饪学校学习，对抗着同学们的“盲目爱国主义”，挣扎于中餐的专业术语，这也是我的另一项冒险。这冒险初看匪夷所思，但因为是日常遭遇，所以似乎也成了正常生活的一部分。那时候过这样的生活也不需要什么特别的勇气和决心。我反正就那么一天天地过着。从某种程度上来说，比这大得多的挑战，是我和朋友刘复兴一家人在华北一个偏僻的小山村过春节。
My first visit to the village where Liu Yaochun had grown up was a culture shock, despite my growing familiarity with China. I had leapt at the invitation to spend the Lunar New Year with his family, and made my way there on a series of trains and long-distance buses. The village lay in a distant corner of northwestern Gansu Province, not far from Inner Mongolia and the northern fringes of the Chinese empire. It was midwinter, and freezing cold. The white, wintry sun hung over a bleached landscape, eerily bland, devoid of feature and colour. Monotonous, pale, dusty hills rose to the north; the pale dusty fields were bare; and the houses were built out of the same pale earth as the land on which they stood. Even the poplar trees, leafless in winter, were covered in dust, and the sky was so feeble a blue that it looked scarcely different from the land. It made me feel desolate, this monochrome emptiness.
第一次来到刘复兴土生土长的乡村，对中国自以为已经非常熟悉的我还是受到了强烈的文化冲击。他邀请我跟他们一家人过春节的时候，我高兴得跳起来，换了好几趟火车、汽车，风雨无阻地到了目的地。这个乡村在中国西北部甘肃省一个偏远的角落，就在内蒙古附近，也是古中华帝国的国境之北。正值隆冬，这里简直是个冰窟窿。冬天白晃晃的冷太阳照在白晃晃的土地上，有种怪诞的冷清，说不出什么特点，没有别的色彩。北边绵延着单调、苍白、尘土飞扬的山丘；荒凉光秃的田野上也弥漫着沙尘；地上的土是苍白的，房子也是用同样苍白的土修起来的；就连冬天掉光了叶子的杨树，也覆盖着一层尘土。天空蓝得有气无力，看着也跟大地没什么区别。这黑白色调的空旷与单调，让我顿生无限的孤寂之感。
Liu Yaochun was a Cultural Revolution baby, born in 1970. When he was small, he lived with his parents, and, later, his brother and sister, in a single-roomed village house built of mud bricks, with an earthen floor. The land his parents farmed was dry and dusty, the northern winters harsh. His primary school was another mud hut, and there was little to eat most of the time besides dried sweet-potato chips that were sent as famine relief by the authorities. But Liu Yaochun was clever and hard-working, and he swotted away in his mud hut, learning his Chinese characters and doing his sums. His parents, knowing that a good education was his only chance to escape a life of peasant drudgery, sent him to high school in the nearby county town, where he lodged with an aunt and uncle. Six years later, at the age of eighteen, he passed the national university examinations and matriculated at Sichuan University, one of the best in China.
刘复兴是一九七一年出生的，当时正值“文革”。小时候，他和父母一起挤在农村单间的泥砖房里，地上只有土。后来又添了弟弟妹妹，就更窘迫了。父母耕种的土地干旱多尘，华北的冬天寒冷刺骨。他的小学也是个泥巴棚屋。饥荒的时候，每天只有政府送来救济的红薯干吃。但刘复兴脑子聪明又刻苦努力，在泥棚屋里认真地学汉字、算算术。父母也明白，良好的教育是他跃出农门的唯一机会，于是送他去附近的县城读了中学，借住在叔婶家。六年后，十八岁的他经高考被重点大学川大录取。
Although his parents were still in their forties, they looked older, worn out by a life of gruelling agricultural labour. They had lived through the tumult of land reform, famine and the Cultural Revolution. (Liu Yaochun’s father, with an embarrassed grin, recalled his fatuous political activities during those years — like dancing the ‘loyalty dance’ to Chairman Mao, which involved skipping around the outline of the Chinese character for ‘loyalty’ on the ground.) Because they couldn’t read, and spoke a thick local dialect, travelling was difficult for them. The furthest they had been from the village was to the provincial capital, Lanzhou — and even that was adventurous by the standards of most of their neighbours.
他的父母都是四十多岁，但看着显老，一辈子辛辛苦苦做农活让他们饱经风霜。他们经历了土改、饥荒和“文革”等一系列变故（刘复兴的爸爸憨厚又难为情地笑着，回忆了那些年自己跳“忠字舞”向毛主席表忠心：要用舞姿在地上写个“忠”字）。他们不认字，说话也带着浓重的方言口音，所以很难去外面走走看看。他们离开村子去得最远的地方就是省城兰州。就连这在他们的很多邻居眼里也是了不起的冒险了。
Liu Yaochun’s parents no longer lived in a mud hut, but they were still illiterate. Some years before, they had built themselves a traditional home from pine and poplar trunks, bricks and earth: five rooms and a grain store opening on to a walled courtyard. Outside the walls, there was a small orchard, and a shed for the ass. The main room was bright and high-ceilinged, with exposed beams. One end of it was taken up by the kang, the raised earthen platform that is the social centre of rural houses in northern China, beneath which smouldered a fire of animal dung, keeping it constantly warm. We sat on the kang during the day, brewing tea on a wood-fired stove whose tin chimney lurched crazily upwards to a hole in the roof; at night I slept there with Liu Yaochun’s mother and sister, each of us wrapped in quilts. The men, Liu Yaochun and his father and brother, slept on another kang, in a room across the yard.
刘复兴的父母已经不住泥棚屋了，但仍然大字不识。几年前，他们用松树和杨树的树干、砖和土，自己盖了当地的传统民房：五间房，一个储粮仓，有围墙的前院。围墙外面有个小果园，外加一个茅房。大房挑高敞亮，木头横梁裸露在外。房间一头是炕：用土砌起来的高台，这是华北农村地区的社交中心，下面一直用动物粪便焖火保温。白天我们就坐在炕上，在柴炉子上煮着茶，铁烟囱以相当疯狂的姿势耸立在房顶的一个洞上；晚上我和刘复兴的妈妈、妹妹一起睡，每个人身上都裹了好几层被子。刘复兴与爸爸和弟弟这几个男人睡在院子对面一间房的另一张炕上。
No one in the village possessed a camera, so news of my arrival with an old Olympus SLR slung around my neck had spread like wildfire. Overwhelmed by the villagers’ kindness and hospitality, I found myself agreeing to photograph them all.
村里没人有相机。我脖子上挂着那台旧的奥林巴斯单反一进村，消息就像野火一样迅速传开。村民们的善良和热情真是让人毫无招架之力，我实在推托不过，答应了为所有人拍照。
At that time of year there was little farm work to do, so the men of the village whiled away their days in conversation, drinking sweet black tea and eating watermelon seeds. Since I was the first foreigner to have visited the village within living memory, I was treated as a gui bing, an honoured guest. Everyone wanted to meet me. A village ‘intellectual’ composed a poem in my honour; the women presented me with pairs of carefully embroidered cotton insoles.
