【中英文独家连载】罗宾博士看陕西之： TheGreat Learning Lane大学习巷
中国出版集团、中译出版社“外国人写作中国计划”丛书之中、英文版《罗宾博士看陕西》
胡宗锋和（英）罗宾·吉尔班克中、英文版《罗宾博士看陕西》在第二十四届国际图书博览会上发布
Shaanxi Through Dr. Robin’s Eyes
罗宾博士看陕西
TheGreat Learning Lane
大学习巷
（英）罗宾·吉尔班克 胡宗锋 译
Middle Eastern influence wasboth embraced and, at times, viewed with suspicion by the Great Tang Empire.Much as the Emperor Taizong welcomed trade with states along the Silk Road, hebecame vexed when Turkic decadence infiltrated his household. His elder son anddesignated heir, the Crown Prince LiChengqian (618-45 AD) displayed a capable demeanour when ruling as regentduring the period of mourning for his grandfather Gaozu and on other occasionswhen Taizong was absent from Chang’an. Nonetheless, from the age of aroundfifteen his predilection for all things Tujue – from the clothing to thelanguage and even the habit of camping out of doors – became a matter ofspeculation. Chengqian’s over-familiarity with a courtier by the name ofChengxin, together with his dabbling in Taoist magic, provoked his father tohave the favourite and the monks concerned murdered. The remainder of his shortlife saw the Crown Prince bitterly locking horns over the royal succession withhis brother Li Tai, before succumbing to illness in exile. Almost a centuryafter his demise, the Emperor Xuanzong honoured him with the posthumous title Min, meaning “suffering.”
大唐帝国对中东的态度是热情但偶尔也有疑心。虽然唐太宗欢迎和“丝绸之路”沿线的国家有贸易往来，但当突厥人的奢靡蔓延到家中时还是有些不爽。他的大儿子和既定接班人太子李承乾，在为祖父唐高祖居丧期间以及在唐太宗不在长安时，做为摄政王监国，“识大体”干得相当出色。然而在十五岁左右的时候，他开始迷恋突厥人的一切，从穿衣打扮到言辞，甚至是学人家在户外露营的习惯，闹得沸沸扬扬。承乾宠幸一位太常乐人，誉他为自己的称心，并醉心于其道术，惹得父亲杀了他这位知己和相关的道士。在被流放患病前，承乾后来的短暂一生就是和自己的胞弟李泰为了继承皇位而争斗。在他过世百年后，唐玄宗追赠李承乾谥号“愍”，意为“受罪”。
Xuanzong’s son the EmperorSuzong (reigned 756-62 AD) looked to the Middle East in an effort to mend thefractured state of the Tang military during the An Lushan Rebellion. He wrote amissive to Al-Mansur, the Caliph of Baghdad, requesting that he send 7 000cavalrymen. Those who served with honour and survived the conflict would havehis blessing to settle within the empire and have their rights protected.Although Muslim envoys had entered Chang’an in 651 AD when the Caliph Othmanvisited the Emperor Gaozong, historians frequently pinpoint Suzong’s act ofbilateral recruitment as marking the birth of a new ethnic minority group. Thegreat influx of single Arab men to Shaanxi (a little over half of the cohortseems to have exercised their prerogative to stay) brought about interracialmarriage with the local Han. The progeny of these unions usually retained theirancestral worship of Allah while adopting elements of the native culture. Familynames were Sinicized so that Osman became Cai and Ha became Hasan, Hussein wasswapped for Hu and Shah for Sha. The commonest surname Muhammed was broken intosyllables with Ma and Mu and Han being favoured contractions. They settled inclustered communities around mosques, initially known as fanfang (a term long used to designate enclaves for foreigners)before the more descriptive title jiaofang(or Muslim enclave) came into usage. These Chinese Muslims were known byvarious titles through the ages. The one which finally stuck was coined by theSong Dynasty patriarch Su-fei-erh. He called them Huihui Jiao or Hui forshort.
