中文導讀
疫情給中國脆弱的夜店行業帶來了巨大威脅。儘管如此，北京的許多夜店挺過了停業大半年的難關，熱鬧如常。疫情前，中國夜店一直請外國DJ來表演以吸引顧客，本土DJ只能作陪襯，而疫情之下，本土DJ有了出彩的機會。此外，疫情加速了中國的夜店文化從北京、上海、成都傳播到其他城市。
The pandemic gives China's disc jockeys a chance to shine
GETTING INTO Zhao Dai, an underground nightclub in a fashionable part of Beijing, involves a little more faff than it once did. Party animals must prove that they have not travelled anywhere they might have picked up covid-19, by showing doormen a code generated by a government mobile app. Once inside, however, the smoke-filled basement is just as sweaty as usual. On a recent Saturday a hundred unmasked revellers bopped to techno tunes. No one bothered to maintain social distancing while dancing.
The pandemic posed an enormous threat to China’s fragile club scene. Nightspots in Beijing were forced to shut in January. They did not reopen properly until August. Yet many electronic-music clubs have weathered the disruption, in part because punters freed from lockdown have flocked back to them. A bouncer eyeing the crowd at Zhao Dai says it is as busy as it was before the closures. Michael Ohlsson, the American owner of Dada, another Beijing club, says his business will probably break even this year, despite being closed for much of its first half.
The pandemic has wrought changes, nonetheless. Nightspots have long felt it necessary to fly in fashionable foreign DJs to help them draw crowds. As a result Chinese performers have always had to make do with supporting slots, says Huang Hongli, a DJ who uses the stage name of Hotwill. Now they have no choice but to give locals a chance to shine. This summer Zhao Dai held an outdoor festival, attended by 3,000 people. The 40 DJs who performed there were all Chinese.
A second effect of the pandemic has been to help speed up the spread of China’s club culture beyond its traditional bases in Beijing, Shanghai and the south-western city of Chengdu. When nightclubs closed at the start of the year Mr Huang chose to leave the capital and return to Xiamen, his hometown south of Shanghai, in part because of its lower cost of living. There he helped to launch the city’s first underground nightspot, which opened in April. This year’s closures gave Mr Ohlsson more time to plan the opening of a new club in Kunming, the capital of Yunnan province.
Not everyone is happy. Ezzz, a Chinese DJ and music producer, grumbles that many of the DJs who have gained new followings during the pandemic are proficient performers but do not 「understand electronic music culture」. Mr Huang looks forward to a time when a few more foreigners can enter the country; he thinks some exposure to trends from abroad is good for the local scene. As for the audience, few seem to care much who is performing, so long as they have somewhere to dance. Lea Liao, a Beijinger who attended Zhao Dai’s summer festival, says she struggled to see the stage because of all the gyrating bodies. 「But I could hear the music, and that is all that matters.」 ■
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Dec 12th 2020 • China • 482 words
文章第二段的第三句話「Yet many electronic-music clubs have weathered the disruption, ..."中的 weathered 作何解釋？注意這裡用到了 weather 的動詞用法，表示「平安地渡過（難關）」，英文釋義為 to come through a very difficult situation safely，看一個例句：Northern Ireland weathered the recession better than any other region in the UK. 與英國其他地區相比，北愛爾蘭更為順利地熬過了經濟蕭條時期。🔔 查看本文更多講解，歡迎加入《閱讀訓練營》，可免費試學一周
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本文全文摘選自The Economist/《經濟學人》(Dec 12th, 2020)，僅供個人學習交流使用。歡迎轉發至朋友圈。商業轉載請在正文前註明「本文來自新英文雜誌公眾號」。
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