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BANGKOK — “Anywhere they play in Bangkok, I’ll be there,” said Warin Nithihiranyakul, 73, a dedicated fan of the Sai Yong Hong Chinese Opera troupe for more than 10 years. While waiting for his friends to arrive, he helps out by starting to set up plastic red chairs for the audience to watch the evening’s performance in an area just south of Bangkok’s Chinatown.
曼谷——“不管他们在曼谷什么地方演出，我都会去看，”73岁的瓦林·尼西兰亚库(Warin Nithihiranyakul)说。十多年来，他一直是赛荣丰潮剧团(Sai Yong Hong Chinese Opera)的忠实粉丝。等朋友们到来期间，他帮忙摆放为观众准备的红塑料椅，当晚的演出在曼谷唐人街南部一个地方举行。
A devotee of 11 years, Wandee Tengyodwanich, 62, unwraps several small plates of Chinese dough sticks and cake, passing them around to her friends in front of the stage before the show. She says that Sai Yong Hong is the best Chinese opera in Thailand because it invests in very elaborate costumes. She and her friends go to see the group a couple of times a year. They eat and catch up as they reminisce about the first time they saw Chinese opera as children.
演出开始前，62岁的旺迪·滕永旺希(Wandee Tengyodwanich)打开几小盘油条和糕点，分给舞台前的朋友们。她喜欢赛荣丰11年了。她说，赛荣丰是泰国最好的潮剧团，因为它舍得花钱购买精致的服装。她和朋友们每年都要看几次这个剧团的演出。她们一边吃，一边回忆小时候第一次观看潮剧时的情景。
They are part of a shrinking community of people that has formed around Chinese opera in Thailand. They are preserving a cornerstone of culture and heritage dating to the seventh-century Tang Dynasty (618 to 907), making it one of the oldest dramatic art forms in the world.
她们属于围绕泰国潮剧形成的一个不断缩小的群体。他们在保存一种文化与遗产的基石，它可以追溯到七世纪的唐朝（618年至907年），是世界上最古老的戏剧艺术形式之一。
Like so much of Chinese opera throughout the world, the performances are a product of a large Chinese diaspora. Sai Yong Hong is one of about 20 Chinese opera troupes in Thailand. The audience consists mostly of older Thai-Chinese adults, some of whom take their grandchildren to connect with a cultural memory that has been passed down for generations.
和世界各地的很多中国戏曲一样，这些演出也是大量华人流散海外的产物。泰国有约20个中国戏曲剧团，赛荣丰也是其中之一。观众主要是年长的泰国华裔，他们中的一些人带着孙辈来看演出，想让他们了解这个代代相传的文化记忆。
Chinese migration to Thailand can be traced to the 13th century, according to the Minority Rights Group. Today about 14 percent of the population is ethnically Chinese, according to World Population Review, making Thailand the home of one of the world’s largest Chinese communities outside China.
据少数民族权利组织(Minority Rights Group)称，中国人移民到泰国的历史可以追溯到13世纪。根据“世界人口综述”(World Population Review)网站的数据，目前约有14%的泰国人是华裔，所以，泰国是中国以外世界上最大的华人社区所在地之一。
On a recent afternoon, actors had spent two hours applying layers of makeup backstage, transforming into gods and goddesses, heroes and villains from Chinese folklore and mythology.
前不久的一个下午，演员们花了两个小时在后台画上一层层的妆，变身为中国民间传说和神话中的男女神明、英雄和反派。
At around 7:30 p.m., the actors and actresses of Sai Yong Hong took the stage and the performance began.
晚上七点半左右，赛荣丰的演员们开始登台表演。
The performance mixes elements of martial arts, singing and dancing, accompanied by music played on traditional Chinese instruments like the hammered dulcimer and the four-stringed pipa. Their scripts are primarily based on Chinese folk stories, but some are adaptations of Indian movies. They are delivered in Teochew, a dialect originating in Southern China.
表演融合了武术、歌唱和舞蹈的元素，配乐是用扬琴和四弦的琵琶等中国传统乐器演奏的。他们的剧本主要取材于中国民间故事，但也有一些改编自印度电影。唱词用的是潮州话，一种起源于中国南方的方言。
The show sends the sound of cymbals crashing through the night, echoing through the courtyard until the performances wind down, around midnight.
响亮的钹声在夜晚的庭院里回荡，直到午夜时分演出结束。
Sai Yong Hong is one of the best-known troupes in Thailand. It has 34 actors, five of whom are from China and the rest from Thailand, and, on that night, about 60 people attended the performance. The manager, Tatchai Obthong, 52, said that when he was younger a troupe would have about 100 actors and the crowds were much larger.
赛荣丰是泰国最著名的剧团之一。它有34名演员，其中5人来自中国，其余的来自泰国。当晚，约有60人观看了演出。52岁的经理他差·奥布通(Tatchai Obthong)表示，他年轻时，一个剧团约有100名演员，观众人数要多得多。
“I didn’t like it — it was loud and scary,” he said of the first time he saw a Chinese opera as a child. Mr. Tatchai, who is Chinese and Thai, has been in the industry since he was 7. His mother had left his father and was struggling with a gambling addiction. Having fallen on hard times, she took Obthong, a childhood fan of martial arts movies, to see a Chinese opera performance.
