钟情重庆街头巷陌

Article | Hu Ting Pictures | You Yu

年前的一个休息日，凯文来到“醇园高粱白酒”，这是一家“藏”在渝中区枣子岚垭菜市巷子里的老酒铺。

“要打桑泡儿酒还是金桔酒？”老板陈开枣看见凯文，张口就问。

“我要桑泡儿酒，二两。”凯文熟练的重庆话，居然连“儿化音”都说得很溜。

“在外面喝还是带走？”

“老样子。”

“好。”陈老板舀了一小碗酒，放在店门旁的石桌子上。

凯文已经坐下，有一搭没一搭地和巷子里的住家户们摆着龙门阵。

这样地道的市井生活，其实是一个加拿大小伙在重庆的日常。

A day off before the New Year, Kevin went to an old tavern named “Mellow Sorghum Liquor”,located in the lane of Zaozilanya food market,Yuzhong District.

“Mulberry Wine or Kumquat Wine?” Chen Kaizao the owner, asked Kevin.

“Two liang (100 grams) of Mulberry Wine.”Kevin answered with fluent Chongqing dialect.

“Dine-in or take-out?”

“As usual.”

“Great.” Chen scooped out a small bowl of wine and put it on the stone table.

Kevin sat down, chatting light-heartedly with folks nearby.

In fact, such causal living style was the daily life of this Canadian man.

品尝重庆本真的生活 Enjoying Chongqing’s Native Life

我们和凯文在人民广场碰面，见面时，他手里还拿着吃了一半的烤红薯。这一天，他要带我们体验一把他的重庆时光。

从人民广场出发，凯文领着我们走到学田湾正街，沿着街道直走，走进一幢楼，从一楼爬上三楼，穿过吊桥，到了大溪沟的红球坝社区。

拐弯处有一个烧饼摊。“卖烧饼的王爷爷已经70岁了，烧饼有甜的和咸的，我喜欢吃甜的，刚做出来的最好吃。”

老大爷看到凯文一点不生分，一边和着面团，一边和他有一搭没一搭地闲聊。

凯文买了两个刚烤好的甜烧饼，又赶着去打酒了。

走进枣子岚垭菜市巷子的街道，路边都是上世纪八九十年代的房子，矮矮的。 “站在这条街上，尤其是夏天，透过黄葛树的树枝看重庆的蓝天，非常棒。”

五年前，凯文第一次到枣子岚垭，便喜欢上了这样的重庆老街巷，还有这里的人，这里的吃食。“在这里，我看到了生活最本来的样子。”于是，走街串巷，吃遍街边小店，成了他生活的主题之一。

打上二两酒，吃着烧饼，再拿本书慢悠悠地看。他经常这样一坐就是一下午。

晚饭时，凯文来到一家叫“无名蹄花”的餐馆，点了他常点的豌豆蹄花和盐煎肉。

“蹄花汤很鲜美，在这里很出名，老板从1985年就开始做了，很多的哥来吃。”凯文滔滔不绝，如数家珍，谈话间，和邻桌的的哥们聊得热火，还竖着大拇指点赞蹄花汤。

We met Kevin at People’s Square, with half a roast sweet potato in his hand. He was planning to show us how he spends a pleasant day in Chongqing.

Starting from People’s Square, Kevin led us to Xuetianwan Street, and then we walked into a building. Climbing from the first floor to the third floor, then across the suspension bridge, we arrived at Hongqiuba Community in Daxigou.

Around the corner was a pancake stall. “Grandpa Wang is 70 years old. His pancakes have two tastes:sweet and salty. I prefer sweet ones, and the freshouts are the best.”

Grandpa Wang was quite familiar with Kevin. He chatted leisurely with him while kneading the dough.

Kevin bought two fresh-out pancakes with sweat flavor and then rushed to buy wine.

We came to the Zaozilanya Food Market. The short buildings along the roadside were built during the 1980s or 1990s. “Standing on this street, especially in summer, you can embrace Chongqing’s clear blue sky through the branches of Ficusvirens.

Five years ago when Kevin went to Zaozilanya for the first time, he fell in love with these old lanes,local folks and delicious food. “I see what real life is like at this place.” From then on, hanging in these lanes and savoring delicious food became an indispensable part of his life.

He often spent the whole afternoon leisurely reading books while eating pancakes and savoring wine.

At dinner, Kevin came to a restaurant famous for its pig trotter soup. He ordered trotter and split pea soup and fried pork with salted pepper.

“The mouth-watering trotter soup has attracted many taxi drivers here every day.” Kevin boasted to folks at next tables about the soup here.