冬天农活很少，村里的男人们每天就是聊聊天、喝喝茶、吃吃瓜子，无非打发时间。村里所有活着的人还是第一次见到外国人，于是我受到了贵宾级的待遇。人人都想见见我。有个略有点文化的村民还为我作了首诗。女人们给我送来精心绣制的鞋垫。
In a neighbour’s courtyard, an old woman sat down in a wooden chair, taking her place at the centre of my picture. Her eldest grandson stood behind her right shoulder; her second grandson behind her left. The last and youngest grandson, a naughty little boy of five, squirmed with impatience as his parents positioned him between his grandmother’s knees. Then there was silence, a moment of seriousness, and I clicked the shutter.
在某个乡亲家的院子里，老太太坐在一把木头椅子上，是照片的中心。长孙站在她的右后方，次孙站在左后方。五岁的淘气小孙子被父母放在奶奶的双膝之间，不耐烦地扭动着。接着大家沉默下来，换上了十分严肃的表情，我按下快门。
I started taking my pictures casually, but quickly realised that I was documenting a moment in the history of the village, its social hierarchies and tight family units. The old woman’s grandsons were known, according to Chinese tradition, as lao da, lao’er and lao san — oldest, second oldest and third oldest. She had several granddaughters too, but, being female, they didn’t count in the family hierarchy. They huddled together on the periphery of the courtyard as their brothers posed, excluded from the photograph just as they were excluded from the family lineage.
一开始我就抱着随随便便的态度拍拍照片，但很快意识到，我这是在记录这个村庄历史上的时刻，记录这里的社会等级和紧密的家庭单位。老太太的三个孙子，按照中国传统，分别叫做老大、老二和老三。她还有几个孙女儿，但作为女性，不能进入家族的谱系。兄弟们在镜头前摆好姿势，姐妹们就一同站在院子边上围观。她们不在照片里，就如同不在家族所承认的血缘里。
The grandmother sat regally at the centre of the photograph. Behind her, and beyond the curtain that hung over the main door of the house, a black-and-white image of her deceased husband presided over the family shrine, a constant reminder of the social supremacy of the older generation. The old lady’s sons and grandsons were expected to kowtow before this image when they entered the room, and to burn incense and ghost money for their ancestors at every festival. When the old woman died, her photograph would be placed there too.
奶奶坐在照片的中央，如同女王。她身后房子正门的门帘后面，挂着亡夫的黑白遗像，那是个小小的灵堂，总在提醒着小辈们尊重德高望重的长辈。按照规矩，老太太的儿子和孙子们进门就要对遗像磕头，每逢年节要给祖先上香烧纸钱。老太太百年之后，照片也要挂上去。
With Liu Yaochun at my side, I wandered from house to house, courtyard to courtyard, taking the official family photographs: a young woman and the fiancé chosen by her parents; baby sons with penises proudly displayed through the gaps in open trousers; old people posing solemnly for my portraits, perhaps their last. These photographs, the most serious, would be the ones that would grace the family shrines, to be revered by future generations. The old people preferred to be photographed in black and white, feeling it, perhaps, to be a more ancestral medium.
我跟着刘复兴一家一家地串门、一个院子一个院子地进去，给他们照很正式的家庭照：年轻的女人和她父母之命、媒妁之言的未婚夫；尚在襁褓的男婴穿着开裆裤，骄傲地露着“小鸡鸡”；老人们肃穆地站在我的镜头前，好似画肖像画——这也许是他们这辈子最后一张照片。他们之所以这么严肃，是因为这些照片要摆在家中的灵堂，供子孙后辈祭奠敬拜，自然需要正襟危坐。老人更喜欢拍黑白照片，也许他们觉得这样比较正经威严。
And then there were the people I didn’t photograph. The madman who had lost his mind when his wife died and his ‘cradle-to-grave’ state job was taken from him. He crouched by the side of the road, rocking gently on his heels, lost in reverie. The illegitimate child whose mother had run away to the city because of social ostracism. And, of course, the baby girls.
还有些我没能拍成的人。有个男人，死了老婆，终身的“铁饭碗”工作也丢了，结果精神失常。他蹲在路边，轻轻地摇晃着身体，沉浸在幻想当中；那个私生子，母亲受到村里人排挤，就抛下他独自去了城里；当然，还有小女孩们。
I felt awkward as a female visitor. Liu Yaochun’s mother and sister did all the household work. While the men and I lazed around on the kang, smoking cigarettes and chatting, they swept away the fag ends and the watermelon seed husks we had cast to the floor. In the kitchen, they kneaded flour into dough for steamed buns; they mixed flour with water, rolled it and cut it into noodles, or pulled it into ma hua twists. They chopped wood and stoked the fires in the stove and beneath the kangs. At mealtimes, they waited on us, and ate their own food afterwards, in the kitchen. Then they washed the dishes. My most strenuous efforts to help were resisted, so I yielded, guiltily, accepting my odd status as an honorary man.
作为一个女性访客，我是有些尴尬的。刘复兴的妈妈和妹妹包揽了所有的家务活。男人和我在炕上懒洋洋地坐着，抽烟聊天；她们就忙着把我们扔在地上的残渣和瓜子壳扫走。厨房里，她们和面、擀面、蒸馒头、做面条或者拧麻花。她们砍柴，给炉灶和炕生火。她们总是等我们吃饱喝足才在厨房里吃点剩菜，接着把碗盘都洗干净。我坚持要帮忙，结果还是被一口回绝，只好满含愧疚地屈服了，接受我作为一个“男贵宾”的奇怪地位。
The meals we ate were simple and monotonous; this was not the rich gastronomic landscape of Sichuan, but the arid north, and winter too, when there was little to eat besides wheat, pork, chilli and garlic. Rice was an occasional luxury. Sometimes the staple grain on the table was millet, an ancient Chinese cereal that city dwellers regard as lowly peasant food, but even that was unusual. As my Sichuanese university teacher once said to me disparagingly: ‘In the north all they eat is mian (flour-foods).’ We sat at the square wooden table in the main room, slurping our noodles or chomping on plain buns, adding crushed garlic or chillies in oil to enliven their blandness. There was little difference between breakfast, lunch and dinner. We ate scarcely any meat, and the only fresh foods were home-grown onions, celery, garlic and apples. After a few days my bowels had turned to concrete.