玄宗的儿子肃宗在安禄山叛乱的时候曾期望从中东搬救兵以补充大唐的军事势力，他给巴格达的教主曼苏尔写信，请求派七千骑兵，那些建立功勋渡过了战乱的人可以蒙皇恩待在大唐并享受一定的特权。公元651年，早在哈里发奥斯曼拜访唐高宗的时候，就有穆斯林特使来到了长安，但历史学家却常说肃宗的这次募兵行动标志着一个新的少数民族诞生了。许多单身的阿拉伯人来到陕西（其中近一半以上似乎都在享用自己的特权）从而产生了和当地汉民的异族通婚。这些人的后裔既保持着祖宗对真主的信仰，又汲取了当地文化的一些元素。其姓氏也有了变化，奥斯曼演变成了蔡，哈桑成了哈，侯赛因成了胡，最常见的马和穆则来自于穆罕默德的读音，而韩则是较为流行的姓。这些人大都聚居在清真寺周围，其居住的区域期初叫“蕃坊”，后来改为“教坊”。多年来，人们对这些中国的穆斯林叫法不一，最后定名的是宋朝的教主苏菲尔，称他们为“回回教”，简称为“回”。（苏菲尔是穆哈默德的二十六世孙、布哈拉的教主，他于宋神宗熙宁三年（公元1070年）率亲属和部下五千三百余人、驼马五千余骑朝贡宋王朝，被神宗授为本部正使总管——译者注）。
The Shaanxi Hui consolidatedtheir religious rites during the Ming Dynasty thanks to two critical advents.The Emperor Yongle (reigned 1404-24 AD), granted an edict permitting thereconstruction of the Great Mosque on Huajue Lane in Xi’an, on the plot where aTang era house of worship stood. Fusing discernibly Islamic with medievalChinese aesthetic styles, the current complex was erected only a few decadesafter the Bell and Drum Towers. Yongle’s father Hongwu (reigned 1368-98) hadpreviously appointed Hui generals to cornerstone posts in the imperial army andMuslim support was key to the success of the rebellion which brought the Mingregime to power. Whether working independently or relying upon a ghostwriter,Yongle burnished the dynasty’s reverence for the Prophet Mohammed and his followersby setting down the 100-word Eulogy (Baizizan).This concludes by labelling the religion “pure and true” (qinzhen), the that has come to denote that which is halal in China. Hence a mosque inChinese is, accordingly, known as a “pure and true temple” (qingzhen si). Secondly, Hu Dengzhou(1522-97) laid the foundation for modern Hui religious study. His “scripturehall education” method (Jingtang Jiaoyu)allowed Arabic to be learned through rendering its syllables into the sounds ofspoken Chinese. Uniquely, it may be noted, among the fifty-seven ethnicities inChina the Hui are the only group not identified as having their ownlanguage.
在明朝的时候，两件大事让陕西的回民巩固了自己的宗教仪式。其一是永乐皇帝下诏允许在西安化觉巷唐代的一座寺庙基础上重建大清真寺。今天的大清真寺就是在钟鼓楼落成后修建的，其建筑既有鲜明的伊斯兰特色，也有中世纪华夏审美的格调。永乐皇帝的父亲洪武皇帝朱元璋曾经在军中重用回族将领，回民的支持对明朝的成功至关重要。不论是朱元璋撰赐或他人捉刀，永乐皇帝的《百字赞》歌颂的是先知穆罕默德和其追随者。在《百字赞》的最后他说回族“教名清真”，这一说法奠定了回族在中国的合法地位，故回民的寺院在中国被称为“清真寺”。其二是胡登洲倡导的“经堂教育”让人们通过汉语的发音来学习阿拉伯语的音节（胡登洲（1522-1597），字明普，经名穆罕默德·阿卜杜拉·伊莱亚斯，陕西省咸阳渭城湾胡家沟人，明代伊斯兰教学者、经师，因开创伊斯兰经堂教育，被中国穆斯林尊称为“胡太师巴巴”。所谓经堂教育，指的是在清真寺内开办的以传授伊斯兰宗教知识和培养伊斯兰宗教职业人士为目的的一种教育方式，又称寺院教育——译者注）。也许人们注意到独特的是，在中国的五十六个少数民族中，只有回族被认为没有自己的民族语言。
The Great Mosque is still a drawfor pilgrims and tourists alike owing to the central location of the building,not to mention the ease with which souvenirs of Islamic calligraphy and halal snacks can be bought in HuajueLane and Hui Min Jie. Other local places of worship have their own distinctcharacter. The Great Learning Lane Mosque (DaxuexiSi) exudes a peculiar calm, broken these days by only screeching felinecaterwauls. Pigeons pop in and out of the moldering Ming gables for corn andtry to dodge the resident mousers. Lest a bloodbath ensue during prayer-timethe ancient caretaker Mr. Wang must spring into action darting fromcorner-to-corner swishing a bamboo broom. When overseas guests