英国卫报：中国,我想回来!(2)（在线收听）

My grandparents, by whom I mean my yeye (yeye: my father's father) and nainai (nainai: my father's mother) lived in Hefei, in Anhui province.

我的祖父母，也就是我的爷爷(我父亲的父亲)和我的奶奶(我父亲的母亲)住在安徽合肥。

Hefei is a sleepy, midsize city, overshadowed by Nanjing to the east and Wuhan to the west.

合肥是一座安逸的中型城市，东临南京，西临武汉。

For tourists, it's most likely a stopover on the way to the famous Yellow Mountain to the south.

对游客来说，它很可能会是去往著名的黄山途中的一个中转站。

Growing up, my brother and I had regularly spent long summer holidays at my grandparents' apartment there, sharing beds with aunts and cousins,

在我成长的过程中，哥哥和我经常在祖父母的公寓里度过漫长的暑假，和阿姨、表兄弟们同睡一张床，

splaying out in front of the air conditioners, walking to the internet cafe to play Starcraft and virtual pet games,

在空调前躺着，去网吧玩星际争霸和虚拟宠物游戏，

getting spiced beef jerky and Calbee shrimp chips from the nearby shop and watching soapy Chinese dramas in the evening.

在附近的商店买五香牛肉干和卡乐比虾片，晚上看中国肥皂剧。

To get to the apartment, we buzzed in through a heavy front door and stomped up three floors of cold concrete steps.

为了去到公寓，我们要嗡嗡地从一扇沉重的前门进去，踏着冰冷的水泥台阶爬三层楼。

Outside the building, there was a mulberry tree; occasionally, my grandmother would use the leaves to raise silkworms.

公寓外有一棵桑葚树，奶奶偶尔也会用这些叶子养蚕。

The rest of the time, we were in California.

其余的时间我们都在加州。

Since I wasn't physically with my family in China, WeChat, the ubiquitous social media app for Chinese speakers, became the portal through which I could peer to the other side.

由于我没有和中国的家人住在一起，无处不在的中文社交媒体应用“微信”成为了我可以窥视世界另一面的门户。

Our WeChat group is a repository of baby photos, funny videos and chatter between all the relatives.

我们的微信小组是一个储存婴儿照片、有趣视频和所有亲戚之间聊天的资料库。

When I scroll far up, there are holiday photos, old conversations between my aunts about my grandparents' health, small squabbles and gossip about their daily lives.

当我向上刷朋友圈时，我看到的是假期的照片、阿姨们关于祖父母身体的旧的聊天记录、小争吵以及他们日常生活的八卦。

"At six o'clock this morning, the old princess said she was hungry, and she got up to eat," they would write of my grandmother. "Good thing the caretaker knows her rules by now."

“今天早上六点钟老夫人就喊饿了，立马就要起来吃饭，”他们在说我的祖母。“好在保姆现在知道她的习惯了。”

"No gas at my house this morning, but luckily I got a dinner invitation from my friend. I brought over strawberries and pickled clover from Chongming Island," one aunt wrote, sending pictures.

“今天早上我家没油了，不过很幸运，朋友让我去他家吃晚饭。我从崇明岛带了草莓和腌制的三叶草，”一位阿姨写道，还发来了照片。

"I like Song Joong-Ki," a female cousin wrote of a famous pretty boy actor during a conversation about Korean celebrities, and another aunt, 30 years her senior, gravely affirmed, "I also like Song Joong-Ki", to my cousin's amusement.

“我喜欢宋仲基，”一位堂姐在谈论韩国名人时这样说道，另一位年长她30岁的阿姨一脸严肃地说道，“我也喜欢宋仲基。”

My grandmother, who could read WeChat but never figured out how to type, occasionally entered nonsense letters as she scrolled through. My father would always reply, "Poor Mama. What are you trying to say?"

我的祖母能看懂微信上的聊天，但不太会打字，她在刷屏幕时偶尔会输入一些毫无意义的字母。父亲总是这样说：“可怜的妈妈。你想说啥呢？”

At my grandmother and my grandfather's funerals, WeChat was the technology that let us be present at those ceremonies in real time.

在祖母和祖父的葬礼上，微信是一项能够让我们实时出席那些仪式的技术。

But it is an imperfect portal: one cannot truly be back.

但它并不是一个完美的入口：因为一个人不可能真的回来。

We couldn't put flowers on the bodies; we couldn't, as our relatives in China did, go back to the apartment afterwards and lay oranges by my grandparents' photos.

我们不能在尸体上放花，我们不能像我们在中国的亲戚那样，事后回到公寓，在祖父母的照片旁边放上橘子。

How alienating it was, to be sending our spirits through our screens – rectangles the size of our hands.

通过手掌大小的长方形屏幕表达我们的心情，这是多么的疏远啊。

My grandparents' deaths still do not feel real. Not really. They were already so far away.

祖父母的去世对我来说还是那么地不真实。这不是真的。但他们已经离我很远了。

My grandmother is still listed in my WeChat contacts, a name that, when I scroll through my phone, makes me startle.

我的祖母还在我微信的联系人列表中，我在刷手机看到祖母时会吓一大跳。