紐約唐人街“壞小子”再聚首

Their friends call them the Chinatown kai doy — Taishanese for “bad boys.” They shot pool, rode motorcycles, and wanted to be James Dean. People would cross the street when they saw them, finding them just a little too rambunctious for comfort.

朋友們稱他們?yōu)槿A埠kai doy，臺山話“壞小子”的意思。他們打臺球，騎摩托車，想成為詹姆斯·迪恩(James Dean)。他們在街上吵吵鬧鬧的樣子會讓人們不安地躲到路對面去。

It has been a while since the bad boys of Chinatown made anyone nervous. The hair they used to grease into pompadours has turned white; and instead of cigarette packs, they carry photos of their grandchildren.

華埠壞小子引起人心惶惶的時代早已過去。他們曾經抹頭油做成大背頭的頭發(fā)也已變白;他們隨身帶著孫子的照片，而不再是一盒盒香煙。

On a recent Saturday the gang — or what remains of it — was gathered at Yee Li, a restaurant at Elizabeth and Bayard Streets, reminiscing about the old days. They were there at the behest of the original kai doy, Danny Moy and Soy Chu, who for the past 17 years have organized annual reunions at the restaurant.

在最近的一個星期六，這伙人——或者說剩下的那幾位——聚集在位于伊麗莎白街和擺也街路口的裕利大飯店，回憶起過去的歲月。他們受最早的kai doy，即丹尼·梅(Danny Moy)和索伊·朱(Soy Chu)的邀請出席這次聚會，在過去17年中，他們每年都在這間餐廳組織重聚。

Mr. Moy and Mr. Chu have been friends since before they hung out at pool halls, growing up in the area during the 1940s and ’50s. In those days, Chinatown was small, just 10 or so blocks around Mott, Pell, and Doyers Streets. There were only about 5,000 people in the neighborhood, and everyone knew one another. Children were often left unattended.

梅、朱兩人在去臺球房玩之前就已經是朋友，20世紀40年代和50年代，他們在這片地區(qū)長大。當時的華埠非常小，只有勿街、披露街和宰也街附近的十來個街區(qū)。那里大約只住著5000人，大家彼此都認識。兒童常常無人看管。

“I lived in 56,” said Larry Lau, 76, a retired commercial artist, referring to 56 Mott Street. “Danny and Lungie lived down the hall. We ruled the first floor. When other kids had to go in or out of the building, they used to run past the first floor, hoping to not bump into us.”

“我住在56號，”76歲的的退休商業(yè)藝術家拉里·劉(Larry Lau)指的是勿街56號。“丹尼和龍吉在走廊那一頭。我們是一樓的霸主。其他孩子不得不進出這棟樓時，通常要快速跑過一樓，希望不會撞見我們。”

Mr. Lau, like those squeezed around the banquet tables in Yee Li, felt a strong connection to Chinatown, though most of them had moved away during the 1960s. Some had driven in to the reunion from Connecticut, or New Jersey, or even Virginia; Mr. Moy flew in from California. One fellow, 77-year-old Sammy Lum, had stayed in the neighborhood. He made the trip from across the street.

他們中的大多數人在20世紀60年代都搬走了，劉仍和那些擠在裕利大飯店宴會桌旁的人一樣，對華埠有一種很深的感情。有些人從康涅狄格州、新澤西州甚至弗吉尼亞州開車過來參加重聚;梅是從加利福尼亞州坐飛機來的。77歲的老友薩米·林(Sammy Lum)還住在這一帶。過一條馬路就到了。

Over 10 courses of Cantonese food — jellyfish and roast pork; fried shrimp and gai lan — they traded memories of childhood exploits. How they played kick the can on Pell Street and stickball by the Tombs prison. They knew all the underground tunnels in Chinatown; got in fistfights with the kids from Little Italy. Sometimes, they trekked up to Central Park to go fishing. “And do you know where we got the worms to go fishing?” Mr. Lau said. “We dug them from the mayor’s front lawn.”

十多道粵菜——海蜇頭和烤乳豬，炸蝦和芥蘭——他們一起回憶兒時的豐功偉績。他們如何在披露街踢罐頭，在“墳墓”監(jiān)獄邊玩棍子球游戲。他們知道華埠的所有地下通道;他們和小意大利的孩子打架。有時，他們長途跋涉前往中央公園釣魚。“你知道我們從哪里搞到釣魚的蟲子嗎?”劉說。“我們從市長官邸的前草坪上挖出來的。”

Mr. Moy, 76 — an energetic talker with a booming voice known among friends as “the mayor of Chinatown” — pointed out people in the crowd. This was Constance, he said, indicating a woman seated to his left; they dated when he was 17, but her father forbade her from seeing him. That was Tracy, whose father used to own this restaurant; before that, it was a bar. George Kwong was called “Sleepy,” for how he looked after a few beers, and Donald Chin was “the Duck.” That was Lungie — Henry Eng — nicknamed after the Taishanese word for “dragon,” because he was the best dragon dancer. Mr. Moy and Lungie were especially close because they were both mixed-race and adopted. Once as children, they got in trouble after they bored a hole in the wall between their apartments, hidden behind the couch, through which they used to talk.

