Bells and whistles

Artists and craftsmen try to preserve the sounds of old Beijing

艺术家和工匠试图保存老北京的"声音"

A new museum in the city keeps some of them alive

这座城市的新博物馆让其中一些“声音”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.

闭上眼睛，北京的主干道听起来和其他中国城市没什么两样。到处都是交通的轰鸣声，不时传来送货车的喇叭声，公共汽车的安全警告录音，偶尔还有租赁自行车的铃铛声。但在北京最后的胡同里，人们可以听到一种古老的音景（西方，“音声景观”这个概念）的碎片。

词汇

Punctuate/不时打断

 Honk/汽车喇叭声

 Scooter/ 小轮摩托车

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.

笼子里蟋蟀的唧唧声就是其中之一。悬挂在四合院或小商店门口的昆虫，给城市带来了一种乡村气息。25年前，他们的“乐曲”很常见。（在那时），北京仍然有人力车和三轮脚踏车。一些骑手把蟋蟀挂在车把上，放在用芦苇编织的球形笼子里。如今，卖蟋蟀的小贩仍在北京南部的一座高速公路桥附近徘徊。一个大标本售价20元(3美元)。他们是一个伟大传统的继承人。在封建时代，无聊的朝臣和满族军官把大笔钱花在笼里的蟋蟀和鸣禽上。

词汇

Cricket/ 蟋蟀

 cycle Rickshaw/人力三轮车（查字典rickshaw就有“黄包车，人力车”的意思，这里前后两种车大概是前者尤指那种带着两个大轮|子，需要人拉的车，后面是机械化脚踏板三轮车的意思）

Cling/坚守

 Lurk/潜伏

Specimen/样本，标本

 

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“遗迹”是串在绳子上的钢板发出的音乐般的叮当声，这告知着磨刀者来了。一些这样的专家仍然在北京的街道上工作。他们的哐哐的金属板音，有时会带上一种独特的叫声，把胡同里和高层公寓里的顾客召唤过来。但这一数字正在下降。“哪个年轻人会学这个?”刘工匠一边在自行车上的磨刀石上磨刀，一边问。他已经磨刀有40年了。

词汇

Clanking/（大型金属撞击时）发出叮当声

Cord/粗线，细绳

 Hone/训练（尤指技艺）；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.

几乎消失的北京声音是最奇怪的声音之一。这是一种诡异的砰砰声，就像老科幻电影中飞碟发出的声音，是由信鸽发出的，或者更准确地说，是由信鸽的口哨声发出的。用竹子或葫芦制成的小笛子，缝在鸽子的尾羽上，养在屋顶的鸽笼里。这些鸟每天被放飞两次，在天空中盘旋。即使在20年前，在胡同里也能听到这种忧郁的声音。这种现象与冬天寒冷的天空尤其相关，因为鸽子在夏天要换毛，这使得羽毛太脆弱，无法发出哨声。唉，现代的北京是一个匆忙的城市。许多胡同被夷为平地，让路给宽阔的大街和闪亮的摩天大楼，没有鸽舍的空间。

词汇

Eerie/可怕的；怪异的

 Saucer/ 茶托，浅碟

 Flute/长笛

 melancholy / 忧郁的；使人悲伤的

 

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.

张宝通是北京仅存的几位鸽笛大师之一。20世纪50年代，还是个孩子的他听到了风尘仆仆的大篷车将煤运往附近火车站时发出的驼铃声。小时候，他从一位与家人合住一个院子的著名大师那里学会了制作（信鸽）口哨。如今，张先生已经有了学徒和一个满是证书的工作室，称他为“活的珍宝”。但他的许多鸽哨被卖给了收藏家，从未见过天空。

词汇

dong /发出铛铛的钟声

Caravan/（可供居住的）拖车，大篷车；（穿过沙漠地带的）旅行队（如商队）

 Apprentice/ 学徒；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.

张先生正在建议明年5月在北京郊区宋庄开放一个声音博物馆，宋庄深受艺术家们的欢迎。他计划建造一个屋顶鸽舍，将有100多只鸽子飞上天空迎接游客。在宋庄，人们希望每天都能听到鸽哨声，至少在凉爽的月份里是这样。

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.■

芬音总部(Fen Sonic HQ)是一家文化机构，将负责管理这家博物馆。该机构的联合创始人Colin Siyuan Chinnery是一位中英籍艺术家和北京声音收藏家。他列举了算命师、卖药者、医生、理发师和磨刀匠使用的锣、拨号声和有节奏的呼号，直到20世纪50年代私营企业被摧毁。其中的许多作品将在一个关于老北京的展览中展出，该展览由张艺谋等人的动画讲述。其他地方有小贩的叫卖声，但真正的北京人把其他地方的小贩看成是吹牛而不予理会，Chinnery先生说。北京人的自豪感是一个永不褪色的传统.

词汇

Gong/鸣锣传唤

Rattle/吓吱声，格格声

 Teller/ 算命先生；预言家

Peddler/小贩；传播者

Bellower/<俚>爱吹牛的人