唐人街的尽头?

译 / 廖星宇

多年以前，数以万计的华人离开故土，踏上异域，追求心中的“淘金”梦。华人在异域靠个人谋生异常艰难，唐人街由此应运而生。近两个世纪以来，唐人街记录了海外华人为梦想艰辛创业的历程，也间接见证了中国发展变化的足迹。一部唐人街的历史，也是一部微缩的海外华人发展史。如今，中国经济迅速发展，移民潮回流，华人不必再去异域寻梦，今日的唐人街不再像昔日那样人潮涌动。这份曾承载无数华人梦想的希望之“城”，是否会最终走向尽头？

As the manager of a Chinatown career center on Kearny Street in San Francisco, Winnie Yu has watched working-class clients come and go. Most of them, like Shen Ming Fa, have the makings of2) the quintessential3) Chinese American immigrant success story. Shen, who is 40, moved to San Francisco with his family in the fall of 2010, an English-speaking future in mind for his 10-year-old daughter. His first stop was Chinatown, where he found an instant community and help with job and immigration problems.

But lately, Yu has been seeing a shift: rather than coming, her clients have been going―in pursuit of what might be called the Chinese Dream.

“Now the American Dream is broken,” Shen tells me one evening at the career center, his fingers drumming restlessly on the table. Shen has mostly been unemployed, picking up part-time work when he can find it. Back in China, he worked as a veterinarian4) and at a school of traditional Chinese culture. “In China, people live more comfortably: in a big house, with a good job. Life is definitely better there.” On his fingers, he counts out several people he knows who have gone back since he came to the United States. When I ask him if he thinks about returning to China, he glances at his daughter, who is sitting nearby, then looks me in the eye. “My daughter is thriving,” he says, carefully. “But I think about it every day.”

Recent years have seen stories of Chinese “sea turtles”―those who are educated overseas and migrate back to China―lured by Chinese-government incentives that include financial aid, cash bonuses, tax breaks, and housing assistance. In 2008, Shi Yigong, a molecular biologist at Princeton, turned down a $10 million research grant5) to return to China and become the dean of life sciences at Beijing’s Tsinghua University. “My postdocs are getting great offers,” says Robert H. Austin, a physics professor at Princeton.

But unskilled laborers are going back, too. Labor shortages in China have led to both higher wages and more options in where they can work. The Migration Policy Institute, a Washington, D.C.based think tank, published a paper on China’s demography6) through 2030 that says thinking of migration as moving in just one direction is a mistake: the flows are actually much more dynamic. “Migration, the way we understand it in the U.S., is about people coming, staying, and dying in our country. The reality is that it has never been that way,” says the institute’s president, Demetrios Papademetriou. “Historically, over 50 percent of the people who came here in the first half of the 20th century left. In the second half, the return migration slowed down to 25～30 percent. But today, when we talk about China, what you’re actually seeing is more people going back … This may still be a trickle7), in terms of our data being able to capture it―there’s always going to be a lag time of a couple of years―but with the combination of bad labor conditions in the U.S. and sustained or better conditions back in China, increasing numbers of people will go home.”

In the past five years, the number of Chinese immigrants to the U.S. has been on the decline, from a peak of 87,307 in 2006 to 70,863 in 2010. Because Chinatowns are where working-class immigrants have traditionally gathered for support, the rise of China―and the slowing of immigrant flows―all but8) ensures the end of Chinatowns.

Smaller Chinatowns have been fading for years―just look at Washington, D.C., where Chinatown is down to a few blocks marked by an ornate9) welcome gate and populated mostly by chains like Starbucks and Hooters, with signs in Chinese. But now the Chinatowns in San Francisco and New York are depopulating, becoming less residential and more service-oriented. When the initial 2010 U.S. census10) results were released in March 2011, they revealed drops in core areas of San Francisco’s Chinatown. In Manhattan, the census showed a decline in Chinatown’s population for the first time in recent memory―almost 9 percent overall, and a 14 percent decline in the Asian population.

The exodus from Chinatown is happening partly because the working class is getting priced out of11) this traditional community and heading to the “ethnoburbs12)”; development continues to push residents out of the neighborhood and into other secondary enclaves like Flushing, Queens, in New York. But the influx13) of migrants who need the networks that Chinatown provides is itself slowing down. Notably, the percentage of foreign-born Chinese New Yorkers fell from about 75 percent in 2000 to 69 percent in 2009.

