FT记者眼中的旧金山：说着“湾区方言”的创新之城

05 FT记者眼中的旧金山：说着“湾区方言”的创新之城

当来到旧金山，地地道道的英国人、FT通讯记者Hannah Kuchler发现，那个曾经她记忆里“任由保守地区来的流亡之徒放纵的避风港”，已经变成一座创新之城。除了不同的文化与生活方式，旧金山甚至还是一座有自己语言的城市。

London to San Francisco: learning the language in a start-up haven

本文原文作者系FT通讯记者Hannah Kuchler

I first fell for San Francisco as a teenager holed up in my north London bedroom, reading my mum's tattered copies of the Tales of the City series.

我初次倾心旧金山是在年少时候。那时我窝在伦敦北部家中卧室里，读着妈妈破旧的系列小说《城市故事》（美国作家Armistead Maupin所著系列小说）。

我三年前抵达旧金山时，这里早已不像是书中所描绘的，是一个任由保守地区来的流亡之徒放纵的避风港（a permissive haven for exiles from prim provinces）了。取而代之的是，旧金山成为了开发商们反复允诺（oft-repeated promise）的、将会用软件改变世界的天堂。

Coming to cover technology for the Financial Times, I was 27 and tech-competent for London.But here l had to catch-up: ditching my BlackBerry for an iPhone, my Dell laptop for a MacBook and taxis for Uber.

初来这里为英国《金融时报》报道科技新闻的时候，我是一个27岁的伦敦“科技通”。但是来到旧金山，我发现我不得不奋起直追：把我的黑莓丢掉换成iPhone，戴尔笔记本要换成MacBook，打车也要用优步。

旧金山金门大桥

那时候我还闹了个笑话。

I made an early error with the ride-hailing app, not then popular in London, when I ordered what I thought was an SUV to take home new furniture.I cringed as a slick black limo arrived to drive my boxes to my new apartment.

早前我在用这款在伦敦并不流行的打车软件（优步）时，犯了个错误：我以为约了一辆SUV来帮我往家里搬新家具。当开来的是一辆锃亮的黑色加长轿车，把我的箱子搬到新公寓的时候，我着实畏缩了一下。

甚至连语言上，我都要重新学习一些新的英文用法：

I also had to learn a new lexicon.An early disagreement led a PR at a tech company to ask me for a drink to “debug this”, a term usually used when engineers remove flaws from software.

我还不得不学会一些新词。早前，因为一次意见分歧，某科技公司的公关人员约我去喝点东西，来debug这个问题——debug通常是用来形容修复软件漏洞的。

旧金山高新产业的爆发式增长，让金钱好像都失去了它的意义。就在我刚开始工作仅仅四天之后，Twitter就宣布提交了IPO文件，估值在此前的几周内翻了三倍，或超过100亿美元；在听到Facebook花了220亿美元买了仅有50个雇员的WhatsApp后，我惊得下巴半年都合不上（jaws dropped six months later）；优步以680亿美金的估值拿下了筹资，人们眼睛都不带眨一下的。

A mere billion-dollar valuation, once seen as rare as a unicorn, no longer seems noteworthy.

曾经极少的估值逾10亿美元、被珍视为“独角兽”公司的企业，如今都不足为奇了。

旧金山与时尚绝缘，取而代之的是印着各种初创公司Logo的T恤。

Frantic app-makers fill San Francisco's streets, wearing T-shirts with logos of their start-up.

旧金山的街道挤满了狂热的应用开发者，穿着印有他们自己的初创公司logo的T恤。

本文作者、FT通讯记者Hannah Kuchler在Instagram上分享自己在旧金山的生活。

而这个城市更像是一个新app的试验场。

Hungry? Food is delivered by one of dozens of on-demand delivery apps, from Caviar to Sprig.Fancy a drink? Alcohol can be ordered from Saucey or DoorDash.Break up? You now have to speed learn the latest dating app — Bumble, Hinge, The League — before everyone moves on to the next Tinder copycat.

饿了？有一大把按需订餐的应用，比如Caviar或者Sprig。要喝一杯吗？Saucey或者DoorDash上可以订购酒水。分手了？你现在需要赶紧花时间学一下最新的约会软件Bumble、Hinge或者The League了，这样才能赶在人人都扑向下一山寨Tinder（一个速配约会类手机应用）之前。

和1970年代不同，如今的旧金山给人的感觉更像是住在未来。

Driving around Silicon Valley, an hour to the south, it is not unusual to see Google's driverless cars in the lane next to you.Drinkers in bars regularly discuss “the singularity” — when humans and robots will become one — and everyone seems to know someone who knows someone strategising to defeat death, Ray Kurzweil-style.