我们吃的饭都比较简单单调。这里可不是拥有丰富美味的四川，而是荒凉的华北，还是在冬天，除了小麦、猪肉、辣椒和大蒜也没什么别的食材。米饭偶尔能吃上一顿，已是奢侈。有时候饭桌上的主食是小米，比较古老的中国谷物，城里人都觉得是农村人吃的低等粗粮。但那里就连小米也很少见。我记得川大有个老师曾经用很嫌弃的语气跟我说：“北方人只吃面食。”我们坐在大房的方形木桌周围，吸溜吸溜地吃着面或者啃着馒头，不时加点蒜粒或者辣椒油来提提味。早、午、晚饭没什么区别，几乎吃不到什么肉，唯一的新鲜食材是家里自己种的洋葱、芹菜、大蒜和苹果。
You have only to visit places like Liu Yaochun’s village to realise that the concept of a single ‘Chinese cuisine’ is rather flimsy. For a start, China is divided, north-south, between the wheat-eaters and the rice-eaters. The inhabitants of Gansu belong to the former, their province part of a great swathe of pasta- and bread-eating territory that extends west from the eastern coast and Beijing to the borders of Central Asia, and even further. Certain northern Chinese pasta forms are strikingly similar to those found in Italy: like the ‘cats’ ears’ eaten in Xi’an, which are identical in shape and manufacture to orecchiette. The Italian folk explanation is that Marco Polo introduced the Chinese to spaghetti and its ilk during his travels in the late thirteenth century, while the Chinese like to think that pasta was a gift they gave to the world. In 2005, Chinese archaeologists claimed to have clinched the argument by discovering a four-thousand-year-old bowlful of millet noodles in a site they excavated along the Yellow River. Many experts, however, believe that the true origins of pasta-type foods lie further west, in Persia.
只有到了刘复兴这个村，你才会意识到把“中国菜”作为单一的概念是多么笼统浅薄。首先，中国南北分化严重：一方吃大米，一方吃小麦；甘肃的居民属于后者。从东海岸和北京往西，一直到中亚的边境甚至更远，这么大的一片区域的主食都是面和馒头，甘肃就是其中之一。华北的有些面食形状和意大利面有着惊人的相似：比如“猫耳朵”，和意大利的耳状通心粉在形状和制作方法上都完全一样。意大利人的解释是，马可·波罗在十九世纪末旅居中国时把意大利面介绍给了当地人；而中国人则觉得面食是他们送给全世界的礼物。二零零五年，中国考古学家宣布，纷争终结，因为他们在黄河沿岸一个考古现场挖掘出四千年前的一碗小米挂面。不过很多专家都认为，这种面片状的食物应该起源于更西部的波斯。
In the days leading up to the New Year, I watched Liu Yaochun’s family make their preparations for the feast. Liu Yaochun was in charge of the Spring Festival couplets: with a calligraphy brush he inked auspicious phrases on to strips of red paper that would be pasted up around every doorway in the house (sometimes it’s useful to have a literate son in the family). The fattened pig had already been slaughtered and brined, but his father took the cockerel outside and dispatched it with a cleaver, letting its blood drain out into the dusty earth. In the main street that ran through the village, local lads practised their drumming, and the children made beautiful lanterns out of wooden struts and multi-coloured paper. The girls were dressed brightly in scarlet, fuchsia pink, or red-and-pink, as if to defy the bleached monotony of the landscape.
春节前的那几天，我目睹了刘复兴一家为年夜饭做准备。刘复兴负责写春联：他拿着毛笔，在带状的红纸上写下吉利话，贴在家里每道门的门口（有时候家里出了个认字的儿子，还是能派用场的）。喂肥的猪已经杀好用盐水腌了。刘复兴的父亲又把童子鸡抓出来，拿菜刀杀了，让血直接流到地上的尘土中。村里的主路上有当地人在练习击鼓；孩子们用木头搭架子，糊上五颜六色的纸，做了漂亮的灯笼；女孩们都穿得很鲜艳，红衣服、粉衣服、红粉相间的衣服，仿佛是要公然跟这单调苍白的景色对着干。
The elderly are revered in China partly because they are ancestors-in-waiting. After they die, their descendants will (they hope) place their images on the shrine table in the main room of the house, and honour their spirits with offerings. Some of the grander old families in Liu Yaochun’s village still possessed ancestral scrolls, family trees illustrated with pictures of the deceased, generation by generation, which traditionally hang over the shrine. Pictures of Mao Zedong may have taken the place of these images and scrolls during the Cultural Revolution, but now they were creeping back, alongside Mao. The Chinese family consists not only of the living, but also of generations of the dead.
中国的敬老传统部分是因为老人以后就是祖先。百年之后，（他们希望）后代能把自己的画像和照片放在家中大房的灵堂上，献上祭品供奉他们的灵魂。刘复兴村里历史比较悠久的大家族还有自己的族谱，上面有去世先人的画像，一代又一代，传统上是挂在灵堂上方的。“文革”期间，这些遗像和家谱可能都变成了毛主席像，但现在又慢慢挂回来了，就在毛主席旁边。中国的家庭里，不仅居住着活着的人，还有一代又一代的先人。
Sharing food, in China, binds the living family together, and it is also the ritual that connects those on both sides of the grave. On New Year’s Eve, Liu Yaochun’s extended family, from the grandparents down to the smallest child, processed to the orchard to invite their ancestors to join in the feast. They knelt on the ground, burning paper money and incense, kowtowing repeatedly, pouring libations of strong grain liquor into the earth. The uncles lit strings of firecrackers that shattered the air. Then everybody trooped over to the house of the eldest son, Liu Yaochun’s uncle, where the men kowtowed before the main family shrine. The women had laid out a New Year’s Eve dinner for the dead: little dishes of meat and vegetables, a bowl of noodles with chopsticks, cups of tea and wine.
在中国，分享食物是家人联系感情的一种方式，当然在全世界都一样。但在这里，这还是一种仪式，连接着坟头内外的亲人。除夕那天，刘复兴这一大家子，从祖辈到最小的孩子，都会来到果园里邀请祖先共进年夜饭。他们跪在地上，敬香、烧纸钱、不停地磕头，把高度的高粱酒倒进土里。叔伯们放了一挂挂的鞭炮，仿佛要把空气都震碎。接着大家都来到长子，也就是刘复兴大伯家，男人在大房的小灵堂前磕头，女人则为先人们摆了一桌年夜饭：小碗的肉和菜，一碗面条配上一双筷子，还有茶和酒。
One of the peculiarities of the Chinese world of spirits and ancestors, for a foreigner, is its close resemblance to the earthly world. Chinese gods hold bureaucratic sway in their heavenly offices, considering petitions from mortal beings and accepting gifts and bribes much as communist officials do down below (and as imperial officials did before them). Dead people need material things just as the living do: clothing, money, and, these days, even mobile telephones. At funerals, relatives of the deceased burn paper effigies of all these objects, sending them heavenwards in a cloud of smoke. Special shops for mourning goods sell cars, washing machines, watches, and mobile phones, all made out of cardboard and coloured paper.