arrive, thisreferee downs his tools and is full flush with anecdotes about how he fled thepoverty of Gansu, where he lost two wives, and now leads a charmed life, beingable to meet Pakistani and European tourists. From his new “foreign friends”the bearded gentleman humbly tries to cadge the lowest denomination of loosechange from their home countries. Vacant moments are spent stacking these coinsand arranging them into imaginative configurations beneath his camp-bed. AsWang is proud to recall, the Great Learning Lane Mosque has a trulycosmopolitan pedigree. Hasan, the resident Imam, was recruited by theglobetrotting Zheng He (1471-1533/5) to act as interpreter and translator onone of his voyages.
处于中心位置的大清真寺依旧吸引着人们前来朝圣和观光，更不用提随处可见的带有伊斯兰书法的旅游纪念品以及化觉巷和回民街的特色小吃了。其它当地的礼拜寺也是各有自己的特色，大学习巷清真寺就分外安静。除了猫叫，就是鸽子在明代的山墙上跳出跳进觅食，躲避着旁边的居民。为了避免在祷告的时候发生流血事件，看门的王先生会立即行动，挥着竹扫把清理每一个角落。有外国人来时，他会放下手里的工具，满脸通红的讲述他怎样逃脱了甘肃的贫穷，失去了两任妻子，现在终于过上了舒心的日子，还可以见到来自巴基斯坦和欧洲的外国游客。面对新的“外国朋友”，这位留着胡须的老头会很谦逊的要一些外国的零钱，闲下来的时候，他就会把那些硬币堆起来，在他睡觉的床下摆成自己想象的图形。让王先生引以为豪的是大学习巷清真寺的确具有世界血脉，当年的住寺伊玛目（掌教）哈三曾经应征加入郑和的远洋船队，任西洋使团的“总翻译”。
Another one-time worshipper hereserved to restore the reputation of the Shaanxi Hui for martial excellence. MaZhenbang (1928-2013) was born around the corner at Dapiyuan, which typicallyfor the city in the Republic of China era had no paved roads and Ma began topractice martial arts because of his weak health, he then became fascinated init. He learns from many great masters and absorbed their strong points. He ,too become a great master and had students like Zhao Changjun, Huang Dapeng andetc. He has made done a lot for the development of the martial arts in China,while his super Kongfu andoutstanding personality made him a model for the later generations.
这里另外一个曾经受人崇拜的人是陕西回民的武术家马振邦，他就出生在大皮院附近，那里很像民国时期的城市，没有铺好的路。马振邦年少时因体弱多病而踏上习武之路，却从此迷上武术，与武术结下不解之缘。他投师众多名家，海纳百川，博采众长，终成一代大师，桃李满天下，培养出了赵长军、黄大鹏等著名武术运动员，为武术事业的发展做出了卓越贡献。他高超的武技和高尚的武德，堪为一代又一代习武之人的楷模
At present, the Hui in Shaanxiare vastly outnumbered by the Han majority. Their numbers have dwindled toapproximately one per cent of the provincial population or around seventythousand souls in Xi’an City. This was not always so for in 1781 the governor Bi Yuan sent a memorial to theEmperor Qianlong reporting how:-
目前，陕西的回民远远少于汉民，人口减少到了全省百分之一，西安的回民大约有七万人。但在历史上可不是这样，1781年，陕西巡抚毕沅在给乾隆皇帝的奏折中曰：
Itappears that in various places in Shaanxi province, the Huihui are morepopulous than in other provinces. Moreover in Xi’an and the counties whichbelong to it, Chang’an, Weinan, Lintong, Gaoling and Xianyang and Dali andHuazhou which belong to Tongzhou ，Nanzhengand other prefectures and counties belonging to Hanzhong, the Hui people buildstockades in which they live and there the Hui population is even denser. TheHui population of the provincial capital Xi’an is at least several thousand andthere are seven mosques in the city. The majority of Hui in Xi’an live byfarming, livestock rearing and trade. Many are comfortably off and have servedas military officials, officers of high or low rank and successfully taken themilitary examinations.
