CHENGDU, China — As the Happy Runxin and Glad Tidings performing troupes squared off in the Chengdu People’s Park on a recent morning, the newly installed noise monitors flashed to life, their red digits registering each potential transgression by the park’s famously boisterous amateur dancers and musicians.|

中国成都——前不久的一个早上，随着快乐润馨和佳音两支表演队在成都人民公园里排好队形，新安装的噪声监测器开始工作，上面的红色数字显示着这座公园里活跃得出了名的业余舞者和乐手的每一次可能违规的行为。

2| As Happy Runxin’s band struck up saxophones, trumpets, oboes and drums, a monitor next to the troupe flickered to life: 75 decibels. Then, while older dancers sashayed in red dresses before the hundreds of onlookers, a choir of dozens warbled, “Oh, motherland. Oh, motherland.” The volume jumped to 85 decibels.

随着快乐润馨的乐队开始演奏萨克斯、小号、双簧管并敲起鼓，旁边的监测器开始闪烁：75分贝。之后，一群穿着红色裙子的老人在数百名旁观者面前有模有样地起舞时，一个有几十名成员的合唱团高声唱到：“啊祖国，啊祖国。”音量飙升至85分贝。

Moments later, Glad Tidings opened an elaborate two-hour show a dozen yards away. Singers belted out, “We are the inheritors of Communism,” accompanied by three saxophones, a trombone, drums and an erhu, a Chinese two-stringed instrument, all played by retirees. Their designated monitor flashed: 82 decibels.

过了一会儿，佳音在十几码开外的地方开始表演。演出经过精心编排，历时两个小时。成员们大声唱着，“我们是共产主义接班人，”伴奏的是三支萨克斯、一支长号、几面鼓和一把二胡——中国的一种两弦乐器——演奏者皆为退休人员。分给他们的监测器闪了一下：82分贝。

“They’re bigger than us, but more amateurish,” said Ye Jilong, a retired music teacher who helped conduct the Glad Tidings performance, a succession of patriotic odes. “Our troupe is more professional. It’s not whoever makes the biggest noise is the best.”

“他们声音比我们的大，但是更外行，”帮助指挥佳音演出的退休音乐老师叶继龙说。“我们团更专业。不是谁的声音最大谁就最好。”佳音演唱了一连串的爱国主义歌曲。

People’s Park has become famous for its colorful din. For years, choirs, bands and dance groups, mostly run by older residents, have jostled for space, audiences and glory. What they lacked in polish, they made up for with vigor. Residents gave the park the unofficial title of the “noisiest park in the world” — a boast for some, a lament for others.

人民公园以鼎沸的嘈杂声而闻名。多年来，合唱团、乐队和舞蹈队为场地、观众和荣誉展开了争夺。这些团体大部分都是上了年纪的居民组织的。水准上的欠缺，用活力来弥补。民众给人民公园起了一个非正式的名号：“全世界最吵的公园”。对于这个称号，一些人觉得是赞美，其他人则觉得苦不堪言。

“We keep our lives busy with collective activities like singing, dancing and mah-jongg,” said Mr. Ye, a burly 72-year-old. “You can find it all in the People’s Park.”

“我们通过唱歌、跳舞和打麻将这种集体活动，丰富自己的生活，”已72岁高龄但身材依旧魁梧的叶继龙说。“在人民公园这些都能找到。”

For their show, he and his singers had dressed in children’s school uniforms with the red scarves of Young Pioneers, a Communist youth organization. “Sometimes it got too loud,” he said. “You couldn’t hear me talking if you were in the park then.”

表演时，他和其他歌手们穿着学生穿的那种校服，还带着共产党儿童组织少先队队员佩戴的红领巾。“有时候声音太大，”他说。“你在公园里听不到我说话的声音。”

But lately the cacophony in the park has been turned down, helped by the reproachful noise monitors at each performance site.

然而，最近这种刺耳的声音有所减弱，这多少要归功于安装在每个表演场地旁的噪音检测器的警示作用。

In Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, and in many other Chinese cities, the raucous outdoor activities of older residents have ignited serious conflicts. Residents near parks often complain about the noise from amateur bands and dance groups, and brawls have broken out. City officials have been imposing noise limits and other regulations in People’s Park and others like it.

在包括四川省会成都在内的诸多中国城市，老年人喧闹的户外活动声音都曾引发严重的冲突。公园附近的居民经常抱怨这些业余歌舞团制造噪音，因此爆发纠纷。城市官员则已在人民公园之类的地方实施噪音限制和其他规定。

“For years, virtually every day, I’ve been disturbed by the racket from musical instruments, singing and disco dancing,” said one complaint about the park published on a city government website in 2014. “The People’s Park is just one big outdoor karaoke parlor,” said another online complaint.

