遍地飞歌夜生活 中国广场舞扰民引争议

Months after 'Auntie' Su and a dozen or two retirees began squeezing into a small outdoor square every night to dance to music supplied by a brick-sized portable music player, residents of the tony Hankou Center Gardens apartment complex began to complain about the noise. When that didn't deter the dancers, they started to hurl abuse.

武汉的苏阿姨（音）和一二十位退休老人每天晚上都会在一个小型户外广场跳舞，伴舞的音乐由一个砖头大小的便携播放器提供。几个月后，附近高档小区汉口中心嘉园的居民开始抱怨噪音。但抱怨没能阻止这群跳舞的人，于是居民们开始破口大骂。

Auntie Su's dancers say they have been pelted with water, sand, coins and, once, feces. 'One resident threatened me, saying, 'If you continue to dance, I'll throw a knife at you!' says the 79-year-old. 'I said, 'I'll keep dancing even if you shoot at me with a gun!''

与苏阿姨一起跳舞的人说，他们被人泼过水，扔过沙子、硬币等等，还有一次扔的是粪便。79岁的苏阿姨说，一个居民曾恐吓她，说如果她们继续跳舞，他会扔刀子。苏阿姨回答说，就算你拿枪打我，我也要跳。

In China, there is a new group stirring up controversy: middle-aged and retired city dwellers dancing together in parks and squares.

中国有一个引发争议的新群体：在公园和广场跳集体舞的中老年退休者。

Residents in nearby buildings say the noise makes relaxing after work hard and, worse, disturbs their children's studies. Participants say the dancing keeps them active and healthy.

附近楼里的居民说，噪音让他们下班后难以放松，更糟糕的是会干扰孩子的学习。跳舞的人则说，跳舞让他们精神活跃、身体健康。

'Are we just supposed to sit around and wait for death?' says Ms. Su, who credits dancing with helping her recover from throat cancer surgery. Ms. Su, who other dancers call 'Auntie,' wanted to be identified only by her surname. 'This is a national issue now,' she says.

苏阿姨说，难道我们就该坐着等死吗？她自己曾接受咽喉癌手术，跳舞帮助她的身体恢复。一同跳舞的人都叫她苏阿姨，她只愿意透露自己的姓氏。她说，现在这成了全国性的问题。

Efforts to regulate public dancing are under way in several cities to quell the outcry from apartment-dwellers, many of them first-time homeowners.

几个城市正在出台措施，对在公共场所跳舞的行为进行监管，目的是平息居民的强烈抗议，很多居民都是首次购房者。

The southern city of Guangzhou has announced plans to designate 'silent zones' in park areas abutting schools, hospitals and residential buildings, with fines as high as $160 for violators. In prosperous Hangzhou, residential committees have begun a systematic noise-monitoring program, using decibel meters, in areas where dancers congregate.

中国南部城市广州已经宣布在邻近学校、医院和居民楼的公园区域指定“安静区”，违规者最高面临人民币1000元（合160美元）的罚款。在繁华的杭州市，居委会已经开始了系统性的噪音监控措施，在跳舞者聚集的区域用分贝仪测量噪音。

In the central city of Liuyang, dancing groups in one community were compelled by the local residential committee to sign on to a 'public dancing communiqué' that limits dancing to after 7 a.m. or before 8:30 p.m.

在中国中部城市浏阳，一个社区的居委会要求跳舞的团体签署“广场舞公约”，将跳舞的时间限制在早上7点后或晚上8:30之前。

'Dancing in and of itself is nothing to criticize,' the Communist Party-run Guangzhou Daily said in commentary in November. 'But as soon as 'group dancing' becomes 'public nuisance dancing' that infringes on the right of others to relax, it's another matter.'

《广州日报》去年11月的一篇评论文章说，跳舞本身无可指摘，然而一旦集体舞变成了损害公共利益的舞蹈，侵犯了他人休息的权利，那就是另一回事了。

Moves to control public dancing threaten a tradition that has wide appeal among members of the country's rapidly growing elderly population. According to a recent report by China Central Television, the state broadcaster, as many as 100 million people, mostly women in their 50s and 60s, now take part.

控制广场舞的行动给中国的这一传统带来了威胁，而且该传统在中国快速增长的老龄化人口当中广受欢迎。中国官方的中央电视台在近期的一则报道中说，广场舞爱好者大约有1亿人，其中大多数是五六十岁的女性。

'It's not only good for physical health, but also spiritual and mental well-being,' says Tang Keming, a self-educated public dancing choreographer who helped organize a 1,200-person group that danced during the torch relay for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. 'It's not just about use dancing to promote ideas about caring for children and the elderly.'

自学广场舞编舞的唐克明（音）说，广场舞不仅对身体健康有好处，在精神上和心理上也有好处。在2008年北京奥运火炬传递期间，唐克明曾帮助组织1,200人集体跳舞。唐克明说，重点不是跳舞，他们是用跳舞来宣传尊老爱幼的观念。

The dances take place in venues ranging from parks and public squares to parking lots. They take a variety of forms, from traditional folk dances involving silk fans and drumming to improvised routines set to patriotic songs, saccharine pop and sanitized rap.

广场舞有的在公园里跳，有的在公共广场上跳，还有的在停车场里跳。广场舞的形式也多种多样，有人拿着丝质的扇子、敲着鼓跳传统民族舞，也有人自创套路，配合红歌、抒情歌曲和洁版说唱乐跳舞。

Public dancing caught on in Chinese cities in the 1980s and '90s partly as a way to stay healthy after the state health-care system atrophied under market reforms, says Caroline Chen, an environmental planning expert at the University of California, Berkeley. She says the dancing also helps older Chinese recover a sense of Mao-era collectivism at a time when old neighborhoods have been razed and replaced with high-rise living.