(Qin Zhezhong [Equitable Settlement in Shaanxi] Leslie, 1986, p. 127).
陕省各属地方，回民居住较他省为多。而西安府城及本属之长安、渭南、临潼、高陵、咸阳及同州府属之大荔、华州，汉中府属之南郑等州县，回族多聚堡而居，人口更为稠密。省城西安，回民不下数千家，城中礼拜寺七座，……西安回民大半耕种畜牧暨贸易经商，颇多家道殷实及曾任武职、大小员弁及当兵科举者。
By the time the Emperor Guangxuascended the throne in 1875 it would have been impossible to have composed sucha memorial. Skirmishes between the Han and the Hui beginning in 1862 damagedthe infrastructures of Shaanxi and Gansu, leaving 20.77 million dead fromensuing famines and natural disasters. The Tongzhi Muslim Revolt – still apolitically sensitive topic – accounted for around 4 million Hui fatalities inShaanxi alone. Entire Muslim villages like Huichu in Hu County were razed tothe ground, largely eliminating the province’s population of agrarian Hui andpushing followers of Islam into the safer confines of the metropolis.
等到了光绪皇帝登基的1875年，类似的局面已不存在了。始于1862年的回汉之争毁掉了陕西和甘肃的基础，死于年馑和自然灾害的人数达到了两千零七十万人。“同治回乱”现在依旧是个敏感的之话题——当年仅陕西丧生的回民就大约有四百万人。诸如户县灰渠头（今天的新兴村）这样的回民村被夷为平地，大大的减少了陕西农村的回民，迫使回民流落到了较为安全的城市。
The modern Muslim district inXi’an scarcely needs any introduction, for I have yet to know of any Britishtourist at least who does not either remember tasting kebabs and sweetmeats alfresco or bartering for silk scarves for their mother or a named auntie backhome. Local city-folk by and large seldom frequent the bazaar, seeing it as ablatant tourist trap. The late memoirist Han Suyin (1916 or 1917-2012) haspointed to a former time when the legacy of the Silk Road was still more firmlyimprinted on the Hui people’s community:-
现代西安的回民区几乎用不着介绍，就我所知英国的游客不是记得那里户外的烤肉和果脯，就是用东西给自己家里的母亲或婶子换过丝绸围巾。总体说来，当地人很少到那儿的集市，认为那是一个吵杂的敲游人竹杠的地方。已故作家韩素音曾经描述过当年依旧带有“丝绸之路”遗风的回民区：
Ilike the Islamic quarter of Sian, where an ambling goat, an occasionaltwo-humped camel, rare as a fabled beast today, could still be accosted in the1960s. Sian is enchanting, with its willows, the roar of its noon cicadas, itstemples and museums and palaces, its delicious local beer and civilized people.From here we set out on our journey to modern Tartary, Sinkiang: we shallfollow – by aeroplane – the Silk Road, as did the caravans launching themselvesto cross the deserts to India, to Tyre and Sidon, to Rome and to Alexandria.