最是钟情街头巷陌 Lingering in Streets and Lanes

吃过晚饭，凯文沿着临华路走回到华一坡的家里。

凯文算得上是个外来的“老重庆”。2009年，凯文21岁，第一次来到重庆，在一家英语培训机构当老师。“那时我住在一号桥，后来又在华一坡、凯旋路、十八梯住过。因为十八梯重新打造，两年前我又住到了华一坡。”几年下来，他的重庆话也越来越地道。

“在重庆，我都住老房子，这些坡坡坎坎，我心里有张地图。我最喜欢沿着十八梯，走过马蹄街，到了山城巷后，一直走，再从金汤街到鼓楼巷和枇杷山附近。”这些地方他走了大概上百次，也把老重庆的生活记忆“翻录”了下来。

“社区坝子里，有时会放露天电影。过年了，居民楼阳台上会挂着腊肉……哦，我还看到过最古老的做爆米花的样子。”凯文迫不及待要分享，那年他初到重庆，在街边听到“嘣”的一声 ，第一次看到爆米花从一个罐子里“炸”出来，“不可思议。以后看到有卖这样爆米花的，我都会买。”

那个时候，由于语言不通，凯文买了本《四川重庆及周边地区公路里程地图册》。他顺手从包里拿出来给我们看，书皮都磨旧了，书页也泛黄了。

“刚开始，一到休假，我就先到菜园坝火车站，翻开地图册，一只手蒙着眼睛，一只手随便指一个地方，就买票去。”凯文满脸骄傲，每去一个地方，他就用红笔标出来，已经标红了30多个地方了。

After dinner, Kevin walked along Linhua Road to his home in Huayipo.

Although Kevin was a foreigner, he was quite familiar with Chongqing. In 2009,he came to Chongqing for the first time. He was 21 years old working as a teacher in an English training institution, then. “I lived in No.1 Bridge, then Huayipo, Kaixuan Road,Shibati. Over the years, his Chongqing dialect sounded like locals.

“In Chongqing, I always lived in old houses. These stairs and streets formed a map in my mind. My favorite route was to go along the Shibati, then Mati Street, until I arrived at Piper's Hill.” The lifestyle of old Chongqing has left a great impression on him as he has visited those places for over hundred times.

"Sometimes, outdoor movies were available in this community. When New Year came, the balcony of every household was hung with bacon." He was eager to share the time when he saw the popcorn was popped out from a pressure vessel heated over a fire, with a boom sound. What he saw was so unbelievable that he would definitely buy some whenever he runs into it.

When Kevin was new here, he once bought a map book that tells the distances between places in Sichuan and Chongqing, the cover of which was worn away, and the pages were faded.

“At first, I would go to Caiyuanba Railway Station and start my journey with the map on vacation.”Kevin was so proud that he has been to over 30 places and each place he visited was marked on the map.

他有一条漂流船 Owning a Drifting Boat

让人再吃一惊的是，除了走陆路“打开”重庆，凯文还会走水路。走水路不稀奇，可他竟然买了条漂流船代步。不过，看上去有些疯狂的旅行，凯文尝试了几次就放弃了，只是途中暖心的事儿他记住了。

有一次，他和朋友划着船沿嘉陵江从黄花园一直到了磁器口，但是从磁器口码头到双碑时，不小心迷了路。“那时已经是晚上八点了，看不到任何建筑，就像在荒野。后来我们找到一家饭馆，多亏老板开车把我们送回了黄花园，才回到了家。”

在我们眼里，凯文某些方面可称得上“疯狂”。可是，在凯文眼里，眼前这座城市的发展和更新速度，才是真的“疯狂”。“比如观音桥，如果我隔一个月去，会发现很多店铺不见了，出现了一些新的店铺。”又比如，红旗河沟附近的李家花园隧道，2015年他才路过，一年多后再去，隧道就没了，摇身一变成了立交桥。

“太不可思议了。”凯文想到了自己的祖国。“你知道吗，在我的家乡温尼伯，可能要二十年才会出现两栋新的房子。而另一面，比如江北嘴，现在修了金融街，很高的大楼，感觉又像是看到了加拿大的一部分。”

He also explored his journey by his drifting boat. Although he gave it up after several trials, the incidents happened during that time have etched in his mind.

The other day, when he and his friends rowed the boat along the Jialing River, they got lost on the way to Shuangbei. "It was so dark in the evening that we couldn’t see any buildings. Fortunately, we met a warm-hearted restaurant owner, and he drove us to the Huanghuayuan, where we found our way home."

We thought Kevin might be “crazy” in some ways. But to him, the city's development and renewal speed are literally “crazy”. “For example,if I go to Guanyinqiao every other month, I will find that many shops would have been replaced by new ones.” Or, in 2015, he passed by Lijia Garden Tunnel. Merely one year later, he has found the tunnel was changed into an overpass bridge.

"It is so incredible." Kevin thought up his motherland. "You know, in my hometown Winnipeg,it may take twenty years to see only two new buildings come out. While, in Jiangbeizui, you see the financial street and tall buildings spring up from the land, which reminds me of some parts of Canada."