Bells and whistles

Artists and craftsmen try to preserve the sounds of old Beijing

藝術(shù)家和工匠試圖保存老北京的"聲音"

A new museum in the city keeps some of them alive

這座城市的新博物館讓其中一些“聲音”得以保存

Oct 7th 2021 | BEIJING

WITH ONE’S?eyes closed, Beijing’s main roads sound like any Chinese city. All around is the roar of traffic, punctuated by honks from delivery Scooters, recorded safety warnings from buses and the occasional bell of a rental-bicycle. But in the capital’s last hutongs, as its ancient grey-walled alleys are known, fragments of an older soundscape can be heard.

閉上眼睛，北京的主干道聽起來和其他中國城市沒什么兩樣。到處都是交通的轟鳴聲，不時傳來送貨車的喇叭聲，公共汽車的安全警告錄音，偶爾還有租賃自行車的鈴鐺聲。但在北京最后的胡同里，人們可以聽到一種古老的音景（西方，“音聲景觀”這個概念）的碎片。

詞匯

Punctuate/不時打斷

?Honk/汽車?yán)嚷?/span>

?Scooter/ 小輪摩托車

The chirping of caged crickets is one. Hung in the doorways of courtyard homes or small shops, the insects bring a rural note into the city. A quarter-century ago their song was common. Beijing was still home to cycle rickshaws and delivery tricycles. Some riders hung crickets from their handlebars, inside spherical cages woven from reeds. Today, cricket-sellers cling on, lurking near a motorway bridge in southern Beijing. A big specimen sells for 20 yuan ($3). They are heirs to a grand tradition. In imperial times, bored courtiers and Manchu army officers spent fortunes on caged crickets and songbirds.

籠子里蟋蟀的唧唧聲就是其中之一。懸掛在四合院或小商店門口的昆蟲，給城市帶來了一種鄉(xiāng)村氣息。25年前，他們的“樂曲”很常見。（在那時），北京仍然有人力車和三輪腳踏車。一些騎手把蟋蟀掛在車把上，放在用蘆葦編織的球形籠子里。如今，賣蟋蟀的小販仍在北京南部的一座高速公路橋附近徘徊。一個大標(biāo)本售價20元(3美元)。他們是一個偉大傳統(tǒng)的繼承人。在封建時代，無聊的朝臣和滿族軍官把大筆錢花在籠里的蟋蟀和鳴禽上。

詞匯

Cricket/ 蟋蟀

?cycle Rickshaw/人力三輪車（查字典rickshaw就有“黃包車，人力車”的意思，這里前后兩種車大概是前者尤指那種帶著兩個大輪|子，需要人拉的車，后面是機(jī)械化腳踏板三輪車的意思）

Cling/堅(jiān)守

?Lurk/潛伏

Specimen/樣本，標(biāo)本

?

Another relic is the musical clanking of steel plates strung on a cord, announcing a knife sharpener’s arrival. Several such specialists still work Beijing’s streets. Their sounding-plates, sometimes supplemented with a distinctive cry, summon customers from hutong?homes and high-rise flats. But numbers are falling. “What young man would study this?” asks Craftsman Liu, a sharpener for 40 years, as he hones a cleaver on a whetstone mounted on his bike.

另一件“遺跡”是串在繩子上的鋼板發(fā)出的音樂般的叮當(dāng)聲，這告知著磨刀者來了。一些這樣的專家仍然在北京的街道上工作。他們的哐哐的金屬板音，有時會帶上一種獨(dú)特的叫聲，把胡同里和高層公寓里的顧客召喚過來。但這一數(shù)字正在下降?！澳膫€年輕人會學(xué)這個?”劉工匠一邊在自行車上的磨刀石上磨刀，一邊問。他已經(jīng)磨刀有40年了。

詞匯

Clanking/（大型金屬撞擊時）發(fā)出叮當(dāng)聲

Cord/粗線，細(xì)繩

?Hone/訓(xùn)練（尤指技藝）；磨（刀）

Cleaver/切肉刀

Whetstone/磨刀石

An almost-vanished Beijing sound is one of the strangest. An eerie thrumming, like the noise of flying saucers in an old science-fiction film, it is made by homing pigeons, or more precisely by pigeon whistles. Tiny flutes made from bamboo or gourds, these are sewn into the tail feathers of pigeons kept in rooftop coops. The birds are released twice a day to circle in the sky. Even 20 years ago, it was possible to hear this melancholy noise in the hutongs. It was particularly associated with cold winter skies, for pigeons moult in summer, making feathers too weak to hold whistles. Alas, modern Beijing is a city in a hurry. Many hutongs have been razed to make way for wide avenues and shiny skyscrapers, leaving no room for pigeon lofts.