(Han Suyin Chapter6 Phoenix Harvest Page 177)
我喜欢西安的回民区，在二十世纪六十年代，那儿仍旧有今天的童话中鲜见的动物，如安静的山羊，偶尔还有双峰骆驼。西安很迷人，有垂柳，正午的蝉鸣；有宫殿、寺庙和清真寺，有可口的当地啤酒和彬彬有礼的市民。从那里，我们踏上了去现代鞑靼和新疆的路途。我们将（乘飞机）沿着“丝绸之路”，像当年的驼队那样启程穿越沙漠，到印度、提尔（黎巴嫩古城）、西顿（黎巴嫩南部古城），再到罗马和亚历山大城。
——引自韩素音著《再生凤凰》第177页
The only camels I have ever seenin Shaanxi were the tethered creatures which occupied neighbouring pens to theostriches at Maweiyi Ancient Village in Xinping County. Parents could pay tenyuan to allow their kids to feed them salad leaves with an additional surchargebeing levied if they wanted a photograph sitting atop the beast. Dr. Han’swritings are inflected with a dash of romanticism, so one cannot be entirelycertain about how “occasional” sightings of camels were in Beilin Districthalf-a-century ago. Living goats there are at times aplenty, but one is morelikely to encounter the carcasses of dead sheep and cows in a variety of statesof dissection and cooking. Lifeless ovine digits beckon from within simmeringpans of soup. Meanwhile, at butcher’s shops, particularly those along GreatLearning Avenue, gigantic sections of cattle liver occupy entire counters.Despite being no stranger to the consumption of offal (braised liver, bacon andonions, and steak and kidney pie are favourite recipes back home), I cannotquite fathom what dishes could be concocted from such iron-heavy portions ofinnards.
我在陕西惟一一次见到被栓着的骆驼是在兴平县马嵬驿村的鸵鸟园旁边。家长付十元钱可以让孩子喂骆驼，要是想让孩子骑在骆驼上照相，就得再加钱。韩素音的描述带有一点儿浪漫的色彩，所以人无法肯定到底怎样“偶尔”才能在半个世纪前的碑林区见到骆驼。活着的羊有时很多，但遇到多的是各种各样牛羊的尸体，不是被切割，就是被煮在锅里。没有了生命特征的羊的各个部位在嘟嘟冒气的汤中给人们打招呼，而在肉店里，特别是沿着大学习巷的店铺里，巨大的牛肝占据了整个柜台。虽然对内脏的消费不陌生（卤肝、熏肉拌洋葱、牛排、腰花等都是家中常见的菜肴），但我还是想不到从这重如铁的内脏中能做出什么样的菜肴来。
The Scottish crime writer PeterMay depicts this scene in a more tantalizing way. The two protagonists of oneof his novels, who like May were residents aliens in Beijing, find themselvescompelled to gather evidence for a murder case in Xi’an and take this as achance to sample Hui culture:-
苏格兰犯罪小说作家彼得·梅描述的场面更有趣。他小说里的两个主人公像彼得·梅一样是住在北京的外国人，为了给一桩谋杀案取证，他们不得不到西安去，并想借机领略一下当地的回民文化：
Then,as they left the gloom of the outer fringes of the Quarter, and wandered deepinto the very heart of it, the olfactory sensations became a little morepleasant. Indian spices. Cumin, coriander, garam masala. The smells of cooking.Spiced lamb and roast chicken. Braziers were pumped up to extremes of heat andlight by electronic blowers placed directly beneath them. Long troughs ofcharcoal glowed and smoked and filled the air with the mouthwatering smells ofbarbecued meat. Savoury chestnuts and black beans were being roasted togetherin huge woks, great vats of brown sesame sludge brought to high temperatures onfiercely burning fires to separate the oil from the tahini. There were barbershops, seed stores, sweet sellers, hardware stands. A boy was rolling outnoodles on a sidewalk cooking table while a woman behind him washed dishes in abig stone sink.
(Peter May, The Fourth Sacrifice, p. 126).
