In the time leading up to the
2008 Summer Olympics, the authentic Beijing
accent becomes thicker than ever in the
ancient Chinese capital.
“Ice cream ‘n’ snowing
jelly – you get more ‘n’ pay less –
have a try, o yeah, please, …” (“冰激凌来雪花的酪，贱卖多盛您就尝口呃，……”) the sound
of street vendors peddling (吆喝) along the residential
alleyways of Beijing hutongs have echoed back
from the past and are once again heard. A few
days ago, as part of a series of events
marking the 500-day countdown to the
Olympics, 72-year-old Wu Rongzhang (武荣璋) made false advertising in a
Beijing bookstore, peddling in a
time-honoured way to a cheering crowd almost
everything except books.
The people of Beijing are
known as the most humorous and eloquent among
Chinese, and Beijing vendors peddling are
reputed as the most appealing and
entertaining in China. In fact, it is more of
singing than shouting. When advertising
candied haws on a stick (冰糖葫芦), for instance, the
traditional Beijing vendor would add a few
melodic notes to fine tune his promotion
campaign: 冰糖儿多呀哎! Candied haws –
arh - so many haws – yarh – hie!
A typical Beijing peddling was
often accompanied by an audio instrument, and
the instruments used by the vendors varied
depending on the goods or the service they
were selling. A tofu vendor would enlist the
aid of a wooden clapper (木梆子) for a measured rhythm, but a
grocery seller preferred the rowdy expression
of a rattle drum (拨浪鼓).
Those
advertising pea cakes liked to beat a small
gong, while the ones promoting juices or dry
fruits would strike on copper bowls (冰盏). And if the sound was
produced by a pair of wooden plates hitting
each other, it was an announcement of the
arrival of a foot therapist; and if you heard
somebody knocking a bamboo cane on the
ground, you knew a blind fortune teller was
approaching.
Traditional Chinese way of
living is one of those that are most
conscious of the rhythms in the natural
environment. To the ancient Chinese, it was
important that the food they ate, the
activities they took and even the books they
read were consistent with the flow of time of
the day and season in the year. Thus was the
way the goods and service sold by the street
vendors. In the old days, many Beijing
housewives would use the peddling from the
streets to regulate their daily-living
routines. The peddling sound in the deep of
Beijing hutongs was in a way like the
pounding pulse of the city.
The following are some
best-known peddling of the street vendors in
the old Beijing:
All Season Breakfast:
油炸鬼, 烧饼
Twisted crispy fry sticks and baked pie:
热的来-大油炸鬼! 芝麻酱来-烧饼!
Hot big is frying devil! Sesame sauce for
baked pie!
豆汁
Soya-bean milk:
甜酸咧豆汁儿哎!
Sweet ‘n’ sour–yeah–soya milk–hmm
–hie!
Winter breakfast:
烤白薯
Baked sweet potato：
栗子味, 热乎呃!
Taste like roasted chestnut, warm and hot!
Lunch and Dinner:
肉包子
Meat-stuffed dumplings：
肉包的咧哎!
Meat baozi–yeah–hie!
咸螺蛳
Salty spiral shelled water snail：
真正儿五香的
Cooked with authentic-har- five spices!
黄花鱼
Yellow croaker：
新鲜的哩!
So fresh-leeee!
Seasonal vegetable:
水萝卜
Summer radish：
赛梨味！辣了换!
Taste better than pears! ‘n’ if hot like
chilly you just return it to me!
All season drink:
茶 Tea：
多喝多修福!
The more tea you drink, the more luck you
get!
Summer drink:
酸梅汤
Sweet-sour plum juice：
喝得嘴里凉飕飕!
Take a gulp, your mouth will be icy cold!
Seasonal fruit:
西瓜
Watermelon：这
斗大的西瓜!
This melon, big as a basket!
扁桃 Flat
peach：
三姑娘踩扁个儿核桃哎!
Sister Three, she stamped flat a peach-hie!
鲜菱角
Fresh water chestnut：
我卖的老菱角哎!
Old water chestnuts, that are what I’m
selling-hie!
甜桃
Sweet peach：
桃儿甜的哎!
Peaches so sweet-yeah!
Snacks:
煮豌豆
Boiled peas:
哎豌豆嘞多给！
Hie
peas! Lar-heaps!
芸豆饼
Kidney bean pie:
烂乎的哎芸豆哎！
Tender-hie-kindey-hie!
嘎嘎枣
Jujubes:
买枣呗要先尝哎！
If you
buy jujubes-yeah, remember to try 'em
first-hie!
老玉米 Old
sweet corn:
您给来个嫩着点的！
I’ll
give you a tender one!
江米糖糕
Sugar-coated sticky-rice cake:
江米咧哎糖糕哎！Sticky rice–yeah
sweet cake-hie!
Festival food:
元宵
Lantern Festival dumpling:
大碗的元宵啊哎!
The Big bowl – of yuanxiao–har–hie!
太阳糕 Sun
Cake：
供佛的哩哎!
Offer to Buddh-lee-hie!
Festival goods:
年画 Chinese New Year
painting：
卖哎，画儿!
Selling-hie, painting-yeah!
年糕坨
Chinese New Year rice cake：
好大的个块儿嘞!
Huge bulks of cakes-lar
江米小枣粽子
Reed-leave wrapped pyramid-shaped rice cake
filled with jujube (consumed during the
Dragon Boat Festival that has now become
quite popular in Korea and other south east
Asian counties)：
好大粽子咧哎!
What a huge zongzi-yeah-hie!
Homeware repairing service:
磨剪子，磨刀
Sharpen scissors and knives：
戗菜刀喂!
Sharpen knives-hie!
修伞
Repair umbrella:
雨伞呃，旱伞！
Umbrellas
for raining days – O – for sunny days!
Chinese medicine service:
拔火罐
Service of cupping glass：
拔火的罐儿啊!
Fire–of-cupping-har!
Hobby goods:
小金鱼
Small goldfish：
仨大一条啊!
Each bigger than three fishes bundled
together-har!
Environmental-friendly
trade:
卖破烂
Recycling：
有破烂的我买耶!
You give me rubbish, I give you cash, yeah!
But surly no Chinese festival
can do without drums and gongs, even in the
case of an imported festival like Olympics.
So five brothers of Chen
family in the ancient capital Luoyang have
crafted the 2008 Olympics drum that measurs
2008 mm in diameter.
More than a thousand years
ago, when the founding emperor of the Song
Dynasty prepared for his inauguration
ceremony, he ordered the Chen family to
design and manufacture the main drum. And it
was the thunderous notes of Chen drum that
set up the theme for a three hundred-year
splendid Song era, highly advanced in
science, technologies, arts, culture and
economy.
And the main Olympics gong
also measuring 2008 mm in diameter has been
produced by masters in Suzhou, another cradle
and hub of Chinese culture.