在一个外国人眼里，中国式灵魂和祖先概念的一个独特之处在于，和尘世非常相近。中国的神仙在天上也建立着官僚机构，考量凡人的请愿，接受礼物和贿赂，跟地上那些官员没什么两样（和之前死去的帝国时代官员也没什么两样）。死人需要的东西和活人也差不多：衣服、钱，到现在还有手机。这些东西都用纸做得惟妙惟肖，葬礼上死者亲属就把纸钱、纸衣烧了，化为一缕青烟飘向天上的死者。祭祀用品专门店里有车、洗衣机、手表和手机，都是用硬纸壳和彩纸做的。
The tombs of the wealthy were, in the past, well equipped for life beyond the grave. Most famously, the great, brutal unifying first emperor of China, Qin Shi Huangdi, was laid to rest with an entire terracotta army to protect him. My favourite Chinese tomb site, however, is at Mawangdui, near the Hunanese capital, Changsha, where a marquess was buried with his wife and son in the second century BC. The tombs were unearthed in the seventies, their contents in a state of almost miraculous preservation. This noble family was interred with scores of wooden figurines: servants to wait on them and musicians to entertain them. There were wooden models of chessboards and make-up boxes, musical instruments and luxurious gowns, and sophisticated medical and philosophical manuscripts painted on silk. There was also plenty of food, because, above all, the dead need to eat.
过去，显赫人物的墓穴里都会充分配备往生后需要的陪葬品。最著名的是中国的第一位皇帝秦始皇，他伟大而暴虐，死后有一整队的兵马俑来保护他。然而我最喜欢的中国墓葬是湖南省会长沙附近的马王堆，那是公元前二世纪一位贵族和妻儿的合葬墓。马王堆出土于二十世纪七十年代，所有的陪葬品奇迹般地保存完好。这个贵族家庭的陪葬品中有很多木雕，有伺候他们的仆人和为玩乐助兴的乐师，有木头模型的象棋盘和梳妆盒、乐器与华服，有写在丝绸上的高深的药理与哲文，还有很多食物，因为亡者仍然以食为天。
The Marquess’ wife was buried with a whole last supper of real food, laid out on a painted lacquer tray. Five cooked dishes had been prepared to whet her appetite, along with skewers of barbecued meat, a bowl of grain, cups of soup and wine, and a pair of chopsticks. There were painted lacquer wine cups inscribed with the phrase ‘Gentlemen, please drink’, and extravagant serving dishes. There was also a store of raw ingredients: many different grains, beasts and fowl, fruits, eggs, millet cakes and medicinal herbs that included cassia bark and Sichuan pepper. A burial inventory inscribed on bamboo strips recorded flavourings such as malt sugar, salt, vinegar, pickles, fermented sauce and honey, various dishes and soups and some ten different cooking methods, among them barbecuing, boiling, frying, steaming, salt-curing and pickling.
贵族夫人的陪葬品中有很多真正的食物，摆在一个漆盘上，仿佛最后的晚餐：五道想必能让人胃口大开的佳肴，加上一串串肉串、一碗主食、几碗汤、几杯酒，还有一双筷子。漆器的酒碗上有铭文“君幸酒”（请君饮下这杯酒）及非常精奢的菜盘及一系列生的食材：很多不同的谷物，兽、禽、瓜果、蛋、小米饼和桂皮花椒等药用香料。一卷竹简上的遣策（1）记载了各种调味料，比如饧（同糖）、盐、醋、豉、酱和蜜；还有各种各样的菜肴、十几种烹调方法，包括羹、炙、濯（菜汤里煮肉）、熬、蒸、炮、腊等。【注：（1）古人在丧葬活动中记录随葬物品的清单，以简牍为主要书写材料。】
Across the Chinese empire, people took care to satisfy the appetites of the dead. In the Astana Tombs of Turpan, on the edge of the Taklamakan desert, archaeologists have unearthed jiao zi dumplings in Tang Dynasty graves: a little dry and brittle, perhaps, but in all other respects exactly what you might have for lunch in the same region today, 1200 years later. The early twentieth century European explorer Aurel Stein returned from the same region with not only the priceless Dunhuang manuscripts, but also some ‘jam tarts’ and other pastries from the Astana tombs, which still lie in a vault in the British Museum. In Shaanxi Province in the Ming period, people were buried with miniature ceramic tables, laden with dishes of food modelled in clay: sheep’s heads, whole chickens and fish, persimmons, peaches and pomegranates.
在古中国幅员辽阔的版图上，人们都很注重满足亡者的胃口。在塔克拉玛干沙漠边缘的吐鲁番阿斯塔纳唐朝古墓，考古学家挖出了饺子：可能是有点干了，一掰就碎，但看形态之类的，完全是在今天同一个地区中午会吃的东西。这中间已经隔了一千二百年了啊！二十世纪早期的欧洲探险家奥莱尔·斯坦因从这个区域回国的时候，不仅带了敦煌文书这样的无价之宝，还有阿斯塔纳古墓中的“果酱馅饼”和别的点心。这些食物如今还安放在大英博物馆的某个展厅中。明朝的山西一带陪葬品中有迷你瓷桌，上面摆满了用陶土仿制的菜肴模型：羊头、整鸡、整鱼、柿饼、桃子和石榴。
People in contemporary China often feed their recently dead relatives in a way that seems to emphasise their closeness to the living. They might lay little dishes of cooked food by their graves, home-smoked bacon, green beans and rice, whatever the rest of the family is eating, so the deceased seems to take part in a shared household meal. For long-dead ancestors, the food offerings on the shrine may be more abstract: a whole smoked pig’s head, perhaps, or an unpeeled pomelo, neither of them immediately edible. In China, the worst thing you can do to a corpse is dismember it. Ghosts need their legs for walking, and their eyes for seeing. And their stomachs must be filled.
对于去世不久的亲人，当代中国人献祭的方式也有意无意地强调了亡者与生者之间紧密的联系。他们会把小碗小盘的菜肴放在亲人的坟头，什么腊肉啊、四季豆啊，还配一碗米饭，反正活着的人吃什么死人就吃什么，这样就好像亡者还在和家人一起吃饭一样。而对于去世已久的先人，灵堂上献祭的食物可能就更“抽象”一些：整只的熏猪头、没剥皮的柚子，都不是马上能入口的东西。在中国，对死者最大的不敬就是肢解尸体：鬼魂也需要腿来走，眼睛来看；对了，肚子是一定要填饱的。
On New Year’s Day, Liu Yaochun and I continued with our exhausting round of visits, paying our respects in every house in the village, from dawn to dusk. The food we were offered was lavish by comparison with everyday fare, but varied little from home to home. We nibbled watermelon seeds and walnuts, dried persimmons, peanuts, tangerines, and sweets wrapped in cellophane. Then there were the main dishes: slices of pig’s liver and pig’s-ear terrine; braised pork ribs; pork slivers stir-fried with celery or green onion; pretty slices of a pork-and-egg roll; steamed porkballs studded with ricegrains; and whole river fish (an obligatory New Year’s treat because ‘having fish’ — you yu — is a pun that also means ‘having plenty’). The staple foods were sweet-potato noodles, wheat noodles, and little steamed buns, served with pickles, chilli and garlic. Each table was laid with nine bowls, arranged in a square.
