还要加上其他省份——都已经多到举不胜举。
瞧啊，每当一个新的省份出现，
它都令人紧张，也让我们心头胆寒的为之一颤：
难道每一个我们欢呼雀跃的新发现
都会显示出有一个省份在背后出现？
所以我得承认，我们有时候真的十分怀念
那些只有炒面的日子，而不必心有忙乱，
因为我们从不曾直面这样的危险
遇到如此多的省份，还真的不多见。
西藏附近可有令人开怀畅饮的菜肴？
他们的省份怎么没完没了？
Have They Run Out of Provinces Yet?
BY CALVIN TRILLIN
Have they run out of provinces yet?
If they haven’t, we’ve reason to fret.
Long ago, there was just Cantonese.
(Long ago, we were easy to please.)
But then food from Szechuan came our way,
Making Cantonese strictly passé.
Szechuanese was the song that we sung,
Though the ma po could burn through your tongue.
Then when Shanghainese got in the loop
We slurped dumplings whose insides were soup.
Then Hunan, the birth province of Mao,
Came along with its own style of chow.
So we thought we were finished, and then
A new province arrived: Fukien.
Then respect was a fraction of meager
For those eaters who’d not eaten Uighur.
And then Xi’an from Shaanxi gained fame,
Plus some others—too many to name.
Now, as each brand-new province appears,
It brings tension, increasing our fears:
Could a place we extolled as a find
Be revealed as one province behind?
So we sometimes do miss, I confess,
Simple days of chow mein but no stress,
When we never were faced with the threat
Of more provinces we hadn’t met.
Is there one tucked away near Tibet?
Have they run out of provinces yet?
