端午夏日遊 看怎樣和孩子一起逛北京大綱

Turns out, scorpions don't taste so bad -- though eating them is more about texture than flavor. They do impart a satisfying crunch.

事實證明，蠍子並沒有那麼難吃──雖然吃蠍子更多的是質感而非味道上的體驗。咀嚼它們，的確能給人帶來一種令人滿足的嘎吱嘎吱的響聲。

I was with my husband and three children in Li Qun, a roast-duck and fried-insect restaurant in a back alley of a rundown hutong -- a neighborhood of traditional courtyard houses -- in Beijing. The only 'facility' was a hole in the ground down the block, but still, on the walls of the restaurant hung photos of famous visitors: Jet Li, Al Gore.

當時，我和丈夫及三個孩子在利羣──一家位於北京一條破舊衚衕後巷、供應烤鴨和炸昆蟲的餐館。衚衕是傳統四合院住宅的街區。那兒唯一的“廁所”就是街區盡頭地上的一個洞。儘管如此，在這家餐館的牆上還是掛着造訪此處的知名人士的照片：李連杰和前美國副總統阿爾・戈爾(Al Gore)。

My two eldest kids, 10 and 8, were determined to have some dining escapades in China. In the Wangfujing night market, we'd seen live, shoe-size arthropods impaled on sticks, ready to be cooked, but the yuck factor was insurmountable. At Li Qun the bugs were an inch long, dipped in batter, and deep fried, making them just palatable enough. In a video we made, my 10-year-old, Gideon, plucks a crispy critter from a bed of rice crackers, pops it into his mouth and swallows. 'Tastes just like cockroach!' he exclaims. Then he entreats me to crunch a scorpion for posterity. And because my family was in Asia to do what good travelers around the world do -- push ourselves outside our comfort zone -- I did.

我最大的兩個孩子分別爲10歲和8歲，他們決定在中國進行一些飲食文化上的冒險。在王府井夜市上，我們看見了串在籤子上、鞋子大小的活的節肢動物正等着下鍋，但難吃、令人噁心的因素令我們難以逾越。在利羣餐館，那些蟲子有一英寸長（約合2.5釐米），浸入麪漿後再充分油炸，這樣就使它們吃起來夠美味。在我拍攝的一段視頻中，我10歲的兒子吉迪恩(Gideon)從一堆米餅上撕扯下一塊脆皮蟲身、扔進嘴裏然後咀嚼起來。他大叫道：“嚐起來就像是蟑螂！”然後，他懇請我爲子孫後代咬一隻蠍子。因爲我的家人在亞洲做了全球各地的好遊客都會做的事──將我們自己推出舒適區──所以我就吃了。

Beijing is not the most obvious destination to visit with children. The traffic is murder, the smog so bad locals wear face masks and the tap water isn't potable. 'It's so dirty,' a Chinese-American friend back home warned; we should time our trip to avoid spring's dust storms, someone else suggested. But our children had just completed their first year of Chinese-immersion school in New York, and after months of research, we concluded that the capital might be more kid-friendly than it seems.

帶着孩子出行遊玩，北京並不是最明顯、最合適的一個目的地。那裏的交通狀況真要命，霧霾嚴重、以至於當地人都得戴面罩，而且自來水也不能直接飲用。一位華裔美國人朋友從北京回來以後警告我說“那裏太髒了”；另一個人則建議我們要安排好旅行時間、避開春季的沙塵暴。但我們的孩子纔剛剛在紐約上完了第一年的浸入式中文課，而且在經過數月的研究後，我們得出結論，首都北京比它表面上看起來更適宜兒童。

In Beijing, the ancient is constantly butting heads with the modern. Songs, Mings, Qings and many other dynasties ruled China from the city, over the centuries erecting the Forbidden City, the Summer Palace and the Great Wall. Now those icons have competition from attractions like the $140 million National Aquatics Center -- or Water Cube -- and the National Stadium (aka the Bird's Nest), built for the 2008 Olympics.

在北京，古典與現代一直在持續碰撞。宋、明、清及其他許多朝代都在此地建都、統治中國，數百年來，紫禁城、頤和園與長城也在北京一一建成。如今，一些新興名勝──如耗資1.4億美元、爲2008年北京奧運會而建的國家游泳中心（或被稱爲水立方）及國家體育場（又名鳥巢）──與上述那些標誌性古蹟展開了競爭。

Our stint in Beijing capped off a two-week visit to eastern China, most of it spent in tiny villages and holiday spots unfamiliar to Americans. Remote Lands, which specializes in custom tours of Asia, did most of the planning, booking hotels, transfers and many activities. With the bulk of the logistics taken care of, we had space for serendipity and discovery.