接着，当他们离开坊上阴沉的外围，漫步到深处的中心时，嗅到的味道变得有点好闻了。有印度的香料、茴香、芫荽、咖喱，五香羊肉、烤鸡等烹饪的香味。电动鼓风机就放在火盆下面，炉火正旺。长长的沟槽里木炭闪亮，空气中弥漫着一种让人流口水的烧烤味。大锅里翻炒着的是开胃的栗子和黑豆，大缸里的芝麻酱经过大火高温处理，再从芝麻饼里榨油。有理发店、瓜子铺、糖果贩子和五金门市部。有个小伙子正在人行道边的一个案板上擀面，他身后有个女人在一个石头水槽里洗碗碟。
——引自彼得·梅著《第四次牺牲》第126页
May’s rather farfetched plotsleave my eyes spinning. Still, of all popular foreign writers he seems sensibleto the briskness of daily life in urban China, even if he tends – like mosttravel guides – to focus on the influence the Hui Muslim have had uponinfluencing culinary cuisine in Shaanxi.
彼得·梅的故事情节有点牵强，看得我眼花缭乱。但在所有的外国畅销书作家中，即便是他（像大多数的旅游指南一样）倾向于聚焦在回民对陕西美食的影响上，他似乎对中国城里人欢快的日常生活比较了解。
As cooks, the Huiare popularisers as well as innovators. Mutton stew based on shredded flatbread(yang rou paomo) has been noted asfar back at the time of Li Bai, yet it may have been the Muslim prohibition oneating pork, taken together with the need for wholesome winter food, that madeit a Hui mainstay. Paomo in bothits mutton and beef variants is truly ubiquitous – featuring on themenus of the smallest of eateries as well as the highest notch internationalhotels. The act of ripping up one’s own bread as a prelude to eating adds tothe experience. Tourists are most likely to encounter the dish in the leadingMuslim restaurants such as Jia San.Mr. Jia’s ostentatious premises with its multi-coloured mock Ming exterior andgilded sign inscribed by Jia Pingwa (no relation) outshines each of itsneighbours on Hui Min Jie. The proprietor’s capacity for self-promotionredounds throughout the walls of his establishment which bear his dozens ofcelebrity photos.
作为厨师，回民既是推广者也是革新家。羊肉泡馍的历史可以上溯到李白那个时代，但有可能是因为伊斯兰禁吃猪肉，以及为了解决冬天的饮食才让这成了回民的主食。泡馍不论是羊肉或牛肉，真的是无处不在，从小饭馆到星际饭店都是菜单上的招牌，自己掰馍吃更是别有一番风味。游客大多是在如贾三那样的清真名店品尝。贾三家的店铺很显眼，外头是多彩的仿明建筑，配的是贾平凹题写的匾额，在回民街上比周围的人家更为响亮。店家的自我推销贴满了墙壁，有几十张老板和名人的合影。
The Hui communitycan certainly be held responsible for helping to nourish the Xi’anese fondnessfor confectionary. To begin with the most sugary first, the Chinese Muslimsretail their own independently-discovered versions of cinder toffee and peanutbrittle. The tastes differ not in the slightest from the British equivalents.However, we eat with our eyes before our palates get a look in. Compared tobuying plastic bags of cinder toffee from a poky shop by the seaside, I wouldmuch rather accost an ancient vendor on a cycle whose basket bears a cake ofthe stuff, fractured asymmetrically across a sheet of hessian. Just likepurchasing a sweet potato roasted in a converted street-side oil-drum, theseller usually whips out a penny balance and is none too bothered aboutrounding off a few fen.
回民区肯定培育了西安人对糖果的喜爱。从最多的糖开始，中国的回民零售的是自己独立研制的太妃糖和花生糖，味道和英国的产品没有任何差别，但英国人是先看后吃。比起从海边的破旧小店买塑料袋装的太妃糖，我倒是更情愿从推着小车，篮子里装着一大块的小贩那里切一块下来。就像从把油桶改成烤炉，在路边卖烤红薯的人那里卖红薯一样，人家通常为了方便，一点儿也不在乎少要几分钱。
As for thebrittle, one or two Hui stores retain a massive hook beneath their outdoorcanopies. The raw sweet is prepared in a kitchen somewhere out of sight, but todrum up custom during the summer season a couple of well-built, skull-cappedguys will happily skewer a few pounds of the nutty candy mixture and tusslewith it for a good half hour, twisting and layering it until it solidifies. Theend product is snipped into bite-size fragments using dressmaker’s scissors.For those who favour self-indulgence above chutzpah, ten or twelve yuan will purchase a rice-paper parcelcontaining a dozen or so stacked bars of brittle.
