Poetry or property punts: Xu Zhimo is driving China's love affair with Cambridge?

自2010年以来，剑桥的房价上涨了50%——其中一部分原因被认为来自中国投资者。那些投资者对这座城市的热情，或许始于他们学生时代在学校学过的一首诗。但当地居民又如何看待这种浪漫化的想象呢？

House prices in Cambridge have risen 50% since 2010 – caused in part by Chinese investors whose passion for the city may have begun with a poem they learned at school. But what do local residents make of this romantic vision?

在 Scholar’s Piece 的边缘——也就是国王学院后方那条狭长的农田地带——立着一块花岗岩石碑，它几乎可以说已成为剑桥最令人向往的旅游“打卡点”。

On the edge of Scholar’s Piece, the strip of farmland just behind King’s College, lies a granite stone which has become arguably Cambridge’s most coveted tourist attraction.

对每天从它旁边悠闲走过的许多学生来说，这块石碑很容易被忽略；它就那样不显眼地摆在一座桥旁——这座桥把 Scholar’s Piece 与学院的其他区域连接起来。然而，对每年成千上万前来剑桥的中国游客而言，他们真正想看的并不是城里那座宏伟的十五世纪礼拜堂，也不是修剪得一丝不苟的草坪或历史雕像，而正是这块石碑。

For the many students who amble past it every day, it’s easily missed; placed rather innocuously next to the bridge that joins Scholar’s Piece to the rest of the college. But for the thousands of Chinese tourists who travel to Cambridge every year, it is this, rather than the city’s grand 15th-century chapel, meticulously manicured lawns or historical statues, that they’ve come to see.

石碑上镌刻着一首在中国几乎已成为“民间传说”的诗的开头与结尾两句。这首诗题为《再别康桥》（Farewell to Cambridge），由31岁的诗人、作家徐志摩于1928年写成——当时他在20世纪20年代初曾在国王学院求学，1928年重访旧地时写下此作。

Carved into the stone are the first and last lines of a poem that has gone down in Chinese folklore. TitledFarewell to Cambridge, it was written in 1928 by Xu Zhimo, a 31-year-old poet and writer who was revisiting King’s after studying there in the early 20s.

徐志摩三年后在一场空难中去世，但他在中国现代史上却成为一种“文化偶像”式的人物：早逝与悲剧性结局、隐秘的情感纠葛，以及他将西方文学形式引入中国文学的成就，共同把他“定格”为传奇。

Zhimo died three years later in a plane crash, but he would go down as a cult figure in modern Chinese history, immortalised through his premature and tragic end, illicit love affairs and success in introducing western forms into Chinese literature.

尽管徐志摩大半生都在中国度过，《再别康桥》却成了他最重要的文学遗产。如今这首诗已被纳入中国国家课程体系，所有学生都会学习它，把它作为20世纪初现代诗歌运动的代表范例。

And while Zhimo spent most of his life inChina, Farewell to Cambridge has become his legacy. It is now part of China’s national curriculum, taught to all schoolchildren as an example of the modern poetry movement in the early 20th century.

“这首诗我们都听说过，”来自北京的裴玲·劳（Pei-Ling Lau）说。她正在参观国王学院，这是她第一次来到石碑前。她15岁时曾把这首诗作为考试必读文本学习：“它也被改编进了许多流行歌曲。它把在剑桥撑篙（punting）的画面写得特别美，但直到我真的来到这里，我才意识到它对河流的描写竟然如此动人。对中国人来说它很特别，因为徐志摩的生平与故事大家都很熟悉，而这里就是他的城市。我们想来这里亲身体验那种感觉。”

“The poem is something we’ve all heard of,” says Pei-Ling Lau from Beijing, who is visiting King’s and seeing Zhimo’s stone for the first time. She studied his poem as a compulsory exam text when she was 15: “It’s been adapted into many pop songs too. It paints such a lovely picture of punting in Cambridge, but it wasn’t until I came here that I realised how beautifully it describes the river. It’s special for Chinese people as the life and story of Xu Zhimo is well known, and this was his city. We want to come here and experience that.”