加州大学伯克利分校(University of California, Berkeley)的环境规划专家Caroline Chen说，广场舞在上个世纪八九十年代在中国的城市中流行开来，其中一个原因是，在市场化改革过程中，国家养老体系萎缩，人们要用这种办法保持健康。她说，在老街区被高楼大厦取代的时代，广场舞还能帮助中老年人找回毛时代那种集体主义的感觉。

The problem, according to Ms. Chen, is that public dancing, for all its benefits, conflicts with an increasing desire among many for a quieter, less chaotic urban lifestyle as public spaces are being squeezed by development. 'The exuberance of this communal culture is being hushed and the modern idea of what a city should be is taking its place,' she says.

按照Caroline Chen的说法，广场舞的问题在于，虽然有很多好处，但它与很多人越来越强烈的要求更安静、更少喧嚣的城市生活的意愿相冲突，如今，因为发展的原因，公共空间越来越受到挤压。她说，这种社区文化的生机正在受到压制，关于城市生活应该是什么样的现代观念正在形成。

In the town of Changping, dancers say they took to a basketball court after complaints from neighbors drove them out of an apartment complex. In August, a man enraged by the noise emerged from his house near the court with a shotgun that he fired into the air, and later set three Tibetan mastiffs on the crowd, according to dancers and state media reports.

在北京昌平，广场舞爱好者说，在附近的人抱怨之后，他们搬出了小区，到一个篮球场上跳。官方媒体报道说，去年8月份，一名被噪音激怒的男子从家里冲出来（他家离篮球场不远），持双筒猎枪朝天放了一枪，随后又放出自己养的三只藏 冲进跳舞人群。

'One group would leave and another would come,' the man, surnamed Shi, told China Central Television in a jailhouse interview. 'I have dogs, and they would bark incessantly. I couldn't sleep.'

这名施姓男子在监狱接受央视采访时说，他们走了又来一帮。他还说，因为我那养着狗，我的狗一宿宿叫，弄得我晚上睡不着。

An official with the Changping District People's Court said the man was found guilty of illegal possession of firearms in November and sentenced to six months in jail. The court wouldn't provide the man's full name. Efforts to reach him through the court and a neighbor weren't successful.

北京市昌平区人民法院的一位官员说，这名男子去年11月因非法持有枪械罪被判入狱六个月。法院不愿透露此人的姓名。记者没能通过法院联系到此人，也没能联系到此人的邻居。

The basketball court still bears instructions spray-painted on the concrete by the dancers--'step together, turn left.'

在那个篮球场上，仍然可以看到广场舞爱好者在水泥地上用喷漆涂的“一起迈步、向左”的舞步指南。

A desire for peaceful modern living is what led many residents of Hankou Center Gardens to pay extra for units on the inside of the complex, which overlook a tree-lined square.

汉口中心嘉园的很多房主之所以额外加钱购买坐落于该楼盘内部、可俯瞰一个绿树成荫的广场的房子，图的就是有一个安静优雅的居住环境。

'This was supposed to be the quietest apartment,' says Peng Ji, 40 years old, whose third-floor unit overlooks the square. He says his parents, who suffer stomach and nerve problems, moved out because they couldn't stand the nightly dance parties. He also says his 7-year-old daughter has trouble studying and that he can't leave his windows open in the summer.

40岁的彭季（音）家住三层，从窗户里便能看到这个广场。他说，自己的这套房子本来应该是小区里最安静的。他说，患有胃病和神经系统疾病的父母因为受不了晚上集体舞的吵闹已经搬出去了。他还说，7岁的女儿在学习时很难集中注意力，而且夏天他都没法开窗。

Dancers typically gather in the morning around 6 a.m. and in the evening after 7 p.m. for about an hour. Residents say they took their complaints to the apartment management office and asked that the dancers start earlier in the evening, to no avail.

跳广场舞的人们一般在早上6点左右和晚上7点后集合，各跳上大约一个小时。居民说，他们曾到小区物业管理部门那里去投诉，希望跳舞的人晚上能早点开始，但是完全没用。

'We like to dance after dinner. It aids digestion,' says Ms. Su.

苏女士说：“我们喜欢饭后跳，这样有助于消化。”

'We're trying to reach a consensus, but the old folks are stubborn,' says Mr. Sun, the head of property management at Hankou Center Gardens, who declined to give his full name.

汉口中心嘉园不愿具名的物业管理负责人孙（音）先生说：“我们是想达成一致意见，但老年人不肯让步。

One recent evening, dancers had turned the radio down low, but the sound of the Tibetan love song they had chosen was still clearly audible inside a nearby second-story apartment, even with the windows closed.

前几天晚上，跳舞的人们把录音机音量调低了一些，但他们选择的那首藏族情歌在附近一套二层住房里关着窗户的情况下，依然听得一清二楚。

'It's usually even louder than this,' said the apartment's tenant, Ms. Wang, a middle-school art teacher who would only give her last name.

这套房子的租户、自称姓王（音）的一位中学美术老师说，平常音乐声比这个还大。

'At one point, they told me to wear ear plugs. I'm supposed to wear ear plugs inside my own house? Seriously?'

她说：“他们有一回让我戴上耳塞，我要在自己家里戴上耳塞？搞错没？”

The dancing dilemma isn't likely to go away. By 2020, according to state media, people 60 years or older will make up roughly 16% of China's population at 240 million or so.

在中国，广场舞问题不太可能轻易解决。据中国官方媒体报道，到2020年中国60岁或以上老年人口将达到2.4亿左右，占中国总人口的比例约为16%。