本文选自《经济学人》11月7日刊文章。这篇文章是“茶馆专栏”第100期特别报道。2018年9月，《经济学人》杂志首次推出“茶馆专栏”，当时我还饶有兴致的看了它的第一篇文章——是对闪亮登场的“茶馆专栏”的介绍，从“Chaguan”专栏名字的由来，到专栏的定位、理念的介绍。不经意间，两年已过，而茶馆专栏也迎来了第100期，不禁让人唏嘘时光飞逝。“Chaguan”这个专栏名字的初衷，是希望这里能像旧中国的传统茶馆一样，是一个休息片刻、交流思想的地方，上到时事政治，下到新闻八卦、小道消息在这里都能讲，这里是全面而深入地讲述有关中国的故事的地方。
第100期特别报道，茶馆专栏作者来到四川农村一家具有悠久历史的茶馆，通过和茶客聊天攀谈，了解中国老百姓的真实生活。这篇文章是《经济学人》杂志难得一见的散文，没有中西方政治偏见、没有中外思想差异、人心隔阂，这篇文章用朴实的语言讲述作者听到的真实的、朴素的中国百姓故事。他们饱尝生活的艰辛、但无一例外的都认为生活会越来越好，他们坦言年轻人的压力越来越大，也意识到向上攀爬、阶级越迁的机会越来越少。这家平静的中国农村茶馆，透射出人生百态、生活万象。
选文精讲
For the 100th Chaguan column, customers at a chaguan muse on lifeChina is a restless, brutally unequal place—but the tea is excellent中国是一个躁动不安、极其不平等的地方——但茶是极好的DECADES SPENT brewing tea in rural Sichuan have left Li Qiang with firm views on what makes for an authentic chaguan, or Chinese teahouse. If age and beauty were the only tests, his shop, the Old Teahouse in Pengzhen, would pass easily. A place to drink tea for more than a century, the grey-roofed, timber-framed building dates back to the Ming dynasty, when it was a temple to Guanyin, a Buddhist immortal. Maoist slogans painted on the walls, in characters of faded red, reflect Pengzhen’s history as a people’s commune. Hours before dawn the air is already thick with tobacco smoke and fumes from a coal-fired stove, for the first customers arrive for “early tea” at half past three in the morning. Human companionship makes a teahouse, says Mr Li, who rented the hall from a collective enterprise in 1995. Only when customers treat a teashop like a home is it a chaguan, he declares. Until then, in Mr Li’s withering judgment, it is merely “selling tea to passers-by”.
李强在四川的一个农村泡了几十年的茶，这让他对中国的正宗茶馆有了更清楚的认识。如果只看（茶馆的）历史和美观，他在彭镇开的老茶馆很容易就能入选。一个多世纪以来，这里一直是喝茶的地方，灰顶木结构建筑可以追溯到明朝，当时这里是佛教的观音庙。墙上依稀可见红色的毛的标语，折射出彭镇曾是人民公社的历史。距黎明还有几个小时，空气中已经弥漫着浓重的烟雾和烟囱中冒出的炊烟，因为第一批顾客在凌晨三点半就来到这里喝“早茶”。1995年，李先生从一家集体企业租用了这个茶楼，他说是人的陪伴成就了这家茶馆。他说，只有当顾客把茶馆当成家时，茶馆才是茶馆。在此之前，李先生一直认为，茶馆不过是“卖茶给路人”。Your correspondent visited Pengzhen this week to mark the 100th Chaguan column, a name that pays homage to China’s teahouses and their history as places where ideas are exchanged. Mr Li’s establishment draws a stream of locals. Many are old men in farmers’ blue cotton jackets and caps, puffing on pungent cheroots or cigarettes in sturdy bamboo armchairs. Those photogenic customers lure Chinese urbanites, who carry expensive cameras and look for images of rural life or selfies to post on social media. Such a diverse customer base makes Mr Li’s teahouse a good place for an experiment: an unscientific survey of how Chinese think. It being unsafe and unfair to ask Chinese citizens directly, in public, about Communist Party rule, this columnist spent a happy (if painfully early) few hours asking people two questions often used to assess morale in different countries. The first concerns a subject’s own economic circumstances. The second is about whether future generations are likely to be better off than their parents.
- puff on: （一口一口地）抽（烟斗、香烟等）
本周，本报记者访问了彭镇，以纪念茶馆专栏推出第100期，“茶馆专栏”这个名字也是向中国的茶馆及其作为思想交流场所的历史致敬。李先生的茶馆吸引了大批当地人，许多是穿着农民的蓝色棉衫、戴着帽子的老人，他们坐在结实的竹椅上抽着刺鼻的土烟或香烟。这些上镜的顾客吸引了中国城市居民，他们扛着昂贵的相机，寻找乡村生活照或拍自拍照，把这些照片发布到社交媒体上。如此多样化的客户群让李先生的茶馆成为了一个可以进行实地考察的好地方：对中国人如何思考的一种非科学的调查。在公开场合直接询问中国人对党统治的看法，既不安全也不公正，笔者花了几个小时的愉快时间(虽然早期很痛苦)问了人们两个通常用于评估不同国家斗志的问题。第一问题是关于被询问对象自身的经济状况，第二个问题是，未来几代人的生活是否可能比他们的父辈更好。