Chinatowns almost died once before, in the first half of the 20th century, when various exclusion acts limited immigration. Philip Choy, a retired architect and historian who grew up in San Francisco’s Chinatown, has observed the neighborhood population of Chinese immigrants being replaced by new generations of Chinese Americans. “Chinatown might have disappeared if it weren’t for the changing immigration policies,” he said. Only after the 1965 Immigration and Naturalization Act14) lifted quotas did the Chinese revive Chinatowns all across the US―especially those communities in New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.

Of course, since the days of the Gold Rush15), the Chinese always thought they were going to move back to China after earning their fortune elsewhere. As Papademetriou told me, what came before often happens again. Only now, fortune can be found at home.

This departure portends16) the loss of a place once so integral to Chinese American that Victor Nee17) and Brett de Bary Nee18), in their 1973 book, Longtime Californ’, noted that “virtually every Chinese living in San Francisco has something to do with Chinatown.” Two years ago, when I was on tour for my book about Chinatowns―a kind of love letter to the neighborhood that accepted my family when it first arrived in the United States―the future of these enclaves was an open question. But if China continues to boom, Chinatowns will lose their reason for being, as vital ports of entry for working-class immigrants. These workers will have better things to do than come to America.

于温妮是旧金山干尼街上一个唐人街就业中心的经理，迎来又送走了一批又一批劳工阶层的客户。他们中的大多数人都有潜力写一篇典型的美国华裔移民的成功故事，比如沈明发。40岁的沈明发于2010年秋举家迁往旧金山，想给他十岁的女儿在讲英语的世界里谋求一个未来。他的第一站就是唐人街，在那儿，他找到了一个即时社区，并在工作和移民问题上得到了帮助。

但最近，于温妮却一直在目睹一个变化：她的客户们不再涌入唐人街，而是纷纷离开，去追逐一种或许可以称作“中国梦”的理想去了。

“现在，‘美国梦’已经破灭了。”一天晚上，沈明发在就业中心告诉我。他一边说，一边用手指不安地敲着桌子。沈明发大部分时间里都处于失业状态，有机会时就做些兼职工作。在中国的时候，他是一名兽医，还在一所教授中国传统文化的学校里工作。“在中国，人们活得比这儿舒服：住的是大房子，工作也不错。国内的生活毫无疑问要好些。”他掰着手指头数了几个他认识的人，他们在他来美国后却都纷纷回到了中国。我问他想不想回国，他瞥了一眼坐在旁边的女儿，然后看着我的眼睛。“我女儿正是茁壮成长的时候，”他小心翼翼地说，“但我没有一天不在想回国的问题。”

近年来，中国“海龟”受政府政策吸引“回流”的情况不断发生。所谓“海龟”，是指那些在海外接受教育后回国的中国人。中国政府吸引“海龟”回国的激励手段包括财政资助、现金奖励、减税以及住房补贴。2008年，普林斯顿大学分子生物学家施一公推掉了一笔一千万美金的科研补助金，回到中国，成为清华大学生命科学院院长。“我的博士后学生们获得的待遇非常好。”普林斯顿大学物理学教授罗伯特・H・奥斯汀说道。

但是，无一技之长的工人也开始纷纷回国。中国的用工短缺提高了工人的工资水平，也让他们有更多的机会选择在哪里工作。移民政策研究所是一家总部设在华盛顿的智库机构，其发表的一篇关于中国截至2030年人口统计方面的文章称，那种认为移民只是单向人口流动的想法是错误的，实际上人口流动要活跃得多。“按照美国人的理解，移民就是人们来到美国，留下来，在这里终老一生。但事实从来都不是如此，”该研究所所长季米特里奥斯・帕帕德美特里欧说道，“从历史上看，20世纪上半叶来美国的人有一半以上都离开了。到了下半叶，这种回流率下降至25%～30%。但今天，在谈到中国的时候，你真正看到的情况是越来越多的人在回去……就我们手中的数据所能掌握的情况来看(数据总是要落后现实几年)，这股回流潮也许还只是涓涓细流，但综合考虑到美国糟糕的就业环境和中国稳定或更佳的就业环境，越来越多的人会选择回国。”

过去五年间，移民美国的中国人数量一直在减少，从2006年巅峰时期的87,307人降到了2010年的70,863人。由于唐人街历来是劳工阶层的移民聚集一处寻求帮助的地方，因而中国的崛起――以及移民潮的放缓――势必导致唐人街的没落。