我們在北京短暫逗留後，便進行了一次爲期兩週的華東之行，其間，我們大多數時間都住在了美國人不太熟知的小村莊和度假景點。遠陸(Remote Lands)是一家專注於亞洲定製遊的旅行公司，它爲我們做好了大部分的計劃、訂酒店、安排交通出行以及許多活動。由於大部分的後勤都已被安排好，我們就有了意外發現珍奇事物和探索的空閒。

In Beijing, we started where everyone else does: in Tiananmen Square, built in 1415 as the royal entrance to the Forbidden City, the imperial palace. The square was thick with Chinese tourists, and to their eyes my family must have been a novelty -- people insisted on taking photos with my blond husband and pulled my 5-year-old daughter, Talia, from her stroller for more shots. (I was invisible; perhaps brown-haired mothers aren't so remarkable.)

在北京，我們從其他每位遊客都會選擇做爲出發點的地方開始遊玩：天安門廣場。它建於1415年，當時是作爲皇室通往皇宮紫禁城的入口。廣場上滿是中國遊客，在他們眼裏，我們一家人一定很新奇－－人們堅持要跟我金髮碧眼的丈夫合影，還把我5歲的女兒塔莉婭(Talia)從她的摺疊式嬰兒車上拉過來多拍了幾張照。（我就是個透明人；可能棕色頭髮的媽媽不是那麼能引人注意。）

The Forbidden City is beautiful and well preserved, from the gilded lions guarding the Gate of Heavenly Purity to the serene Imperial Garden. The kids recognized the complex from Bernardo Bertolucci's 1987 film, 'The Last Emperor.' But little ones can only take so many halls of thrones and tapestries. ('Where is the princess?' my daughter asked our guide a number of times.) So we went to take a rickshaw ride through courtyard houses yet to be replaced by gleaming condos.

從守衛在幹清門的鍍金獅子到寧靜的御花園，美麗的紫禁城保存完好。孩子們認出了這些建築羣就是導演貝納多・貝託魯奇(Bernardo Bertolucci)在1987年拍攝的電影《末代皇帝》(The Last Emperor)中所呈現的場景。但小孩子們也就只能意識到有這麼多擺着龍椅和懸着掛毯的大廳，僅此而已。（“公主在哪兒呢？”我女兒問了我們導遊好幾次這個問題。）於是我們去坐了趟人力車，穿過了一家家四合院，它們現在還尚未被流光溢彩的公寓所取代。

A kind woman let us enter her hutong home, which made up one side of a courtyard. The mistress of the house was so well off, she explained, she did not have to work. My jaded little New Yorkers were baffled. Two rooms for three people? A shared stove -- outside?帝 My husband and I attempted to turn this into a teachable moment, but the kids had moved on and were exclaiming over the mistress's pet cricket.

一位友善的婦女讓我們走進了她在衚衕裏的家，這戶人家佔據了一座四合院的一邊兒。那位婦女解釋說，這家的女主人生活相當富足，她都無需工作。這讓我們家善嘲諷的小紐約客們感到困惑不已。兩個房間要住三個人？共用一個竈－－還是在外邊？我和丈夫本想試着把此時此刻變成教育孩子們的好時機，但他們卻已開始往前走並朝着女主人養的寵物蛐蛐大喊大叫起來。

To work off some of their energy, we raced up the steps of the Drum Tower, a 154-foot-tall structure built during the reign of Kublai Khan. As we arrived, 25 percussion students entered the hall, and in perfect unison pounded the hell out of 6-foot-wide drums. We had to rush off to an hour-long date that Remote Lands had scheduled with a master kite-maker. In his tiny kitchen, he taught the kids to make miniature kites by heating sticks of bamboo over a candle until they were pliable, then gluing on sheets of rice paper. Rain had cleared the sky of smog and the streets of muck, and in the quiet hutong, my children flew their painted masterpieces -- a butterfly, a dragon and a bird.

爲了讓他們消耗點兒精力，我們比賽跑上了鼓樓的臺階。這座高154英尺（46.7米）的建築修建於忽必烈統治時期。當我們到那兒的時候，正趕上25名打擊樂團的學生走進大廳，他們的樂器擊打聲與猛擊六英尺（約1.8米）寬的鼓形成了完美的和鳴。我們還得急着趕去另一個時長一個小時的約會，那是遠陸(Remote Lands)旅行社爲我們安排的與一位風箏製作大師的會面。在大師狹窄的廚房裏，他教了孩子們製作微型風箏：將竹棍置於燭火上烤，直到它變得柔韌易彎，然後糊上一張宣紙。雨水洗刷了天空中的霧霾，沖掉了街上的塵土污泥，在寧靜的衚衕裏，我的孩子們放起了他們畫出來的傑作－－一隻蝴蝶，一條龍和一隻鳥風箏。

At a corner store, while my husband took snaps of a ramshackle soda display, our 8-year-old, Malachi, reached into a basket for a tart yogurt drink he'd come to love. He took a sip from the straw, then made a sour face. 'Someone already drank it!' he yelled. Using their broken Mandarin, the children learned from the shopkeeper that Malachi had pulled the bottle from a recycling basket.

