中國城市老人的鍍金生活

Sixty became the new 40 in the west a while ago — but I never thought I’d see that day in China.NB VIDEO NEEDS TO ACCOMPANY THIS NOTEBOOK“
60歲是新的40歲”——這是西方不久前才興起的現(xiàn)象，但是我從沒想過中國也會有這一天。

The mainland’s sixtysomethings have led a more harrowing life than the average Botoxed Baby Boomer. When they were little, Mao Zedong gave them the Great Leap Forward and a famine that killed millions; when they were teens, there was the Cultural Revolution. Famine, revolution and political pogroms do tend to age one so.
比起西方嬰兒潮時期出生的通過打肉毒桿菌保持容顏的同齡人，中國內(nèi)地上了60歲的人在年輕時所過的生活要悲慘得多。在他們小時候，毛澤東讓他們經(jīng)歷了“大躍進”和一場造成數(shù)百萬人死亡的大饑荒;等他們到了青少年時期，又迎來了文化大革命。饑荒、革命、政治迫害往往使人更易老。

But 30 years of prosperity later, China’s elders seem to be ready to relive the youth they never had — and to spend money on it. They aren’t all sitting around hoarding their renminbi and meddling in the lives of their children, as the conventional wisdom has it. Urban middle-class seniors are taking up sports such as hiking, biking and “square dancing”, in addition to more traditional pursuits such as taichi, mah-jong and minding other’s people’s business.
但是，在經(jīng)歷了30年的經(jīng)濟繁榮后，中國的老年人似乎已經(jīng)準備好重溫他們從未擁有過的青春——并且為此花錢。與傳統(tǒng)觀念迥異，他們并不全都是整日閑坐，捂著積蓄不花，熱衷干涉子女生活。除了傳統(tǒng)的太極拳、麻將以及家長里短之外，城市中產(chǎn)階層的老人如今喜歡徒步、騎行、“廣場舞”等各種運動。

Paradoxically, it is the same Communist party that took away their youth that is giving them the time, the money and the financial freedom to enjoy their dotage. City-dwelling mainlanders retire frightfully young (as early as 55 for men and 45 for women), enjoy an ample pension (unlike rural contemporaries) and own valuable homes that were practically given to them when Beijing privatised the urban housing stock at the end of the last century.
矛盾的是，當初奪走他們青春的中共如今又給了他們時間、金錢以及經(jīng)濟自由去享受暮年生活。內(nèi)地城市居民比較早退休(男性最早可在55歲退休、女性最早可在45歲退休)，有足夠的養(yǎng)老金(與農(nóng)村同齡人不同)和屬于自己的如今價值不菲的房產(chǎn)——上世紀末中國推行城市住宅私有化，當時這些房子幾乎是給他們的。

It’s been described as the biggest ever one-off transfer of wealth, and it fell right into the lap of today’s 60-plus hikers, bikers and square dancers — people such as the sprightly old geezers in Shanghai’s Ruijin Sub-district Cycling Club. They dress up in skin-tight neon and Lycra for weekend cycling excursions that are rarely shorter than 100km a day.
這被稱為“史上最大的一次性財富轉(zhuǎn)移”，而這種運氣剛好落在了如今60多歲的這一代徒步、騎行以及廣場舞愛好者的身上，比如上海瑞金街道騎行俱樂部那群精神矍鑠的老家伙們。每到周末他們就穿上色彩鮮艷的緊身服外出騎行，一天的路程往往不下于100公里。

Five years ago, the club rode all the way to Inner Mongolia, a 29-day trip towards the northern border. The oldest cyclist was 74: he bought his septuagenarian wife a Rmb4,000 ($670) model for the trip, but himself rode a one-speed push bike — a maicaiche, or “buying-vegetables bike” — for the whole 1,700km journey.
5年前，該俱樂部用了29天時間，一路騎行到內(nèi)蒙古。當時年齡最高的騎行者已經(jīng)74歲：他花4000元人民幣(合670美元)給同樣七十多歲的老伴買了一輛騎行車，而他自己則騎著單速自行車——或者叫“買菜車”——騎完了長達1700公里的整個行程。