76歲的梅是一位聲音響亮且健談的人，被朋友們稱為“華埠市長”——他指了指人群中的一個人。那是康斯坦絲，坐在他左邊的一個女人;他們曾在他17歲時約會，但她的父親禁止她見他。那是特蕾西，他的父親曾經擁有這家餐廳;在那之前，這是一個酒吧。喬治·鄺(George Kwong)綽號“Sleepy”(“昏昏欲睡”的意思。——譯注)，是因他喝了幾瓶啤酒后的樣子而來，而唐納德·錢(Donald Chin)是“鴨子”。那是龍吉(Lungie)——亨利·伍(Henry Eng)——他的綽號是臺山話中“龍”的意思，因為他是最好的舞龍師。梅和龍吉特別親密，因為他們都是混血和被收養(yǎng)的孩子。兒時，他們在他倆公寓之間的墻上鉆了一個洞之后遇到了麻煩，那個洞藏在沙發(fā)后面，他們那時常常通過那個洞說話。

As teenagers in the ’50s, Mr. Moy and his friends formed the Jade Club on East Broadway, in a space now occupied by the Golden Unicorn Restaurant. It was a place to host record hops and dances, closer to home than other socials hosted by the Chinese student associations at Hunter College or Columbia University. They played rock ’n’ roll records, and practiced Latin dancing — there was a craze for Latin music sweeping the city back then. Young people from other Chinese communities — in Washington, D.C., or the now-long-gone Newark Chinatown, or from as far afield as Jamaica or Cuba — came to their dances.

作為50年代的青少年，梅和他的朋友們在東百老匯現為麒麟金閣餐廳的地方成立了翡翠會(Jade Club)。那是一個舉辦流行音樂舞會的地方，與亨特學院(Hunter College)或哥倫比亞大學(Columbia University)的中國學生協會主辦的其他社交活動相比，這個地方更親切一些。他們播放搖滾唱片，練習拉丁舞——當時拉丁音樂的狂潮席卷了整個城市。來自其他華人社區(qū)的年輕人——比如華盛頓特區(qū)，或者消失已久的紐瓦克唐人街，又或者來自牙買加或古巴這種遙遠地方的年輕人——也來到這里參加他們的舞會。

Over the next decade, most of the crew left Chinatown. Mr. Lau and Mr. Moy joined the Army in 1961. (“I think every person in Chinatown was glad when we joined,” Mr. Lau said.) Others went to college, or found jobs, or they married and moved to the suburbs, settling in Long Island or New Jersey or Connecticut. But through the years, a sense of having experienced something special during their childhood in Chinatown has kept them close.

在隨后的十年中，他們中多數人離開了華埠。劉和梅于1961年參軍。(“我想我們參軍時，華埠的每個人都很開心，”劉說。)其他人上了大學，或找了工作，或者結了婚然后搬到了郊區(qū)，在長島或新澤西或康涅狄格安頓了下來。但這些年來，一種童年時在華埠有過某種特殊經歷的感覺，讓他們一直保持著緊密的聯系。

The Chinatown they were born into was on the cusp of transformation. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which virtually ended Chinese immigration, was repealed in 1943, around the time the boys and their friends were born. For decades the act effectively kept Chinatown’s population frozen at around 5,000 people. Slowly the repeal ushered in a wave of acceptance for Chinese in America.

他們出生的華埠處在了變革的前沿。基本上終止了中國移民的1882年《排華法案》于1943年被廢除，這些男孩和他們的朋友正是在這前后出生。幾十年來，該法案使得華埠的人口有效控制在5000人左右。法案廢除后，美國漸漸出現了一輪接收中國移民的浪潮。

When the last vestiges of the Exclusion Act were fully rolled back in 1965, Chinatown’s population exploded — some estimates put it as high as 150,000 — as new immigrants came from Hong Kong, Vietnam, Fujian Province in southern China, and elsewhere.

到1965年，《排華法案》的最后殘留被完全廢止，隨著香港、越南、中國南方的福建省和其它地方的新移民的到來，華埠的人口暴漲——有人估計多達15萬人。

The little Cantonese village became a melting pot.

當初的小廣東村變成了一座大熔爐。

For this crowd, those changes are something to celebrate — a reflection of the improved status of Chinese immigrants. But they also mean that what made their childhood special — the intimacy of a tiny Chinatown, frozen by exclusion, where everyone knew your name — is largely gone.

對這群人來說，這些變化有值得肯定的地方，它們反映了中國移民地位的提升。但這也意味著，那些讓他們的童年顯得特殊的東西——靠著排斥而固化下來的小華埠的親密感，每個人都知道你的名字——基本上已經沒有了。

Mr. Moy, Mr. Chu and most of his friends were part of the first American-born generation in their families. Mr. Chu’s parents immigrated during the 1920s from Taishan in what was then called Canton — the region in southwestern China where, until the 1950s, a vast majority of Chinese in America came from.