“几年里，几乎每天都受到人民公园各种乐器、唱歌、坝坝舞噪音干扰，”2014年发布在政府网站上的一条有关这个公园的投诉信息写道。“人民公园简直就是一个露天卡拉OK厅，”
另一条网上评论称。

Since last year, People’s Park has ordered bands and dance troupes to keep their noise level below 80 decibels. As Happy Runxin and Glad Tidings belted out song after song, nearby monitors showed the sound sometimes passing that level — reaching about as loud as standing near city traffic — but performers said momentary lapses were tolerated.

自去年以来，人民公园要求歌舞团把音量控制在80分贝以下。在“快乐润馨”和“佳音”一曲曲放声高歌之时，附近的检测器显示他们的声音有时候超出了这一范围——声音之大，就像站在车水马龙的街道旁——但表演者表示，片刻的超标是可以容许的。

Still, the park is now much quieter than it was before, they said.

不过，他们也表示，相比于之前，这个公园现在已经安静了很多。

“Before it was chaotic,” said Deng Zixiao, 62, a retired doctor who has been going to the park to sing in choirs for eight years. “There was lots of fun, but there were also fights and complaints. We had to become more civilized.”

“之前特别吵，”62岁的邓子萧（音）说。此人是一名退休医生，来这个公园参加大合唱已有八年。“有很多乐趣，也有过争斗和抱怨。我们必须变得更文明一些。”

People’s Park was not always so noisy. It opened in 1911 on the former grounds of a Qing imperial encampment. High-rise buildings, malls and expressways have erased nearly all of old Chengdu, but the 28-acre park downtown has survived and holds one of the city’s few surviving old-style tea gardens, where people spend the day over cheap mugs of green tea.

人民公园并不总是那么吵。它于1911年建成开放，所在的地方在历史上曾是满人贵族的聚居地。高楼大厦、商业中心和高速公路的建设已经使老成都的样貌几乎消失殆尽，但这座28英亩（约合11万平米）的公园留存了下来，而且保留着这个城市为数不多的老式茶馆之一。人们要几杯便宜的绿茶，就可以在那里消磨一天的时光。

Western people often treat city parks as a refuge for quiet relaxation. But in China, parks reflect an enthusiasm for organized collective leisure that is rooted in tradition and socialist values that many people absorbed under Mao Zedong, said J. P. Sniadecki, a filmmaker and anthropologist at Northwestern University, who made a documentary with Libbie D. Cohn about People’s Park.

西方人往往把公园当成可以安静地获得放松的场所。而在中国，公园反映出一种有组织的集体娱乐的热情，这种热情植根于传统，也植根于很多人在毛泽东时代养成的社会主义价值观，电影制作人、西北大学(Northwestern University)人类学家J•P•斯尼亚代茨基(J. P. Sniadecki)表示。他曾与利比•D•科恩(Libbie D. Cohn)制作过一部有关人民公园的纪录片。

“People’s Park does offer places for solitude and quiet,” Mr. Sniadecki wrote in an email. “But on the weekends, or at certain parts of the day, yes, it becomes a sea of people. The sense of collective space has roots in Chinese culture, well before the ‘collectivist’ era, though I am sure the socialist past contributes.”

“人民公园的确也有独处的空间和寂静的地方，”斯尼亚代茨基在一封邮件中写道。“但在周末或一天的某些时段，没错，它就变成了人山人海的地方。这种集体空间感源于中国文化，这种文化的产生比‘集体主义’时代早得多，尽管社会主义者肯定也在这方面起到了作用。”

The best-known symbols of this love of outdoor performance have been the “dancing grannies,” the groups of middle-aged and older women, as well as men, who sway and shimmy in unison to throbbing disco soundtracks and electro-folk songs that often irritate neighbors.

对户外表演的热爱最为人知的象征是“广场舞大妈”。这里是指随着热闹的迪斯科音乐和电声民谣，舞步一致地摇摆跳动的中老年女性和男性群体。他们的音乐往往会激怒附近的住户。

But the bebopping grannies are just part of the scene. On a recent morning, there were a dozen activities, including ballroom dancing and a kind of tai chi using rackets to sweep and throw balls. While some dancers moved with exacting discipline, others shuffled to their own rhythms. No one seemed to mind.

但是，广场舞大妈只是这类场景的一部分。在最近的一个清晨，公园里进行着十几种活动，包括交谊舞和一种用球拍推抛球的太极运动（太极柔力球——译注）。一些舞者准确地踩着音乐节奏，其他的则按照自己的节奏舞动。似乎也没人在意这些。

“You need to block your ears if you’re not used to it,” said Shuai Siqing, 63, a retired shop assistant doing gentle tai chi exercises right next to a group doing calisthenics to a frenetic folk-disco soundtrack.

“如果不习惯这种音乐，你就得捂上自己的耳朵，”63岁的帅司清（音）说。她是一名退休售货员，正在做柔和的太极运动，旁边有一群人跟着节奏欢快的民谣迪斯科音乐在跳健身操。

“The noise doesn’t affect me,” Ms. Shuai said. “When you’re doing tai chi, you enter your own realm and ignore all that.”

