| 双语新闻 Bilingual News | 双语对照阅读 分级系列阅读 智能辅助阅读 在线英语学习 |
|
| 双语新闻 Bilingual News | 双语对照阅读 分级系列阅读 智能辅助阅读 在线英语学习 |
| [英文] [中文] [双语对照] [双语交替] [] |
| SHENYANG, China — There are plenty of reasons that business has been lousy recently at Steven Wen’s clothing store in Shenyang, the largest city in northeastern China. |
| 中国沈阳——史蒂芬·文（音）在中国东北最大城市沈阳的服装店最近生意很不景气，原因有很多。 |
| Local officials locked down the city for one month this spring after detecting just a few dozen coronavirus cases among its nine million people. Residents have guarded their spending closely since the lockdown was lifted. And in a region often referred to as China’s Rust Belt, the local economy had already been shaky for years. |
| 今年春天，当该市900万人口中发现仅数十例新冠病例，当地官员将全市封锁了一个月。自解封以来，居民一直省吃俭用。在这个总被称为中国“铁锈地带”的地区，地方经济多年来都难有起色。 |
| Possibly the main problem, though, is that Ms. Wen’s primary customer base has virtually evaporated. |
| 但对史蒂芬·文来说，最主要的问题可能在于，她的重点客户群实际上已经消失了。 |
| “With North Korea closed because of the virus, they can’t come or go at all,” she said from behind the counter of her store in Shenyang’s Koreatown, where signs advertising steep discounts on imported South Korean styles had done little to draw in shoppers. “Before, we’d have maybe dozens of North Korean customers every day. Now you don’t even get 10.” |
| “现在北朝鲜封闭，因为疫情，他根本是进不去出不来，”她在位于沈阳韩国城的店铺柜台后说道，这里打出的韩国进口款式大折扣的广告几乎没吸引来多少顾客。“以前是光北朝鲜人每天就有100人左右，现在10个都看不到。” |
| China’s continuing strict coronavirus controls have battered local economies across the country. But Shenyang has endured a double blow. Just 150 miles from the North Korean border, it is suffering not only from the restrictions in China, but also from those imposed by the even more isolated country next door. |
| 中国持续推进的严厉新冠防控措施打击了全国各地的地方经济。但沈阳遭遇的打击是双重的。这里距离朝鲜边境仅240公里，不仅受中国管控之累，还被更为孤立的邻国所影响。 |
| Before the pandemic, Shenyang was a rare bridge between North Korea and the outside world. |
| 疫情之前，沈阳可以说是连接朝鲜与外界的罕见渠道。 |
| It was a top destination for the select number of North Koreans allowed to work abroad, who would then remit home the money they earned in factories or restaurants to bolster the country’s foreign currency reserves. |
| 对于被允许到国外工作的部分朝鲜人来说，这里是首选目的地，让他们得以把在工厂或餐馆赚来的钱寄回国内，从而增加朝鲜的外汇储备。 |
| It was also a launching pad for foreign tourists, mainly Chinese, seeking to visit North Korea. Multiple flights each week connected Shenyang to Pyongyang, or travelers could take a one-hour high speed train to the Chinese border city of Dandong, then enter North Korea by bridge. |
| 沈阳也是外国游客（主要是中国人）访问朝鲜的出发地。每周都有多架航班从沈阳直飞平壤，旅客也可乘坐一小时高铁至中国边境城市丹东，然后过桥进入朝鲜。 |
| The city’s Koreatown is home to the Pyongyang Restaurant, a multistory venue featuring a giant image of the skyline of the city for which it’s named. Alongside smoky Korean barbecue joints and street stalls pungent with fresh kimchi, shops advertise red ginseng, a North Korean specialty, and traditional medicines labeled “Made in DPR Korea.” Not far away is the Chilbosan Hotel, founded as a joint venture between Chinese and North Korean companies. |
| 位于沈阳韩国城的平壤馆是一处多层宴会厅，展示着平壤市天际线的巨幅图片。除了充满烟熏气味的韩式烧烤店和售卖新鲜、气味浓烈韩式辣白菜的街头小摊，这里的店铺也主打朝鲜特产红参和标注了“朝鲜民主主义人民共和国生产”的传统药品。不远处，就是中朝合资的七宝山饭店。 |
