美国唐人街缓慢衰落

海外文化:美国唐人街缓慢衰落The BBC visits New York's Chinatown for the new year celebrations to see how the community is changing为进一步了解美国华人群体的变化，英国广播公司探访了纽约唐人街的新年庆祝活动。

Chinatowns are a feature of many US cities, but some of the best known are succumbing to gentrification, campaigners say. Even one of the largest and most vibrant, in Manhattan, is slowly being invaded by luxury shops and apartment buildings.唐人街是众多美国城市的一个特点，但社会活动家称，一些最有名的唐人街正不得不顺应社区高档化（即贵族化）趋势的发展。

甚至其中最大和最有活力的曼哈顿唐人街也正在逐渐被豪华商店和公寓楼所侵蚀。

It's late afternoon and Mei Rong Song is serving a few last customers in Lao San Snack on East Broadway. Giant metal pots steam behind a counter stacked with metal trays of pig's blood, heart and intestines. Mei has run her restaurant for a decade, catering to a wave of immigrants who began arriving in the 1980s from Fuzhou in south-eastern China.傍晚，在东百老汇的“老三小吃”，梅荣松（音译）正在为最后几名用餐的顾客服务。

柜台上堆放着盛着猪血、猪心、猪肠的金属托盘，后面巨大的金属蒸笼正煮着（食物）。

梅的餐厅已经开了十年，用餐顾客主要是20世纪80年代开始移民过来的一波来自中国东南部福州地区的移民。

But high rents have been pushing Chinese immigrants out of the area, their placetaken by wealthier white tenants.但高昂的租金使得中国移民逐渐退出该地区，富裕的白人接手这些地方取而代之。

"My shop has Fuzhou speciality foods, and as Fuzhounese people stop living in this neighbourhood there's less and less demand for what I sell," she says. " I don't know that I can stay for more than a year or two."“我的店供应福州特色食品，但随着这一街区的福州人逐渐搬迁，我店里的顾客也越来越少。

”她说道，“我不知道我还能在这待一年多还是两年。

”Rapid immigration led to the formation of US Chinatowns in the late 19th Century, though a long period of exclusion and discrimination for the Chinese began around the same time. The next large wave of arrivals followed the 1965 Immigration Act, but in recent decades older Chinatowns have shrunk.19世纪后期，频繁的中国移民使美国形成了唐人街，尽管华人从一开始就遭受了长期的排挤和歧视。

随着1965年移民法案的颁布，一大波的中国移民接踵而来。

但近几十年来旧的唐人街却在收缩。

"Chinatowns are turning into a sanitised ethnic playground for the rich to satisfy their exotic appetite for a dim sum and fortune cookie fix," says Andrew Leong, one of the authors of a recent report that charted gentrification in New York, Boston and Philadelphia's Chinatowns.“唐人街正在变成一个供富人为满足异域胃口而猎奇中国点心和签饼(美国的中国餐馆特有的折叠形小饼，内藏有预测运气话语的纸条)的清洗改造过的异域情调场所。

”Andrew Leong如是说。

后者近期参与撰写了一份描述了纽约、波士顿、费城等地唐人街所在区域高档化（贵族化）现象的报告。

Washington DC's version is little more than a collection of Chinese restaurants, gift shops and an ornate arch.（这一高档化现象在）华盛顿地区所呈现出来的版本（使该地区唐人街看上去就）是一个中国餐馆、礼品商店和华丽拱门的集合体。

This is partly a result of the success of Chinese immigrant families. Many of those from Manhattan's Chinatown have moved to younger Chinese neighbourhoods in Flushing, Queens and Brooklyn's Sunset Park.（之所以出现这种现象）有部分原因是中国移民家庭（在美国）获得了成功。

他们中的许多人已经从自曼哈顿唐人街搬到了法拉盛、皇后区和布鲁克林区日落公园的年轻华人街区。

But up to now, new arrivals in New York have always taken their place.但是直到现在，纽约的新华人移民始终在接替他们（已搬走的华人）的位置。

Thousands of working-class families still live in Chinatown's humble tenement buildings, protected by the city's rent-control laws. English is seldom used for business. On an icy winter's day, shoppers stop at stalls selling Chinese delicacies, and cluster in a basement fish and vegetable market.成千上万的工薪阶层家庭仍然居住在唐人街简陋的公寓楼里，由城市租金控制法保护着。

（在这里）做生意很少用到英语。

在寒冷冬季的一天，顾客们停留在出售中国食品的摊位前，并聚集在一个地下的菜市场。

"It's remained a very dynamic immigrant centre for 100 years because it's retained its ability to be an immigrant gateway - a place where new immigrants come in and are able to find housing and job networks," says Ken Guest, an anthropologist at NewYork's Baruch College. "East Broadway is the first stop as people try to figure out how to make their way in the US economy."“一百年来，这里一直是一个非常有活力的移民中心，因为它保留了它作为一个移民门户的职能，——在这里，新移民进来之后能够找到住房和工作（关系）网。

”Ken Guest，纽约巴鲁克学院的人类学家，“在新移民们盘算如何在美国经济体制下获得成功的时候，东百老汇就是第一站。

”Services on offer there include immigration agencies, Chinese doctors, herbal shops, lawyers, phone card companies, banks and wire transfer firms.在那里提供的服务包括移民代理，中国医生，凉茶店，律师，电话卡公司，银行和电汇公司。

Employment bureaus send people out to jobs in restaurants on Chinese-run bus routes that stretch as far as the Rockies. An estimated 50,000 people are passing through this network at any one time, says Guest.（唐人街的）就业机构把（前来求职的）人分配到绵延落基山脉的华人经营的巴士沿线上的中餐馆去工作。

任何时候都有估计50,000人通过这个关系网（找工作），Guest说。

It's this community that has preserved Chinatown's special character. The shop signs, the language, the groceries, the aroma of the restaurants are unlike those of any other Manhattan neighborhood. Visitors to Chinatown have entered a subculture.正是这样一个群体保持了唐人街与众不同的特征。