“我不喜欢——又吵又吓人，”他说起自己小时候第一次看潮剧的感觉。中泰混血的他差自七岁就入了这一行。他差的母亲离开了他的父亲，曾为赌博成瘾而苦。身陷困境的她带着自幼喜欢武打电影的奥布通去看了一场潮剧演出。
At the end of the night his mother told him that he was going to stay with the troupe. “I was sold by mother for 6,000 bath,” or about $190, he said.
晚上结束时，母亲告诉他差，他要留在剧团了。“母亲6000泰铢就把我卖了，”他说，6000泰铢大约相当于190美元。
He remembers that it was hard for him to adapt because he wasn’t allowed to speak Thai and had to learn Teochew, but he quickly realized that to survive he had to learn the craft and the language. He began by serving as a roadie and eventually went to work with a Chinese opera company in Singapore, where he learned more about the performance aspect, before returning to Thailand, where he has worked for the past 12 years.
他记得自己当时很难适应，因为不允许他说泰语，他必须学习潮州话。但他很快意识到，想活下来，自己就必须学习这门技艺和这种语言。他首先做起了随团的杂工，最后去了一个在新加坡的中国戏曲公司工作。他在那里学到了更多关于表演方面的东西后回到泰国，过去12年一直在这里工作。
Performances are free — they are commissioned by shrines in Bangkok and sometimes around the country. “We don’t perform for people, we perform for the gods,” Mr. Tatchai said. They transport the stage with a six-wheel truck and assemble it at each location where they perform. The whole troupe gets paid 20,000 bath (about $640) per night.
演出是免费的——他们受雇于曼谷的寺庙，有时还会去全国各地的寺庙。“我们不是为人民表演，我们是为神灵表演，”他差说。他们会用一个六轮卡车搬运舞台，在演出地点进行组装。全团每晚大约能获得两万泰铢（约合640美元）。
For many of the actors, the stage is home. “Now it’s a high season, so we travel together all the time,” Mr. Tatchai said. After the show, some will sleep under the stage or set up tents nearby.
对于许多演员来说，舞台就是家。“现在是旺季，所以我们总是一起到处跑，”他差说。在演出之后，一些人会睡在舞台底下，或在附近搭起帐篷。
One performer, Somsak Saetae, 62, has been an actor with the group for more than 10 years. He has been in the industry since he was 8 and has seen its evolution. “In the past, women couldn’t set foot on the Chinese opera stage, and all the performers were men,” he said. “Women could not even touch the shrine, only men were allowed; now the whole industry has changed.”
62岁的演员颂萨·塞塔(Somsak Saetae)是一位已在剧团内待了十多年的演员。八岁就入了行的他见证了这个行业的演变。“在过去，女人是不能踏上中国戏曲舞台的，所有的演员都是男的，”他说。“女人甚至不能触碰神龛，只有男人才可以；现在整个行业都变了。”
Today even some of the male roles are played by women, like Malee Saewong, 53, who has been a part of this troupe for only four years but has acted in other troupes since she was 14. “I am old now so I get to play male characters, but it’s easier because you don’t have deal with doing your hair,” she said.
如今，甚至一些男性角色也会由女性扮演，比如才加入剧团四年、但14岁起就已在别的剧团演出的马莉·赛黄(Malee Saewong)。“我现在年纪大了，所以就去演男性角色，但也更轻松了，因为不用再做头发，”现年53岁的她说。
Prasong Piewnen, 56, is the group’s cook and cares for her sleeping grandson after the show. Her husband is a musician and her daughter an actress in the troupe. Ms. Prasong said that she was used to this way of life. “If I stay at home, it’s just too quiet,” she said.
56岁的巴颂·皮恩(Prasong Piewnen)是剧团的厨师，会在演出后照顾她睡着的孙子。她的丈夫是一个乐手，女儿是剧团的演员。巴颂表示，她已经习惯了这样的生活。“我要是待在家里，那就太安静了，”她说。
As the community ages and audiences dwindle, there is a fear that the art will die out. Performers face uncertain futures. Mr. Somsak said that he wanted to continue performing as long as he could. “In this industry when you retire you just simply say to the gods, ‘You know I’m getting old now, please protect me until the end,’” he said.
随着这个群体的老龄化和观众的减少，人们担心这个艺术形式将会消失。演员们前途未卜，颂萨表示只要可以，他会一直演下去。“在这个行业里想退休，只要简单地和神灵说一句，‘您知道我年纪大了，请一直保佑我’，”他说。
Mr. Tatchai has seen the changes as well, and he said he thought the industry would continue to get smaller but would not go away.
他差也看见了这些变化，他说，他认为这个行业会继续缩小，但不会消失。
“As long as Chinese shrines exist and people continue praying,” he said, “the Chinese opera will be here.”
“只要有中国的佛龛存在，人们继续祈祷，”他说，“这里就会有潮剧。”