大年初一，刘复兴和我继续一趟趟地串门子，到村里每家每户去问好闲聊，从早串到晚。和平日里比起来，乡亲们招待我们的吃食可谓奢侈，不过每家都差不多，基本都要嗑瓜子、吃核桃，还有柿饼、花生、陈皮和用五颜六色的玻璃纸包着的糖果。主菜也很隆重：肺片、猪耳冻子、烧排骨、芹菜肉丝、肉臊蛋卷、珍珠肉丸，当然还少不了整条的河鱼（春节的菜单上必须有鱼，谐音“年年有余”）。主食是粉条、面条、馒头，配上咸菜、辣椒和大蒜。每桌都要摆上九大碗，形成一个正方形。
If a family elder entered the room, in whichever house we were visiting, Liu Yaochun and the other boys and men leapt to their feet and kowtowed before the family shrine. Liu Yaochun’s knees were dusty with all these prostrations. One bearded grandfather we met wore a huge, rough sheepskin over his Mao suit and carried a wooden staff. He told Liu Yaochun he had discovered a miracle medicine. ‘It is made with the charcoal from under the kang,’ he said, ‘and it can cure many diseases, including AIDS.’ He handed Liu Yaochun some lumps of coal wrapped in paper. ‘Since you are a research student at a university, perhaps you could investigate its scientific properties?’ As Liu Yaochun pointed out to me later, ‘this project has nothing to do with my major, which is medieval European history.’ But in this place of reverence for the elderly, he listened carefully to the old man, nodding solemnly at his every word.
无论去到哪一家，只要这一家的老人进了屋，刘复兴和别的男丁就要站起来，朝着家里的灵堂磕头。一遍遍地跪了又跪，刘复兴的膝头全是尘土。有家的大胡子爷爷在毛式中山装外面披了件粗犷的大羊皮袄，手里还拎了根木头杖子。他跟刘复兴说，自己发现了一种神药。“用炕下面的煤做的，”他说，“包治百病，艾滋病也能治。”他递给刘复兴一个纸包，里面就是几块煤炭。“你可是大学生，拿去做点科学研究呗？”刘复兴后来跟我说：“我的专业是中世纪欧洲史，跟这个一点儿关系都扯不上。”但在讲究尊老的家乡，他很认真恭敬地听着老爷爷的话，不时严肃地点点头。
Over the days, I met almost everyone in the village. There were the descendants of the former landlord, whose fortunes had been dramatically reversed in the land reforms of the fifties, but who were now clawing back their relative wealth with a successful minibus business. We exchanged pleasantries with the local communist party secretary, and with an old lady who hobbled around on tiny bound feet, encased in miniature black cotton shoes (the Nationalist government outlawed footbinding in 1911, but it persisted for years afterwards in out-of-the-way places like this).
串了好多天的门子，我几乎把村里每个人都见了。有几个人祖上是村里的地主，二十世纪五十年代的土改让他们的命运发生了戏剧性的变化。但现在做面包车生意发了财，算是把失去的财富一点点找了回来。我们和当地的村支书寒暄客套打哈哈；还见了一位精神矍铄的小脚老太太，她穿着袖珍的黑色棉鞋，走起路来还挺快的（一九一一年，国民党已经宣布裹小脚是非法的，但在这些穷乡僻壤，这项传统仍然坚挺了多年）。
We also called on a family with six daughters and a baby son. It was illegal, of course, to have so many children, but they had a relative in the local government who had forged a sterilisation document for the mother as a special favour. With so many mouths to feed, the parents were desperately poor: they had even been compelled to give away daughter Number Five for adoption. But they needed a son, badly. Daughters, in the traditional Chinese scheme of things, married out into other villages, so they were useless as pension schemes and future feeders of ancestors. (‘My brother and I will have to support my parents in their old age,’ Liu Yaochun told me, ‘Because in the end, my sister doesn’t really belong to the family.’) Now, finally, after all these unlucky girls, they had a little emperor, plump and beautiful in his tasselled silk hat. The relief of everyone in the family was palpable.
我们拜访的一家人有六个女儿和一个尚在襁褓的小儿子。这么多小孩当然是违法超生的。但他们在当地政府有个亲戚，帮这家的妈妈伪造了一份绝育证明。这么多张嘴要吃饭，父母穷得叮当响，不得已把五女儿过继给了别人。但他们需要一个儿子，非常需要。在传统的中国家庭规划中，女儿都是要嫁出去的，养的是别家的老、敬的是别家的祖先。（“我弟和我以后是要给我爸妈养老的，”刘复兴告诉我，“因为我妹以后就不是我们家的人了。”）生了这么多“运气不好”的女儿之后，他们家终于迎来了一个“小皇帝”：胖乎乎的手脚，戴着丝绸流苏帽子，怪好看的。全家人都明显放下了心里的一块大石头。
On the evening of the third day, we ate oversized jiao zi pork dumplings for supper, according to local custom, dipping them in soy sauce and vinegar. After nightfall, loud drumbeats drew us out into the street, and we spied the tail end of the New Year procession, wending its way up a nearby hill. It was an old tradition that had recently been revived — such ‘feudal’ customs were banned under Mao. We ran to catch up. The air was electric with the clash of gongs and cymbals, and the frenetic beating of the drums. Homemade paper lanterns, lit by candles and held aloft on sticks, cast a flickering light over the shadowy crowd of figures and the jerky undulations of a dancing lion. The atmosphere was raw and wild.
大年初三的晚上，我们吃了大大的猪肉饺子；按照当地的习俗，蘸水是酱油和醋。天黑以后，震耳欲聋的鼓声吸引我们来到街上，刚好赶上庆新春舞龙舞狮队的尾巴，一直舞到了附近一个小山丘上。这是当地古老的“封建”习俗，经历了“文革”被禁之后，又再次复兴。我们小跑着跟上。锣鼓喧天，铙钹响亮，人声鼎沸，热闹熙攘。村民们亲手扎了纸灯笼，点亮里面的蜡烛，拿小木棍吊着，烛影摇曳，照着挨挨挤挤的人群和起伏舞动的狮子，空气中流动着原始野性的鲜活。
Perhaps they had visited the only village temple to which women were admitted, to implore the local gods to bring them sons. The side walls of this curious shrine were lavishly decorated with a landscape scene in relief, covered in green-painted hills and grottoes. All over it were colourful little plaster figures of boys in any number of poses, each brandishing a tiny clay penis through a gap in his painted trousers. When Liu Yaochun and I paid a visit, the old man who watched over the temple gave us a tour. ‘The women, they break off the penises and eat them,’ he said, ‘And then I give them a piece of red thread to tie around their necks. It’s very effective.’
也许他们去过村里那个唯一允许女性进入的庙宇，虔诚地求过各色神明赐他们儿子。这间庙特别令人好奇：外墙上是大规模的浮雕，背景的绿色山丘连绵着，沟壑纵横；主体则是五颜六色的石膏塑像，都是男孩，摆着各式各样的姿势，裤子漆得五颜六色，每个人都“耀武扬威”地挥动着开裆裤中间陶土做成的“小鸡鸡”。刘复兴和我也去了那个庙，庙里看门的老大爷陪着我们参观了一圈。“女的把那些‘小鸡鸡’砸碎了吃下去，”他说，“我再给她们一条红线缠脖子上，很灵验的。”
The procession reached its climax outside the main temple of the village, at the top of a hill. Lights blazed beyond the open doors of the shrine. Firecrackers exploded in a blitzkrieg of light, illuminating the crowd like a photographic flash. Everyone was burning incense and paper money. The drumbeats became louder and more insistent. Boys lit fireworks that rocketed off in unpredictable directions, whooshing into crowds of small children — one exploded next to my ear, and almost deafened me.