幾乎消失的北京聲音是最奇怪的聲音之一。這是一種詭異的砰砰聲，就像老科幻電影中飛碟發(fā)出的聲音，是由信鴿發(fā)出的，或者更準(zhǔn)確地說，是由信鴿的口哨聲發(fā)出的。用竹子或葫蘆制成的小笛子，縫在鴿子的尾羽上，養(yǎng)在屋頂?shù)镍澔\里。這些鳥每天被放飛兩次，在天空中盤旋。即使在20年前，在胡同里也能聽到這種憂郁的聲音。這種現(xiàn)象與冬天寒冷的天空尤其相關(guān)，因?yàn)轼澴釉谙奶煲獡Q毛，這使得羽毛太脆弱，無法發(fā)出哨聲。唉，現(xiàn)代的北京是一個匆忙的城市。許多胡同被夷為平地，讓路給寬闊的大街和閃亮的摩天大樓，沒有鴿舍的空間。

詞匯

Eerie/可怕的；怪異的

?Saucer/ 茶托，淺碟

?Flute/長笛

?melancholy / 憂郁的；使人悲傷的

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Zhang Baotong is one of Beijing’s last master pigeon-whistle makers. As a child in the 1950s he heard the dong of camel bells as dusty caravans carried coal to a nearby railway station. He learned to make whistles in boyhood from a famed master who shared a courtyard with his family. Today Mr Zhang has Apprentices and a workshop lined with certificates calling him a living treasure. But many of his whistles are sold to collectors and never see the sky.

張寶通是北京僅存的幾位鴿笛大師之一。20世紀(jì)50年代，還是個孩子的他聽到了風(fēng)塵仆仆的大篷車將煤運(yùn)往附近火車站時發(fā)出的駝鈴聲。小時候，他從一位與家人合住一個院子的著名大師那里學(xué)會了制作（信鴿）口哨。如今，張先生已經(jīng)有了學(xué)徒和一個滿是證書的工作室，稱他為“活的珍寶”。但他的許多鴿哨被賣給了收藏家，從未見過天空。

詞匯

dong /發(fā)出鐺鐺的鐘聲

Caravan/（可供居住的）拖車，大篷車；（穿過沙漠地帶的）旅行隊(duì)（如商隊(duì)）

?Apprentice/ 學(xué)徒；生手

Mr Zhang is advising a museum of sound that will open next May in Songzhuang, a suburb of Beijing that is popular with artists. A rooftop coop is planned, with more than 100 pigeons that will take to the skies for visitors. It is hoped that pigeon-whistles will be heard each day over Songzhuang, at least in cooler months.

張先生正在建議明年5月在北京郊區(qū)宋莊開放一個聲音博物館，宋莊深受藝術(shù)家們的歡迎。他計(jì)劃建造一個屋頂鴿舍，將有100多只鴿子飛上天空迎接游客。在宋莊，人們希望每天都能聽到鴿哨聲，至少在涼爽的月份里是這樣。

The co-founder of Fen Sonic HQ, a cultural institute that will run the museum, is Colin Siyuan Chinnery, a British-Chinese artist and collector of Beijing’s sounds. He lists the gongs, rattles and rhythmic cries used by fortune tellers and medicine sellers, doctors, barbers and knife sharpeners, until private enterprise was crushed in the 1950s. Many of these will feature in an exhibit about old Beijing narrated by an animation of Mr Zhang, among others. Other places had hawkers’ cries, but true Beijingers dismiss peddlers elsewhere as mere bellowers, Mr Chinnery says. Beijingers’ pride is one tradition that never fades.■

芬音總部(Fen Sonic HQ)是一家文化機(jī)構(gòu)，將負(fù)責(zé)管理這家博物館。該機(jī)構(gòu)的聯(lián)合創(chuàng)始人Colin Siyuan Chinnery是一位中英籍藝術(shù)家和北京聲音收藏家。他列舉了算命師、賣藥者、醫(yī)生、理發(fā)師和磨刀匠使用的鑼、撥號聲和有節(jié)奏的呼號，直到20世紀(jì)50年代私營企業(yè)被摧毀。其中的許多作品將在一個關(guān)于老北京的展覽中展出，該展覽由張藝謀等人的動畫講述。其他地方有小販的叫賣聲，但真正的北京人把其他地方的小販看成是吹牛而不予理會，Chinnery先生說。北京人的自豪感是一個永不褪色的傳統(tǒng).

詞匯

Gong/鳴鑼傳喚

Rattle/嚇吱聲，格格聲

?Teller/ 算命先生；預(yù)言家

Peddler/小販；傳播者

Bellower/<俚>愛吹牛的人