就花生糖而言，有一两家回民店铺在外面的篷子下会挂很多。原材料的制作在人看不到的厨房里，但在夏季为了招揽顾客，有一两个身体结实、头顶帽子的小伙子会兴高采烈的制作，倒弄大半个小时，先是扭，接着分层，直到凝固。最后的成品是用裁缝的剪刀剪成小块。对于那些不怕吃糖多的人来说，花十几块钱就可以买一大纸袋这样的花生糖。
Resounding moststrongly with the strains of eras past is the Huanggui persimmon pancake.Drying persimmons out and combining them with wheat-flour to form a paste wasoriginally a method of preserving this fruit, which, having a high sugar andwater content is prone to rotting after harvesting. Going one stage further,the paste can be seasoned with anything from osmanthus juice to walnut kernelsand molded into patties in the palm. Frying these in oil for several minutesthey come out crisp on the outside and unctuous at the centre. The fire-crystalpersimmon fruit was purportedly brought back to Lintong County by themuch-travelled Han Dynasty envoy Zhang Qian (200-114 BC). In popular culture,his botanical introductions, such as alfalfa for use as horse fodder, are asfamous as his missions to try and seek allies against the warlike Xiongnutribes of the northwest frontier. The pancakes were said to have fortified LiZicheng and his army in 1644 as they passed through the area en route to tryand overthrow the Ming regime in Beijing.
多少年来声明最响亮的是黄桂柿子饼，把柿子晒干，拌上麦面粉形成一层霜本来是保存这种水果的一个土办法，因为柿子的含糖量和水分高，容易腐烂变质。再进一步，还可以把其它诸如桃仁等东西加进去，做成掌心大小的柿饼，油炸几分钟，这样的柿饼外脆里软。临潼县的火晶柿子据说是由汉代的张骞出使西域时带回来的。在民俗文化里，张骞在引进植物上的贡献（如喂马的苜蓿）和他为了抗击匈奴出使西域一样有名。1644年，李自成和他的队伍为了推翻明政权，进军北京路过此地时，当地人曾用柿子饼犒劳过李的将士们。
Where the other Muslimsnacks are concerned, there is slim hope of replicating the same dishes in aWestern kitchen, should one have the inclination. A food which fell out offavour in the later twentieth century before experiencing a recent resurgenceis the enigmatically-named “mirror cake.” The only explanation I can offer forthe name is that the sweet is small and circular and often has a glazedsurface. Given the typical appearance of the hand mirrors prized by well-bornladies of the Tang Dynasty, this is not a ludicrous comparison. They were roundin shape and cast in silver, with a decorative reverse, featuring creatures ofthe likes of cranes and Mandarin ducks. To the casual onlooker, the productionof this confectionary requires an inordinately intricate array of paraphernalia.Mirror cake is always made in situ bypeddlers with an adapted cart. The heat is generated from an oven orbriquette burner in the bowels of the box and channeled through apertures intoa series of small sectioned steamers. Prior to introducing them tothe heat source, the vendor has packed these tapering chambers withthe ingredients: glutinous rice, white and brown sugar and flavourings such asrose oil and walnuts, together with sundry dyes. Upon purchase he will liftaway a section and prize out the contents using a bamboo slip as the lollipopstick. The early Qing Dynasty poetWang Hongqing (pen-name “Wenxuan”)from Xianyang wrote a poem in praise of the sweet. He pictured a balmy summer’sday on which:-
还有一种回民食品，即便是西方人有意为之，但也在厨房里做不出来。这种食品在二十世纪后期不大流行了，但最近又在市场出现了，叫“镜糕”，名字让人有点捉摸不透。我知道的惟一解释是，这种甜品小小的、圆圆的，表面很光滑，特别像唐朝贵妇人喜欢随身携带的手镜。这个比喻并不荒唐，手镜是园的，镶有银边，背面有装饰，比如有鹤或鸳鸯。在普通人看来，这种甜品的做法有一系列复杂的程序。“镜糕”都是由小贩在推车上现场制作，提供热能的是箱子里的烤炉或蜂窝煤炉子，热量通过一个个小小的气孔通到好几个分开的小蒸笼里。在没有上锅前，卖主要在小蒸笼里放上材料，有糯米、红糖、白糖、还要加上玫瑰油和桃仁，并点上不同的色彩。有顾客买，卖主便会拿起一小笼，用一个像棒棒糖那样的竹签扎入取出。清初咸阳诗人王洪庆有诗赞之，描述的是夏日的景象：
Along day in the shade of the willow
Eventhe shoulder pole sends forth fragrance
Littlekids are laughing lightly
Forthey’ll drag their mothers for a bite.