丹尼·梅、索伊·朱和他們的大多數朋友都是在美國出生的第一代家族成員。20世紀20年代，朱的父母從臺山(位于中國西南部當時稱廣州的地方)移民到美國，20世紀50年代之前，美國絕大多數的華人都是來自那里。

In Chinatown, Mr. Chu’s father worked as a cook, supporting seven children and a wife, squeezed into a one-bedroom apartment on Division Street. “We grew up without material things, and learned from growing up in the streets of New York City,” said Mr. Chu. He attended Stuyvesant High School, where he was one of just a few Asians at a school that is now 70 percent Asian. He went on to found a software company called New Year Tech and retired in Virginia.

索伊·朱的父親在華埠當廚子，七個孩子和太太全靠他一個人的收入，一家人擠在地威臣街一套一居室公寓里。他說，“我們在物質匱乏的環(huán)境中長大，從紐約街頭的成長過程中學到了很多。”他后來念的是史岱文森高中，當時是該校為數不多的亞裔學生之一，現在這所學校70%的學生是亞裔。后來，他創(chuàng)立了一家名為New Year Tech的軟件公司，在弗吉尼亞州退休。

Mr. Moy was adopted as a baby by a prominent Chinatown couple. His father was the head of the influential On Leong Merchants Association, and his mother, who was born in Shanghai in 1919 and sold at age 6 to a traveling circus troupe, had performed as an acrobat with Barnum & Bailey Circus. After the Army, Mr. Moy spent 45 years working for a steel company called the Earle M. Jorgensen Company, becoming a vice-president of marketing, and eventually retired in California.

丹尼·梅還是嬰兒的時候被華埠一對有聲望的夫婦收養(yǎng)。他的父親是頗具影響力的安梁商會(On Leong Merchants Association)的會長，母親1919年出生在上海，6歲的時候被賣給了一個走江湖的雜耍團，曾在玲玲馬戲團(Barnum & Bailey Circus)擔任雜技演員。從陸軍退役后，丹尼·梅在一家名為Earle M. Jorgensen Company的鋼鐵公司工作了45年，當上了負責營銷的副總裁，最后在加州退休。

Now once a year, Mr. Moy and Mr. Chu and their friends conjure the Chinatown of their youth. The impetus, Mr. Moy said, was 9/11. “I was living in California and I’d seen the towers come down, and it bothered the hell out of me,” he said. “I thought, ‘Well anything can happen.’ So I called up my buddy Soy and said we should get together. And I’ve made an effort to get everyone together every year since.”

現在，丹尼·梅、索伊·朱和他們的朋友們每年都要聚一次，回憶在華埠的青春時光。丹尼·梅說，做這件事的動機是“9·11”。“當時我住在加州，看到雙子塔倒下，很難受。”他說，“我就想，‘好吧，什么事都有可能發(fā)生。’于是我打電話給我哥們索伊，說我們應該聚聚。從那以后，我每年都盡力組織大家聚一次。”

Over time, the logistics have changed as people have aged. Cancer, strokes, and other ailments have taken their toll; many of their friends are dead. “We’ve probably lost eight or nine guys who used to come to these,” said Mr. Moy. He himself had to delay this year’s reunion (it’s usually held in September) because of a hip replacement.

隨著時間的推移，大家的年齡越來越大，聚會也發(fā)生了變化。癌癥、中風和其他一些疾病帶走了一些人，他們的許多朋友都已亡故。丹尼·梅說，“可能已經有八九個再也不會來了。”由于做了髖關節(jié)置換手術，他自己也不得不推遲今年的聚會(通常在9月舉行)。

Yet, even on a cold December evening, nearly 50 people made the effort to come out to Yee Li. Over the last course of the meal, Mr. Moy struggled to recall another game from his childhood: “I’m forgetting — what was it called in Chinese? The thing you kick, with the feathers on it? We used to make them out of newspapers and chicken feathers.”

然而，即使是在12月一個寒冷的晚上，也有近50人摸到了裕利。吃到最后，丹尼·梅努力回想自己小時候玩的另一個游戲：“我忘了——那個游戲的中文叫什么?上面有羽毛，用腳來踢的?我們以前用報紙和雞毛來做。”

A waiter, passing by, called out in Taishanese, “That’s called gai mo yin.” It was a feather ball, also known as shuttlecock or Chinese hacky-sack.

一個正好從旁邊經過的服務員用臺山話大聲說道：“那叫雞毛纓。”也就是毽子，中式的沙包。

“That’s right!” said Mr. Moy, who looked satisfied. It was another piece of the past, restored.

“對對對!”丹尼·梅一副滿意的表情。關于過去的記憶，又修復了一塊。