在山顶村里的大庙门口，这场游行达到了高潮。一重重庙门敞开着，灯光亮如白昼。鞭炮随着耀眼的火光噼里啪啦地炸着，像闪光灯一样照亮了人群中的每一张脸。大家都忙着烧香、烧纸钱。鼓声更大、更连贯了。男孩子们玩着炮仗，点燃以后会往不可预测的方向发射，冲向闹成一团的小孩，其中一个就在我耳边炸开，我差点就聋了。
Then the drumbeats took a slower pace and a young girl, the village beauty, stepped out, wearing a ceremonial ‘ship’ made from brightly coloured paper, decked in rosettes. An ‘old man’ in a battered straw hat and a false beard made of horse hair (actually one of the village lads) led the ‘ship’ in a gentle dance, to uproarious laughter. Then the lantern-bearing boys joined in, and their coloured lights wheeled around in the smoke and incense. People yelled and whooped in the mayhem. We were all muffled up against the searing cold.
接着鼓声变慢了，年轻貌美的村花从人群中站了出来，身上套着祭祀用的“船”，是用亮闪闪的纸做成的，腰上还有一圈圆形的花饰。假扮的“老头”戴着破旧的草帽，粘着马毛做的假胡子（其实是村里一个小伙子）踏着舞步，牵着纸船前进，引来一阵哄笑。接着提灯笼的小男孩们跑了进来，彩色的烛光在香烛升腾的青烟周围环绕着。家长大吼大叫着驱赶这些捣蛋鬼。天气刺骨地寒冷，大家都包裹得严严实实。
Day after day, I was paraded around the village like a zoo animal or a celebrity, a real flesh-and-blood foreigner, just like those the locals had seen on their crackly black-and-white TVs. (‘I just had a conversation with a Foreign Devil!’ whispered one man to Liu Yaochun, after meeting me.) I was forced to eat vast quantities of noodles, dumplings and pig’s-ear jelly, and I talked myself hoarse in polite conversation.
我每天都被一群人簇拥着，在村里转来转去，俨然地方名流。毕竟村民们之前只在模糊的黑白电视上见过“洋鬼子”，如今竟然来了个有血有肉的大活人。（“我刚和‘洋鬼子’说话了。”有个人见了我之后偷偷跟刘复兴说。）大碗吃面、大口吃饺子、大块吃猪耳肉冻子成了我的义务。我彬彬有礼地和每个人聊天，直说得口干舌燥、声音嘶哑。
One evening we piled on to a tractor cart, swaddled in sheepskins, and went to a richer neighbouring village to see their New Year celebrations, which were famously lavish. Young men in silken robes and heavy make-up performed elaborate dances; there was an open-air staging of local opera. Sick of being the centre of attention, I wore dark glasses and swathed my head in a woollen scarf. But at the end of the evening, when I climbed back on to the trailer with Liu Yaochun and his uncles, I removed my disguise. Suddenly, a crowd materialised around us, and actually chased us out of town. Someone shouted after the tractor: ‘Please! We live in the countryside! We never see any foreigners! Please bring her back!’
一天晚上，我们裹着羊皮袄挤在一辆拖拉机上，到附近一个比较富的村子围观他们的春节庆祝活动，那可是出了名的奢侈隆重。年轻男子穿着丝绸袍子，浓妆艳抹，跳着大型舞蹈；村里的空地上搭起露天戏台，表演地方戏曲。厌倦了被村民围观的我戴了个大墨镜，拿一条羊毛围巾把头包了个严严实实。但那天晚上看完热闹，和刘复兴一起上了拖拉机，我卸下厚厚的伪装，结果一群人突然就把我们围了起来。我们简直是被追逐着逃回去的，有人一边追着拖拉机一边喊道：“麻烦你啊！我们乡下人没见过老外啊！让她回来！”
Later the procession left the temple and called on every house in the village, pouring into each courtyard in a rush of light and colour. Firecrackers rent the air, driving away evil spirits. Family members burned offerings at their ancestral shrines, and rewarded the dancers and the drummers with gifts of fruit and nuts. A sick woman knelt on the ground as the lion danced around her, and flaming ghost money was passed over her head. A paper lantern caught fire and withered in a blaze of light. Overhead, the new moon was a sliver of light amidst a glittering canopy of stars.
接着游行队伍离开大庙，造访村里每一户人家。人群涌进每一个前院，变成流动的光影与色彩。烟花爆竹不断绽放炸响，驱赶妖魔鬼怪、邪神恶灵。人们在家里的灵堂前烧了供品，给前来道贺的舞狮人和打鼓汉子送上水果干货当谢礼。病弱的女人跪在地上，舞狮队绕着她跳了一圈，燃烧的纸钱也在她头上飘了一圈。一个纸灯笼着了火，瞬间就灰飞烟灭。头顶上的新月像一道银光，划破闪烁无垠的星空。
After the ceremony I was roped into what I can only describe as a kind of press conference. I was invited to sit on the kang in a side room, and the wedding guests crowded in to look at me. There were people trying to push in from the courtyard, craning their heads around the door, peering in at the window. The air was hazy with cigarette smoke.
礼成之后我无处可逃，接下来发生的事情我只能形容为某种“新闻发布会”。人们邀请我到某个偏房的炕上，喜客们都挤进来要看看我。院子里还有人拼命要进来，在门边使劲探着脑袋，贴在窗户边上往里看。空气中，人们吞云吐雾，烟气弥漫升腾。
Shortly before I left the village, we were invited to attend a wedding, where a large, buxom young woman was entering into an arranged marriage with a slender young man whom she hardly knew. We watched them light the wedding incense, and make their bows to the gods, their parents, their ancestors and, finally, to each other.
离开刘复兴他们村之前不久，有人邀请我们去喝喜酒。新娘高大丰满，新郎瘦弱矮小，两人是父母之命、媒妁之言，互相并不熟悉。我们看着一对新人敬了喜香，一拜天地、二拜高堂、夫妻对拜。
Someone took it upon himself to be the master of ceremonies, inviting members of the audience to quiz me. ‘How can England be a democracy when it has a Queen?’ asked someone. ‘In your opinion is it better to have straight or curly hair?’ demanded another. The eyes of one man widened in concern and amazement when I told him that Winston Churchill was dead. I felt a heavy sense of responsibility. To many of them, apparently, I was the outside world. I was the diplomatic representative not only of her majesty Queen Elizabeth, but of the nations of Europe, the United States of America, everywhere that wasn’t China. So I tried not to laugh at the more ridiculous questions, I tried my best to answer seriously.