柳荫槐下昼夜长
镜糕担子亦生香。
童稚儿女共笑语，
且牵阿母欲一尝。
The vendor musthave had a far tougher time of it in the Old China if he was forced to conveyall his wares on a length of bamboo slung over his shoulders. Colloquially,folks would refer to the tip on which the furnace was carried as the “hot end.”So peculiar to think that a man could build the physique of a wrestler throughretailing such a dainty product every day!
在旧中国，小贩不得不把所有制作“镜糕”的工具用扁担扛在肩上，那肯定是非常艰难的。故老乡们把放有炉子的一边称为是“一头热”，试想一个人每天挑着担子卖这样的美味，还不得练就一副摔跤手的体魄。
Hui Min Jie, to certain minds, is little more than afaçade, or some meretricious flypaper for entrapping foreign money. Thosewanting to taste a more unpolished version of trading should attend the Sundaymorning “bird and cricket market” at Xi Cang. The dusty alleys clog withpedestrians like seventy-year old arteries, there being the ever-present dangerof being nudged in the kidney by the handles of a cycle whose rider isaudacious enough to try to squeeze through the press. If one’s gaze can beaverted from the all-too-prominent stalls selling Viagra alternatives (theboxes feature photographs ranging from explicit stills demonstrating maleultra-virility copied from hardcore pornographic movies to the beaming face ofBill Clinton) at any given moment a new shade of human life is to be found onshow there. I distinctly recall my first Muslim funeral when all of a suddenthe alley on which I was inspecting calligraphy surged with plaintive wails. Aminute or two later customers had to duck away as a stretcher bearing thedeceased was borne aloft above head-height by half a dozen skull-cappedrelatives. Open-casket funerals being such a rarity in the UK, I was especiallyunprepared for the sight of the wizened greying ankles just visible above theslipper-clad feet. Protruding from beneath the rug these members confirmed thatthis was past being a medical emergency. The unaffected grief of the family andtheir filial dedication in conveying the corpse to the mosque post haste put meoff the peanut brittle. And yet it connected with something more protean.
回民街并不是只有外表，或者是吸引外国人花钱的地方。想一睹其原汁原味风貌的人可以到周日早晨西仓的“鸟市”上去，在那满是灰尘的巷子里，年过古稀的行人比比皆是，你的腰随时有被自行车手把撞上的危险，因为骑车的莽汉想从人群钻过去。要是你的眼光想躲开显眼的出售“伟哥”的小店（门前灯箱里的宣传画既有从色情光盘中拷贝下来的猛男，也有荣光满面的克林顿），那就会又碰上生活中鲜见的另一面。我还清楚的记得第一次碰到穆斯林的葬礼，当我正在观赏书法作品时，巷子里忽然传来了悲哀的哭声。一两分钟过后，行人不得不躲到两边，因为有六个带着帽子的人把逝者用担架举过头顶抬了过来。在英国，敞开棺盖的葬礼极其罕见，我一点儿都没有想到是这样，只看到了逝者的双脚，给人的感觉是有人患了急诊。家人悲伤而虔诚送其匆忙到清真寺的情景让我不想吃花生糖了，但这却让我更加感觉到世事的无常。
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