| There aren’t exact figures for the number of North Koreans in Shenyang, but North Koreans made 165,200 visits to China in 2018, the last year for which China published statistics. Many of those visits, and many North Koreans residing longer term in China, were concentrated in the city’s northeast, including Shenyang and Dandong, in a region also home to a sizable population of ethnically Korean Chinese. |
| 关于在沈阳的朝鲜人数量没有确切的数字，但2018年朝鲜人访问中国的次数为16.52万次，这是中国公布统计数据的最后一年。这些访问者中的许多人以及在中国长期居住的许多朝鲜人都集中在沈阳和丹东等地，那里也居住着相当多的朝鲜族中国人。 |
| Those close ties brought risks even before the pandemic. |
| 这种密切联系甚至在大流行之前就带来了风险。 |
| When the United Nations imposed sweeping sanctions on North Korea in 2017, China, by far the country’s largest trading partner, said it would shut down North Korean joint ventures and companies, and would send North Korean workers home. Still, many North Koreans remained in China on short-term visas that allowed them to skirt the restrictions, according to analysts and foreign governments. Chinese tourism to North Korea actually grew after the sanctions. |
| 2017年，当联合国对朝鲜实施全面制裁时，作为朝鲜最大贸易伙伴的中国表示将关闭朝鲜的合资企业和公司，并将朝鲜工人遣送回国。尽管如此，据分析人士和外国政府称，仍有许多朝鲜人持短期签证留在中国，这种签证使他们可以绕过限制。制裁之后，中国赴朝鲜旅游的人数反而增加了。 |
| But then the pandemic arrived and accomplished what the sanctions could not. In 2020, both China and North Korea halted virtually all international arrivals, restrictions that neither country has meaningfully lifted. Shenyang in particular had perhaps China’s most extreme quarantine rules: Until the end of June, it required all international arrivals to undergo 28 days of centralized quarantine, followed by 28 days at home. |
| 但随后疫情暴发，完成了制裁无法完成的事情。2020年，中国和朝鲜几乎停止了所有国际游客入境，两国至今都没有真正取消这些限制。特别是沈阳，它的隔离规定可能是中国最极端的：直到6月底还在要求所有国际入境人员接受28天的集中隔离，然后在家中接受28天的隔离。 |
| The change was immediately noticeable to Ms. Wen, the clothing store worker, who said she could easily identify her North Korean customers. Their dialect is different from the South Koreans who live in Shenyang, said Ms. Wen, who is ethnically Korean. They paid in cash. And they were willing to buy the pricier offerings that Chinese shoppers sometimes balked at, said Ms. Wen, noting that many appeared to be businessmen. |
| 服装店的文女士立即注意到了这一变化，身为朝鲜族的文女士说，她可以很容易地认出她的朝鲜顾客。他们的口音和居住在沈阳的韩国人不同，他们付现金。文女士说，他们愿意购买中国消费者有时望而却步的高价商品，而且其中许多人似乎是商人。 |
| “Now there are way fewer customers,” she said. “Clothing on sale will occasionally get sold, but those at a regular price won’t move at all,” she added, gesturing at the racks of spring dresses still on display, despite the season’s having long since turned to summer. |
| “现在客人少很多，”她说。“特价的衣服偶尔能卖出去，但是正常价格的根本就卖不动，”她指着仍在架上展示的春装，尽管当时早已经进入夏季。 |
| For other Shenyang business owners, the problem isn’t one of demand: They don’t have the supplies to meet the needs of the North Koreans who do remain, unable to go home. |
| 对于沈阳的其他商家来说，问题不在于需求：他们没有足够的物资来满足那些留在国内无法回家的朝鲜人。 |
| At a small Korean convenience store, there would normally be North Korean beer or dried vegetables, said the owner, who gave only her surname, Zhou. But the supply had dried up since the borders closed. |
| 一位只透露自己姓周的店主说，在她经营的小型韩国商品便利店，通常会供应朝鲜啤酒或脱水蔬菜。但自从边境关闭以来，货源已经枯竭。 |
| For a time, North Koreans in Shenyang came by to ask when more would be available. “Now, they don’t even come to ask,” Ms. Zhou said. “They know there isn’t any.” |
| 有一段时间，在沈阳的朝鲜人会过来问什么时候会有货。“现在连问都没有了，”周女士说。“因为他们就知道就没有了。” |