有人自封为主持人，邀请观众出点题来考考我。“你们英国有女王，为啥还叫民主国家啊？”其中一个问道。“你觉着直发好还是卷发好啊？”另一个接着发问。我告诉一个男人温斯顿·丘吉尔已经过世，他的双眼焦虑而震惊地瞪得老大。我感觉到沉重的责任感。这其中的大多数人都是第一次有机会拉着个外国人问点啥。很显然，在他们眼里，我不仅是伊丽莎白女王殿下的外交使节，还代表了欧洲各国、美利坚合众国、一切中国之外的地方。所以每个回答我都深思熟虑，听到特别荒谬的问题也尽量忍住笑。
My reward for this exhausting Q&A session was a seat of honour at the wedding feast: a lavish spread of chicken with ginger, slow-braised belly pork, eggs and tomatoes, fried pork with spring onions, potato chips in honey sauce and whole fried fish. It was an incredible menu for rural Gansu in midwinter. The bride and groom made their rounds, toasting everyone with strong grain liquor. Enamel dishes of cigarettes lay on every table and the men smoked furiously, tucking extra cigarettes wherever they could — in jacket pockets, behind their ears.
这个问答环节真是把我整得筋疲力尽，但也有奖励，就是在婚宴上荣登上座。那真是一场盛宴啊，仔姜鸡、红烧肉、番茄炒蛋、葱炒肉片、炸土豆蘸蜂蜜、炸整鱼。这可是隆冬的甘肃农村，能操持这么多种菜实在太不可思议了。新郎新娘一桌桌地敬酒，都是喝的高度数白酒。每张桌子上都用瓷盘装了香烟，男人们都可了劲儿地抽，一边还往能揣的地方使劲揣，口袋里装满了就别在耳朵后面。
By the end of the day I was succumbing to a rotten cold. Walking home with Liu Yaochun, I burst into tears. I couldn’t help it: I was ill, I was tired, I was lonely. I had exhausted all my reserves of patience. I was sick of being a foreign diplomat, of having people nodding sagely at my every trivial utterance as if I was expressing the wisdom of Confucius. And I was desperate for privacy. All those nights on the kang, sleeping alongside the women of the family and occasional female visitors. The visitors watching, fascinated, as I poured hot water into the basin on the washstand in the morning, washed myself, dressed and undressed. Even when I went to the loo, on a designated patch of earth next to the orchard, I had to perform under the gentle scrutiny of the family’s ass.
那天结束的时候，我已经被严寒的天气弄得彻底没了辙。和刘复兴一起走回家的路上，眼泪夺眶而出。我忍不住了：生了病，又累得够呛，我所有的耐心都耗光了。我讨厌做什么外国使节，厌倦了我随便说点什么人们都要热切地点头，仿佛我传递着孔子的智慧。问答环节有人提到了西方的个人主义，说我们看中“自己的空间”；是的，我现在迫切地需要隐私。在炕上度过了这么多个晚上，和家里的女人们睡在一起，偶尔还得和女性访客挤一挤。早上，我把水倒进脸盆架上的盆子里，洗漱、穿衣服、脱衣服的时候都有人新鲜好奇地来围观。就连去方便的时候，也是在果园旁边一块专门的空地上，家里养的驴子站在一边温柔地看着我。
Perhaps I was also feeling the weight of tradition on my shoulders. After two weeks in the village I was being sucked into its patriarchal vision, and it was one in which people like me didn’t exist. Although only in my mid-twenties, I was already antique by local standards. The only other unwed woman my age I met, Hong Xia, was being married off in a few months to a man she barely knew, who lived in an even more impoverished village. She was dreading her wedding, but knew that if she waited any longer she wouldn’t be able to find a husband, and the old village gossips would start to wonder if there was some sinister reason for her solitude.
我流泪可能还因为感觉到肩上有被传统加诸的重担。在乡村居住两周，我被不由自主地卷进家长制的幻象中，我这样的人原本对此完全没有概念。我也才二十五六，但用当地的标准来看已经是“古董”了。我在村里只见到一个与我同龄却还未婚配的女孩：她叫红霞，几个月后就要遵循长辈之命嫁给一个根本不怎么了解的男人；这个人的村儿更穷。她对喜宴十分恐惧，但也知道，要是再等下去，她恐怕就嫁不掉了。如果这样村里就会流言四起，议论她不嫁人是不是有什么见不得人的理由。
And then there was the disturbing matter of the Hungry Ghosts. In China, the worst thing you can do is to leave no descendants to honour your memory. The spirits of the childless, neglected and unfed, are malignant. They wander the earth looking for mischief, venomous in their hunger. During the seventh lunar month, the Ghost Month, the gates of the underworld open and the spirits of the dead pour forth. It’s an inauspicious month, a bad time to move house or marry. It’s a time when people make renewed offerings to their ancestors, serving them dinner and burning effigies of all the things that they might need in the coming year. But they take care not to forget the marauding Hungry Ghosts, who must be appeased by rice thrown into the sacrificial fire.
想到那些饥饿的鬼魂，我也心烦意乱。中国人所谓“不孝有三，无后为大”，最糟糕的事情就是没有后代祭奠怀念自己。那些没有孩子、无人惦记、无人献祭的亡人都化为恶灵，在大地上四处游荡吓人，因为饥饿而心怀怨恨。农历的七月被称为“鬼月”，阴曹地府的门打开，亡人的灵魂纷纷飘上来。这是个不吉利的月份，忌入宅、忌嫁娶。人们用这个时候来给祖先贡献新的祭品，为他们端上饭菜，把未来一年可能需要的所有东西都烧给他们。但他们也很细心地不去忘记那些没有亲人的“饿灵”，抓起稻米扔进祭祀的火堆来安抚他们。
Liu Yaochun was furious with me for weeping. ‘Someone might see you!’ he said, ‘And then they will think that my family are mistreating you! We’ll lose face in the village.’ I was furious with him for caring so little about my feelings. It was the only serious altercation we had ever had.
看见我哭了，刘复兴有点生气。“小心人家看到了！”他说，“他们会以为我们家对你不好！那我们在村儿里可就丢脸了。”他居然这么不在乎我的感受，我也很生气。这是我们之间唯一一次真正起争执。
People in China normally greet a young woman by asking her, first, if she is married, and then how old she is. If the answer to the first question is no, and to the second is more than about twenty-three (in a village like this), the response is a sharp intake of breath, and an expression of incredulity. Day after day, in this remote community, I was reminded that my whole life was invalid unless I married quickly, and reproduced. The Hungry Ghosts hovered in the background, menacing. Would I end up as one of them, I asked myself, roaming the streets of Oxford, yearning for sustenance, hoping that my nieces and nephews would remember to feed me?