I fit right into the club’s demographic, and I also ride a maicaiche, but there all similarity ends: when I and a Financial Times colleague in her 20s joined the old birds for an outing one recent spring weekend, they had to cut the distance to a measly 15km just so we didn’t drop dead on them en route.
我和這個俱樂部的成員年齡相當，而且我也騎著一輛買菜車，但我們的共性只有這些：時值春天，我和英國《金融時報》一名20多歲的女同事在一個周末加入老家伙們的行列出去騎行，為此他們不得不把行程縮短為15公里，這樣才使我們沒有在途中翹辮子。

It was 7am on a Sunday, and everyone we rode past on our way to a suburban park seemed elderly and irritatingly vigorous: there were old people doing taichi; old people working out on the outdoor cross trainers one sees in every Shanghai neighbourhood; even old people taking their caged birds for a walk. By comparison, youngsters are couch potatoes (not having had decades of deprivation, economic and social dislocation to toughen them up).
那是周日早上7點，我們騎車去郊區(qū)的一個公園，我們在路上超過的似乎都是老人，他們一個個勁頭十足：有的老人在打太極;有的老人在戶外健身設(shè)施上鍛煉——在上海的每個社區(qū)都可以看到這種健身器;甚至有老人提著鳥籠散步。相比之下，年輕人反而宅在家里(他們沒有經(jīng)歷過長達幾十年的貧困、經(jīng)濟和社會動蕩的磨礪)。

The elders are maddeningly cheerful to boot: it seems they have spent a lifetime “eating bitterness”, as the Chinese saying goes, and are now ready to spit it out.
這些老年人也快樂得讓人惱怒：他們似乎花了一輩子時間“吃苦”，現(xiàn)在準備把苦吐出來。

Yang Jianhua, 71, is a pint-sized former factory worker bursting with a rather exhausting amount of joie de vivre: gesticulating wildly and leaping about, she lists all the things Chinese old people can do to keep busy, from singing to dancing to art to piano. Lin Xuejun, 66, is one of her cycling mates: he was previously a senior executive at a state-owned enterprise and, when he retired five years ago, he felt the weight of time on his hands. But now he cycles every weekend, swims for an hour every day and takes two long walks every day. With his neon cycling shirt, Lycra trousers and wraparound shades, he should consider a second career as a geriatric sports model. “We prefer to spend money on biking equipment than on medicine,” he says.
71歲的楊建華(音譯)長得小巧玲瓏，退休前是工廠工人，她現(xiàn)在不知疲倦地享受著生活樂趣。她手舞足蹈地列舉出中國老年人忙著做的各種事情，唱歌、跳舞、畫畫、彈鋼琴，等等。66歲的林學軍(音譯)是跟她一起騎行的伙伴之一：他此前曾在一家國企擔任高管，5年前退休時他感覺時間多得用不完。但現(xiàn)在，他每個周末都騎自行車，每天游泳1小時，每天長時間散步兩次。他穿著騎行服、萊卡褲子，戴著面罩型墨鏡，他應(yīng)該考慮從事第二職業(yè)，做一個老年運動模特。他說：“我們愿意把錢花在購置騎行裝備上，不愿意花在吃藥上。”

And these days, the senior buck is a powerful force in the Chinese economy, says Matthew Crabbe, retail analyst at Mintel, who points out that there are enough over-60s to populate the UK, Italy, France and Germany combined. They have disposable income, they like to try new things — and they don’t just want nappies and baby food, he says.
咨詢公司英敏特(Mintel)的零售業(yè)分析師馬修?克拉布(Matthew Crabbe)表示，老年人消費已成為中國經(jīng)濟中一個強有力的因素?？死贾赋?，中國60歲以上人口已抵得上英國、意大利、法國和德國的人口總和了。他說，這些人擁有可支配收入，喜歡嘗試新事物——他們并不只想著尿布和嬰兒食品。

There’s a whole generation of Mao-toughened elders just getting into the swing of spending on themselves. And with the start they had in life — they could live for decades.
中國有整整一代經(jīng)過毛澤東時代磨礪的老年人，他們剛剛開始積極地在自己身上花錢。隨著他們獲得人生中的新起點，他們或許能夠再活幾十年。