在一間位於拐角的店鋪裏，當我丈夫在抓拍一字擺開的蘇打水時，我們8歲的兒子瑪拉基(Malachi)將手伸進了一個籃子中、夠到了一瓶酸奶飲品－－他覺得自己會非常喜歡喝。他用吸管吸了一口，然後一臉酸相。“這瓶有人喝過了！”他喊道。孩子們用蹩腳的中文從店主那裏得知，那個瓶子是瑪拉基書從廢物回收的籃子裏揀出來的。

We morbidly joke that Malachi's last words will be 'Hold my beer and watch this.' But he does make our family more intrepid. At the Wangfujing night bazaar, a street swarming with food stalls, tchotchke booths and shoe peddlers, he bought a ceramic 'tea boy' that was supposed to urinate once filled with hot water; when it didn't work, he negotiated for a new one. He convinced fruit vendors to let him try one of everything. At the Summer Palace, imperial gardens that date to the mid-1700s, he ignored guards' warnings to stop rock-hopping along the edge of a lake. What did he care -- he was 7,000 miles from home!

我們病態地開玩笑說，瑪拉基的臨終遺言將會是“幫我拿一下啤酒，看看這個。”但他確實讓我們一家變得更加勇猛無畏了。在一條街滿是小吃攤、小玩意兒地攤和賣鞋小販的王府井夜市上，他買了一個本應該在加滿熱水後就開始尿尿的陶瓷製品“茶壺男孩”；結果因爲不能用，他又去跟賣家周旋換了一個新的。他還說服了水果小販，獲准可以把每一種水果都拿一個嚐嚐。在18世紀中期修建的皇家園林頤和園中，他也無視保安的警告－－不要沿着湖邊跳過石頭。他纔不管呢，他在乎的是－－他在距家7000英里（約合11,265公里）遠的地方！

And unlike at home, in China we adopted some of his attitude. We jumped down the stairs of the ancient Bell Tower, across the street from the Drum Tower; we crashed a wedding reception at the Raffles Hotel.

不像在家裏，在中國的時候我們接受了他的一些態度。我們從古代鐘樓的樓梯上跳下來，從鼓樓出來橫穿馬路；還闖入了萊佛士大酒店(Raffles Hotel)裏的一場婚宴。

On our final day in Beijing, a driver took us to one of the best-preserved sections of the Great Wall, Mutianyu. Navigating the market that lined the path from the parking lot took time: Malachi had to bargain for T-shirts, passion fruit and chess sets. (Our matching Communist Youth hats cost $1 each.) On the stairs of the wall, Talia declared, 'I am a great stepper!' though she later clarified that she wasn't the Queen of Walking. I put her on my shoulders as we made our way to the Schoolhouse, a former primary school where artists in residence can now blow glass or paint, and students learn to grow organic produce and cook it in the property's restaurants.

在北京的最後一天，一位司機載我們去了長城保存最完好的一段：慕田峪。從停車場出來，經過的道路兩邊都設有市場，從市場裏尋路走過去花了我們不少時間。瑪拉基得砍價買T恤、西番蓮果和國際象棋棋具。（我們那些正好合乎腦袋大小的共青團帽每頂賣一美元。）在長城的階梯上，塔莉婭宣佈稱：“我是名偉大的登高者！”儘管之後她又澄清道，自己真的不是徒步女王。在去小園餐廳(Schoolhouse)的路上，我就把她頂在自己肩上。這裏曾經是所小學，現在居住於此的藝術家們則可以吹玻璃或者作畫，而學生們也可以學習種植有機農產品並在其附屬的餐廳裏烹飪它們。

We scanned the menu at one, called the Canteen; there were no scorpions to be had. Across the brick courtyard, I made eye contact with another foreign mom. She winked and raised her glass. At that moment I was certain that, despite the language barrier, despite the used yogurt, despite the sometimes hectic schedule, seeing Beijing through my children's eyes was worth the inconveniences. And where else would I have the guts to eat a scorpion again?

我們不約而同地掃視了一下菜單，給餐廳打了電話；這裏沒有蠍子可以吃。透過磚瓦建成的四合院，我的目光與另一位外國母親兩兩相對。她朝我眨眼示意並舉起了玻璃杯。那一刻，我非常確定，儘管存在語言障礙，儘管酸奶已被人喝過，儘管行程有時匆忙緊湊，但讓我的孩子們用自己的眼睛看看北京，受些罪也值得。再說，這世上還有什麼地方能讓我有膽量再吃一隻蠍子呢？