| As for the rest of the goods — a colorful array of South Korean instant noodles and bottled drinks — there was little demand, said Huang Panyue, an employee at the store who was sitting outside, idly watching the thin trickle of passers-by in what was normally the summer high season for tourism. |
| 而其余的商品——五颜六色的韩国方便面和瓶装饮料——的需求又很少，店里的员工黄攀月（音）说，她坐在外面，懒洋洋地看着零星的路人，而此时通常是夏季旅游旺季。 |
| “All our stock is about to expire,” Ms. Huang said, adding that China required imported goods to be quarantined, further eating into their shelf life. |
| “商品全要过期了，”黄攀月说。她还说，中国要求对进口商品进行检疫，这进一步缩短了它们的保质期。 |
| Though the disappearance of most North Korean customers has been a challenge, for many here that’s merely an addition to the primary problem: how China’s own Covid restrictions have hurt business. |
| 尽管大多数朝鲜客户的消失是挑战，但对这里的许多人来说，主要问题是中国自己的新冠限制措施损害了业务，朝鲜客户只是一个附加问题。 |
| Before the pandemic, many Chinese visitors to Shenyang had flocked to the Pyongyang Restaurant, eager to see the North Korean waitresses and their twice-daily song and dance performances. |
| 疫情之前，很多来沈阳的中国游客都聚集在平壤餐厅，渴望看到朝鲜女服务员和她们每天两次的歌舞表演。 |
| But on a recent Friday at lunchtime, the gold-upholstered banquet tables were empty, except for one trio of diners. There had been no daytime performances since the pandemic began, a waitress said. The only chatter came from an old North Korean movie playing on a wall-mounted television, showing a man embracing a tearful woman, which another waitress said was a classic from her childhood. |
| 但在最近一个周五的午餐时间，装饰着金色软垫的宴会桌边空空荡荡，只有一个桌子有三人就餐。一名服务员说，自从疫情暴发以来，这里就没有白天的演出。唯一的谈话声来自挂在墙上的电视中播放的朝鲜老电影，其中一个男人拥抱着一个泪流满面的女人，另一个服务员说这是她童年时代的经典。 |
| Back outside and a few stalls down from the convenience store, Zhu Hongmei paused from hawking the contents of her display cooler — several varieties of pickles, a veritable barrel of kimchi — to lament the 50 percent drop in business since the pandemic began. The lockdown had been bad enough, but even after it lifted, the authorities sealed off one end of Specialty Street, the main road in the city’s Koreatown, choking foot traffic. Ms. Zhu said. It had only recently reopened. |
| 回到外面，在便利店附近的几个摊位上，朱红梅暂停了叫卖她陈列柜里的东西——几种泡菜，一大桶韩国泡菜——她哀叹，自从疫情开始以来生意下降了50%。封锁已经够糟糕的了，但即使在解除封锁后，当局仍然封锁了该市韩国城主要道路特色街的一端，阻塞了步行交通。朱红梅说。这条街最近才重新开放。 |
| She had tried to make up for the drop in visitors by turning to online sales, promising to mail her wares — in vacuum-sealed bags to guarantee freshness, she added — anywhere in the country. But many cities had their own lockdowns, making sending packages there impossible. |
| 她曾试图通过网上销售来弥补游客的减少，将商品装在真空密封的袋子里以保证新鲜，承诺全国包邮。但许多城市都有自己的封锁措施，因此包裹很难寄到那些地方。 |
| “This pandemic has really messed us up,” she said. |
| “疫情真把我们坑坏了，”她说。 |
| Che Mingji, the owner of an indoor golf course on the top floor of a mall on Specialty Street, said his revenue had fallen by 30 to 40 percent in recent years, largely because his South Korean clients, who once made up about half his customers, had left China. |
| 在风情街一家购物中心顶层拥有一个室内高尔夫球场的老板车明吉说，他的收入近年来下降了30%到40%，主要是因为他的韩国客户已经离开中国。这些韩国客户曾占他客户的一半左右。 |
| Still, at least the few North Korean customers he had continue to show up. |
| 不过，至少他的少数几个朝鲜客户还在继续出现。 |
| “They still come,” he said. “I guess because they can’t go back.” |
| “他们一直是在这练的，”他说。“应该是回不去了。” |
OK阅读网 版权所有(C)2017 | 联系我们