一般来说，中国人遇到年轻女孩，第一句问候就是问她结婚没有、年纪多大。要是回答没结婚，年纪在二十三岁以上（在这样一个村庄），对方的反应通常是倒抽一口凉气，露出难以置信的表情。在这个偏远的山区，每一天都有人提醒我，要是不赶快结婚生子，我这一辈子就白过了。饿灵们仿佛就在背后盘旋游荡着，赤裸裸地威胁着我。我扪心自问，是否百年之后也会成为他们中的一员，飘荡在牛津的大街小巷，渴望有谁给我点食物，希望我的侄儿侄女们能记得喂我点东西吃？
Perhaps it was all this that made me so glad to return to Sichuan after the Chinese New Year. My stay in Liu Yaochun’s village had been fascinating, but I certainly didn’t want to live there. Chengdu, with its spirited women, gentle climate and marvellous food, felt much more like home. Liu Yaochun and I travelled back there together at the end of the holiday, on the long, slow train from Lanzhou, winding our way through the mountains as we philosophised endlessly and sipped from our mugs of green tea.
也许就是这所有的一切，让我在春节结束之后兴高采烈地回到四川。在刘复兴故乡的经历无疑是美妙的，我也永远忘不了那里的人们给予的热情与慷慨。但我绝不愿意在那里生活。成都这里有泼辣自强的美女、温柔和暖的天气、美味无比的食物，家的感觉要强烈多了。假期结束的时候，我和刘复兴一起回去，在兰州站上了一列长长的慢车。列车在山间蜿蜒穿行，而我们一路像哲学家似的讨论各种大道理，喝着杯子里的绿茶。
But the end of my course at the Sichuan cooking school turned out to be just the beginning of a project that would take over my life. Back in London, I left the BBC and spent a year at the School of Oriental and African Studies, reading for a masters degree in Chinese studies and writing my final dissertation on Sichuanese food. My first proposal for a Sichuanese cookbook was rejected by six publishers, and after my course had ended I returned to work at the BBC, this time in radio. Living in London, I cooked my favourite Sichuanese dishes for various English friends, and the reception was often ecstatic. No one had ever tasted Chinese food like it before, so spicy and exciting. I was astonished by the absence of authentic Sichuanese restaurants in a city as diverse as London, and the near-total lack of Sichuanese recipe books in the English language.
但烹饪学校课程的结束，却标志着另一个项目的开始，它会占据我的人生。回到伦敦，我在伦敦大学亚非学院待了一年时间，攻读中国研究方向的硕士学位，并且撰写我关于川菜的毕业论文。我为那本想象中的川菜食谱写了份计划书，但遭到六家出版社的拒绝。硕士课程结束后，我找了份广播节目制作的工作。定居在伦敦的我为很多英国朋友烹制了最拿手的川菜，常常把他们吃得心醉神迷。没人吃过这样的中国菜，香辣爽口、令人兴奋。伦敦这么多元化的城市，竟然没有一家地道的川菜馆；英语如此运用广泛的语言，竟然找不到一本川菜食谱；这两者都让我震惊不已。
Towards the end of my time at the Sichuan Institute of Higher Cuisine, I began to think seriously about writing a Sichuanese cookery book. And I knew that if I wanted to do it, I had to go back to England, at least for a while. I was also running out of money, and needed to decide whether or not to return to my old job at the BBC. So, when my cooking course ended, I said farewell to my teachers and my fellow chefs, not knowing when I would see them again. I packed up my possessions, and sent home many boxes of things that seemed terribly important at the time but turned out to be useless in England, like Chinese army plimsolls, bamboo ornaments and thermal underwear. And then I left Chengdu, with an aching heart.
四川烹饪高等专科学校的课程行将结束，我开始认真地考虑写一本川菜食谱。我知道，要是想写这本书，就必须回英国，至少要待上一段时间。钱快花完了，所以烹饪课结束以后，我告别了老师和厨师同学们，也不知道何时何地可以再见。我收拾好一切家当，打包了好多箱子寄回家，里面装的都是当时看起来万分重要结果在英国毫无用处的东西，比如中国解放军的胶底军鞋、竹子做的装饰品和保暖内衣裤。我离开了成都，内心隐隐作痛。
After a year, I thought I would give the book one last try, so I wrote a much better proposal, and to my delight was offered a publishing contract. Thanks to the support of various BBC managers, I spent many months in Chengdu over the following three years, continuing my research. And whenever I stepped off a plane or a train into the damp Sichuan air, smelt the chillies and Sichuan pepper, and heard again the languid tones of Sichuan dialect, I had the same glad feeling of returning home.
一年后，我想再为这本书做最后的努力，于是写了份好得多的计划，而且很愉快地得到了一份出版合同。接下来的三年里，我在成都度过了很多岁月，继续我的研究。无论何时，我从飞机或火车上下来，被四川潮湿的空气包裹，闻着辣椒与花椒的味道，耳边又飘来慵懒的四川方言，心里都有种回家的喜悦。
Liu Yaochun and I, of course, continued to spend whole afternoons and evenings talking in teahouses. But he never shared my culinary passions. Liu Yaochun has always been a puritan when it comes to food. He grew up in the hard north, after all, on a diet of sweet potatoes, steamed buns and noodles, and he tut-tuts at the dietary promiscuity of the southern Chinese: ‘They eat so many weird things. It’s revolting. I really think there should be limits.’ The amusing thing about our friendship is that, through me, he has found himself invited, over the years, to endless banquets in the finest restaurants in Chengdu. He acts as interpreter for foreign journalists on gastronomic tours, and is on friendly terms with some of the best chefs and cooking teachers in the city. ‘I’d really be just as happy with a bowl of noodles,’ he says with a self-deprecating grin, sitting down to another stupendous feast.
当然，刘复兴和我仍然是一下午、一整晚地在茶馆聊天。但他从未像我一样对烹饪与食物着迷。在吃食上，刘复兴一直是朴素克己的。毕竟，他在艰难困苦的北方长大，吃的总是红薯、蒸馒头和面条这几样，对华南地区这些丰富而杂乱的饮食，他总是发出不赞同的“啧啧”声：“他们吃得太奇怪了、太恶心了。我真觉得该克制一点的。”我们的友谊说来好笑，他发现跟我做朋友这些年，经常被邀请到成都最好的餐馆，赴各种各样的宴会。外国记者来成都进行美食之旅时，他担任了翻译，和城中很多顶级厨师与烹饪老师关系都很好。“我真的吃碗面就行了。”他有些谦虚、有些自嘲地咧嘴一笑，在又一场盛宴中落座。
Over time, I met an increasing number of Sichuanese chefs and food writers, and was welcomed into culinary circles. People began to invite me out for the kinds of banquets I’d only heard about as a scholarship student and a trainee chef. I attended a food history conference where we barely had time to give our papers before we were ferried off, at the end of each session, to another fabulous restaurant.
随着时间的推移，我认识了越来越多的川菜厨师和美食作家，被热情地吸纳进烹饪圈子。开始有人邀请我去那些作为拿奖学金的留学生与学徒厨师时只是有所耳闻的盛宴。我参加过一个研究食物历史的会议：每次开会，大家都还没什么时间分发各自的论文，就又出发去探索新的美味餐馆了。
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