规模小一点的唐人街近几年一直在萎缩。这只要看看华盛顿就知道了，那里的唐人街萎缩得只剩下几个街区和一个标志性的华丽牌楼，聚居其中的大部分是星巴克和猫头鹰餐厅之类的连锁店，只不过挂了中文招牌而已。不过，现在旧金山和纽约的唐人街人口也在不断减少，变得不再像居民区，倒更像是商业服务区了。2011年3月，美国公布的2010年人口普查初步结果显示，旧金山唐人街核心地区的人口在下降。人口普查还显示，在曼哈顿，唐人街的人口近年来首次出现下降――总人口几乎减少了9%，亚洲人口则减少了14%。

唐人街人口大批流失的部分原因在于高物价逼迫劳工阶层放弃了这一传统社区，迁往少数族裔移民社区；另外，这里的持续开发也迫使当地居民搬往其他二级聚居区，比如纽约皇后区的法拉盛。不过，那些需要唐人街提供关系网络的移民涌入美国的势头本身也在放缓。这尤其体现在非美国本土出生的华裔“纽约客”所占的比例上：该比例已经从2000年的75%降至2009年的69%。

历史上，唐人街一度几近消亡。那是在20世纪上半叶，当时美国的各种排外法案对移民给以种种限制。菲利普・蔡是一位退休的建筑师和历史学家，在旧金山的唐人街长大。他目睹了社区的华裔移民渐渐被新一代的华裔美国人所取代的过程。“要不是移民政策发生变化，唐人街也许早就销声匿迹了。”他说。直到《1965年移民归化法》提高了移民配额后，中国人才又使全美范围内的唐人街焕发了勃勃生机――特别是纽约、旧金山和洛杉矶的唐人街。

当然，从“淘金热”开始，中国人就一直觉得他们在外“淘”到“金”后就会回到中国去。正如帕帕德美特里欧告诉我的那样，历史常常会重演。只是现在，在中国国内也能“淘”到“金”了。

唐人街居民的离开预示着一个地方即将消失，这对美籍华人来说曾是一个不可或缺的地方。在1973年出版的Longtime Californ’一书中，作者倪志伟和布莱特・迪百・倪提到，“实际上住在旧金山的每一个中国人都与唐人街多多少少有些联系。”我曾写过一本关于唐人街的书，算是写给这个社区的一封情书――因为刚到美国时，是它接纳了我们一家。两年前，在我为这本书做巡回推广的时候，这些少数族裔聚居地的未来还是个未知数。不过，如果中国继续繁荣下去，唐人街作为劳工阶层移民的关键入境港，将会失去其存在的理由。因为较之于前往美国，他们将会有更好的选择。

1. Bonnie Tsui：徐灵凤，美国华裔记者，为《大西洋月刊》(The Atlantic Monthly)、《国家地理探险》(National Geographic Adventure)、《沙龙》(Salon)等杂志撰稿。

2. have the makings of：有潜力做……

3. quintessential [ˌkwɪntɪˈsenʃ(ə)l] adj. 典型的，精华的

4. veterinarian [ˌvet(ə)rɪˈneəriən] n. 兽医

5. research grant：科研补助金

6. demography [dɪˈmɒrəfi] n. 人口统计学

7. trickle [ˈtrɪk(ə)l] n. 涓滴，细流

8. all but：几乎完全地

9. ornate [ɔː(r)ˈneɪt] adj. 华丽的，绚丽的

10. census [ˈsensəs] n. 人口普查

11. price out of：向……漫天要价致使失去

12. ethnoburb：少数族裔移民社区

13. influx [ˈɪnflʌks] n. 流入，涌入

14. 1965 Immigration and Naturalization Act：《1965年移民归化法》，由美国国会制订。该法案提高了移民配额，引发了新一波移民浪潮，成千上万的移民从世界各地涌向美国，并在数年后成为美国公民。

15. Gold Rush：淘金热，指当一个地区戏剧性地发现了拥有商业价值的黄金时，大量移民工人涌入这个地区的时期。通常特指始自1849年并贯穿19世纪50年代在美国加利福尼亚发现大量黄金储量后的淘金浪潮。在这次浪潮中，不仅有美国本地人，也有大量外籍移民，其中包括大量华人。

16. portend [pɔː(r)ˈtend] vt. 预示

17. Victor Nee：倪志伟，美国康奈尔大学经济与社会研究中心主任，哈佛大学博士

18. Brett de Bary Nee：布莱特・迪百・倪，美国康奈尔大学亚洲研究与比较文学教授，哈佛大学博士