評論
打印
Michael Meyer and the naysayers, nostalgically bewail the loss of old Beijing.
邁克爾·邁耶和反對者緬懷地悲嘆老北京的消失
How old is that old Beijing, and is the loss of the old necessarily bad?
老北京有多老，老的消失真的是壞事嗎?
For the most part, Beijing is not old at all.
從很大程度上說，北京一點都不老
As Madeleine Weidong argues so convincingly, much of the cities physical makeup as you see it today,
就像麥德林·偉東具有說服力的論斷，很多你如今看到的城市的修補
intellectual traditions and social mores date from the Republican Period.
思想傳統和社會風俗可以追溯到共和時期
The first three decades of the 19th century, when Beijing has walled off the Forbidden City's introverted fatalism,
19世紀的前30年，當北京已經打破紫禁城的自主宿命論
began to politicize their urban space, adopted new technologies from rickshaws to electric trolleys and adapted their way of life rapidly,
開始政治化他們的城市空間采用新的技術，黃包車變成電動手推車并迅速調整了生活方式
if awkwardly, to the demands of modernity.
有點尷尬地，調整以適應現代的需求
As the population swelled, and the economy neglected for 100 years by opiate besotted princes and parasitic eunuchs deteriorated,
隨著人口膨脹和經濟停滯100年，因為鴉片毒害了糊涂的王侯和宦官們使其惡化
courtyard homes had suffered subdivision after subdivision with ramshackle additions sprawling into their once spacious courtyards.
四合院家庭經歷了分家，在分家之后搖搖欲墜的因素蔓延，蔓延進他們曾經寬敞的四合院
Neglected too was infrastructure.
基礎建設也被忽略
When the last emperor abdicated in 1912, unpaved roads were dust bowls in the dry winter and mud baths in the rainy summer.
當最后一個皇帝在1912年被廢除。未鋪的路在干燥的冬天如同盛灰的碗，在下雨的夏天就像泥漿浴缸