往南约一个小时车程，行驶在硅谷，看见谷歌的无人驾驶汽车在你旁边的车道上行驶，一点也不足为奇。酒吧里喝酒的人们都是讨论着“the singularity”（奇点，是指人类和机器人合而为一的时间点），似乎每个人都有个“朋友的朋友”正规划着如何战胜死亡，就像雷蒙德·库茨魏尔（谷歌工程总监，作家、发明家和未来学家）一样。

全新的环境，还改变了以往的生活习惯。

I have not yet tried defeating death but California has converted this Londoner, who used to prefer an after-work pint, to the joys of exercise.Fuelled by an avocado a day, I now spend my weekends hiking on trails around the bay.

我没有想着要战胜死亡，但是加利福尼亚却将我一个地地道道的、习惯下班喝一杯的伦敦人，变得开始享受运动的愉快了。现在的我每天都用牛油果来给自己加油，把周末时光都用在沿着海岸线的徒步上了。

《跑者世界》杂志将旧金山誉为“最适合慢跑的城市”。

旧金山也有它自己的矛盾与困扰。比如，与科技和经济一同爆发式增长的，还有房价。

科技公司的爆发式出现，还影响着那些非科技领域工作者们的生活。飞速的发展迫使租金在一年上升了20%，引起了旧金山本地居民和科技行业之间的摩擦。

High rents forced me to move in with roommates after a year of living alone.Last year, a tent on someone's back patio was rented for almost $1,000 a month in Mountain View, where Google is based, stipulating that the tenant would be allowed inside the house for one shower a day.The advert went viral because no one could tell if it was a stunt or a real offer.

高额的租金让我不得不结束了一年的独居生活，搬去与室友合住。去年，在山景城（谷歌总部所在地），一顶在别人家后院的帐篷租金要价1000美元/月，还规定只允许租客每天进入屋里一次淋浴。这一条广告迅速像病毒一样传播开来，没人知道这是个噱头还是真的。

Older San Franciscans, lured to the city as a place of free thought and free love, often resent the so-called “techies” for raising prices, even though some are homeowners who have made millions by selling to them.

曾经被这座城市的自由思想和自由恋爱吸引而来的老旧金山人，常常因为飙涨的物价，而怨恨那些所谓的“技术咖”——尽管有些房屋所有者已经靠把房子卖给那些“工程师”，赚了上百万。

Even within the tech industry, some decry newcomers who see Silicon Valley as a new Wall Street, a place to get rich rather than change the world.They see innovations as following in the freethinking traditions of the West Coast but view the new gold rush with distaste.

即便是在科技产业内，也有人责难说那些新来的人将硅谷视为新华尔街，来这里为了发财而非改变世界。那些人认为，创新是跟随西海岸自由思想一脉相承下来的传统，而厌恶新一轮趋之若鹜的“淘金热”。

旧金山胜景：雾锁金门

San Francisco is still a hub for new ideas, where young people use the distance from the rest of the world to experiment with living differently.

旧金山依旧是新思路汇集的中心。年轻人们利用着这里与世界其他地方之间的距离，体验尝试着不同的方式生活。

词汇总结

fall for: 迷恋，爱上

I first fell for San Francisco as a teenager holed up in my north London bedroom, reading my mum's tattered copies of the Tales of the City series.

我初次倾心旧金山是在年少时候。那时我窝在伦敦北部家中卧室里，读着妈妈破旧的系列小说《城市故事》（美国作家Armistead Maupin所著系列小说）。

go viral 像病毒一样传播开来

The advert went viral because no one could tell if it was a stunt or a real offer.

这一条广告迅速像病毒一样传播开来，没人知道这是个噱头还是真的。

ride-hailing app 打车软件

I made an early error with the ride-hailing app, not then popular in London.

早前我在用这款在伦敦并不流行的打车软件（优步）时，犯了个错误。

Unicorn ['juːnɪkɔːn]

n.独角兽

A mere billion-dollar valuation, once seen as rare as a unicorn, no longer seems noteworthy.

曾经极少的估值逾10亿美元、被珍视为“独角兽”公司的企业，如今都不足为奇了。

lure [l(j)ʊə]

n.诱惑；饵；诱惑物

vt.诱惑；引诱

Older San Franciscans, lured to the city as a place of free thought and free love, often resent the so-called “techies” for raising prices, even though some are homeowners who have made millions by selling to them.

曾经被这座城市的自由思想和自由恋爱吸引而来的老旧金山人，常常因为飙涨的物价，而怨恨那些所谓的“技术咖”——尽管有些房屋所有者已经靠把房子卖给那些“工程师”，赚了上百万。