“这种噪音不影响我，”帅司清说。“打太极的时候，你会进入自己的世界，忽略其他所有的一切。”

Liu Jingchang, 65, a retiree who often goes to People’s Park, said he was struck by the quiet of public parks in New York City, where he worked as a cook for 11 years.

今年65岁的刘静昌曾在纽约做过11年的厨师，如今已经退休，常常去人民公园。他说他对纽约的公共公园内的寂静印象深刻。

“In Central Park, you could also see some old people, but mostly they were strolling or doing tai chi, none of this singing and dancing,” Mr. Liu said. “I think this is great. It’s good for your body and mind.”

“在中央公园也能看到一些老年人，但是他们大多是在散步，打太极什么的，没有像这样唱歌跳舞的。”刘静昌说。“我觉得挺好的。这样的活动能让你身体好了，心情也好了。”

The rising decibel levels stemmed in part from growing numbers of mobile karaoke operators who set up booming speakers the size of small refrigerators and charged people a dollar or so to sing along. The proliferating amplifiers engaged in an aural arms race, each trying to drown out the others.

噪音分贝不断上升，部分原因在于经营移动卡拉OK设备的人日渐增多。他们会架起体积如小型冰箱、轰隆作响的音响设备，向跟着一起唱的人收1美元左右的费用。这类经营者数量不断增加，引发了音响设备竞赛，每一家都试图盖住别家的声音。

“I don’t mind a bit of noise pollution — old people can also have their fun,” said Li Yu, who lived near the park and often walked through it with her daughter. “It got so loud I was worried about damaging my daughter’s hearing.”

“我不介意有一点点噪音，这样老年人也能有点乐趣，”住在人民公园附近的李煜（音）说。她经常带着女儿穿过公园。“但声音这么大，我担心会损害我女儿的听力。”

Last year, park officials cracked down.

去年，公园管理人员采取了控制措施。

In September, eight people were injured when a crowd of dancers tried to haul loudspeakers into the park and were stopped by dozens of guards, according to news reports at the time. When the park tried to cut access to the power, some groups tried to haul in diesel generators. An 85-year-old man was knocked to the ground in a scuffle between rival music groups.

据媒体报道，去年9月，一大群跳舞的人试图把音响拖进公园，被几十名保安拦下来，在拉扯的过程中，有八人受伤。在公园试着断电的情况下，一些团体试图把柴油发电机运进公园。而在对立的音乐团体之间发生的一起扭打事件中，一名85岁的老人被撞倒在地。

“I didn’t even dare open my window because it was so noisy,” Feng Huiling, the official in charge of the park, said in an interview with a local newspaper last year. “Now, whenever I speak, I unconsciously raise my voice.”

“我连窗户都不敢开，噪音太大，”负责管理成都市人民公园的政府官员冯惠玲去年接受当地一家报纸采访时说。“现在说话都会不自觉地将音量提高。”

Similar confrontations with rowdy retirees have erupted at other Chinese parks. At a park in Qingdao, an eastern seaside city, a group of tai chi enthusiasts fought a band of harmonica players in May. “Things calmed down only after the intercession of the police,” a report said.

在中国其他城市的公园里，也存在与吵闹不休的退休人员之间的类似冲突。一则报道显示，今年5月，一群练太极的老人与一群吹口琴的老人在东部沿海城市青岛的一个公园里发生冲突。“在民警的调节下才得以平息，”报道中写道。

In other cities, people have been angered by the whirring sound of large spinning tops, a traditional Chinese toy, used by retirees. Residents have also been alarmed by the menacing trend of cracking bullwhips for exercise.

在其他城市，人们对退休老人使用的传统玩具陀螺转动的嗡嗡声感到恼怒。还有居民为甩鞭这一吓人的健身喜好感到担忧。

In Chengdu, officials banned the karaoke machines and shut down most performance spaces for months. Now 40 or so officially approved music and dance troupes must stick to a schedule that assigns them a space with sound monitors and sound barriers, participants said. If they become too noisy, a park guard comes over and warns them to hush.

在成都，官员在数月前开始禁止使用卡拉OK音响设备，也关掉了大多数演出场地。现在有大约40家得到官方批准的音乐和舞蹈队，其成员表示，他们必须遵循一个时刻表，还得在有声音检测设备和隔音屏的指定地点表演。如果他们的声音太大，公园保安就会过来提醒他们小声一点。

“It’s a pity, but the park management was worried by all the fights and all the complaints from the neighborhood,” said Guan Weiming, 68, who sang with the Mass Passion Square troupe.

“有点遗憾，但公园管理人员担心周围住户前来争斗和抱怨，”68岁的管卫明说，此人属于万众激情广场歌唱团。

“China has too many people, so we have to learn to live together.”

“中国人太多，所以我们必须学会一起相处。”