但中国人对剑桥的兴趣并不止于把它当作度假目的地；他们也将其视为一个重要的房产投资区域。剑桥房价一路飙升，最新数据显示自2010年以来已上涨50%，这在很大程度上是由城市周边科学园区持续的生物科技繁荣所推动。而富裕的中国买家似乎也热衷于“分一杯羹”：房产中介公司 Savills 估计，在过去一年里，剑桥及周边村镇每新建20套住房中，就有1套被中国业主买走。

But the Chinese are not just interested in Cambridge as a holiday location; they also view it as a key region for property investment. Cambridge’s house prices are soaring, with new figures revealing they haveincreased by 50% since 2010, driven in large part by theongoing biotech boomin science parks around the city. And wealthy Chinese appear keen to cash in: the estate agents Savills estimate that in the past year, one in 20 new-build homes across the city and surrounding villages have been bought by Chinese owners.

“毫无疑问，中国买家对在剑桥居住是有兴趣的，”Savills 剑桥住宅业务负责人埃德·迈耶（Ed Meyer）说，“但除了投资，更主要的驱动因素是教育。大多数中国买家是带着年幼的孩子来到这里，希望让他们融入剑桥社会与当地学校，并期待他们将来能进入大学。而徐志摩的‘遗产’显然也深深刻在他们的心理之中。很多时候他们总会解释：‘哦，我们知道剑桥，是因为我们在学校学过那首诗。’”

“There is undoubtedly interest in Cambridge as a place to live from Chinese buyers,” says Ed Meyer, head of residential at Savills Cambridge. “But as well as an investment, the major driver for this is education. The majority of Chinese buyers are coming here with younger children, to try and integrate them into Cambridge society and the schools round here, with the view that they will hopefully go to the university in future. And Xu Zhimo’s legacy definitely seems to be ingrained in their psyche. At some point they always explain, ‘Oh, and we know about Cambridge because we learnt about it in the poem at school.’”

剑桥的学术声望几乎从小就灌输给每一个中国孩子。尽管国内的北京大学、清华大学同样备受尊重，但越来越多负担得起的家庭选择把钱投入到子女出国求学上，希望他们回国后能在竞争极其激烈的就业市场中占据优势。剑桥教育所带来的“就业加成”被广泛认可，以至于越来越多家庭把孩子送到城市周边各种“输送学校”（feeder schools），以提高未来成功申请名校的概率。

Cambridge’s academic reputation is instilled into virtually all Chinese children at a young age. While domestic universities such as Peking and Tsinghua are respected, those who can afford it are increasingly opting to put their money into sending their children abroad for schooling, with the hope of gaining them an edge in a hyper-competitive job market when they return home. Such are the employability benefits associated with a Cambridge education that increasing numbers are sending their children to the various “feeder schools” around the city to boost their chances of a successful application.

“名牌大学的声望会一代代从父母传给孩子，”在剑桥攻读博士、成长于温州的杨宗银（Zongyin Yang）说，“这种敬重与好奇从小就被植入。所以中国家庭会带着学步的孩子去看校园。很多孩子都是听着这些‘梦想之地’长大的。”

“The reputations of the great universities are passed down from parents to children,” says Zongyin Yang, a PhD student at Cambridge who grew up in Wenzhou. “There’s a respect and curiosity which is instilled at a young age. It’s why Chinese families bring their toddlers to see the campuses. Most children grow up hearing about these ‘dream places’.”

据中国教育部统计，2014年共有459,800名学生进入海外大学就读，比上一年增长11.1%。其中有423,000人的费用完全由家庭承担。而在他们的“首选名单”上，剑桥位居前列：本学年剑桥大学中国学生构成该校规模最大的族裔群体，约有900人在读。

According to China’s Ministry of Education,459,800 studentsenrolled at overseas universities in 2014, an increase of 11.1% on the previous year. Of these, 423,000 were entirely funded by their families. And at the top of their list is Cambridge: Chinese students make up the largest ethnic population at the university, with a total ofaround 900 enrolledfor the current academic year.

“在招聘过程中，剑桥学位确实常被认为更有优势，因为品牌力量太强，”曾在剑桥学习、后回到北京的郑尧（Zheng Yao）说，“普遍的看法是：你在中国的收入潜力会高很多——但现实情况其实差别不大。应届毕业生的薪资事实上相当有限，无论你在哪里读书。”

“A Cambridge degree is definitely perceived to be superior in the recruitment process due to the strength of the brand name,” says Zheng Yao, who studied at Cambridge before returning to Beijing. “There’s a widespread perception that your earning potential in China will be much greater – but the reality is quite different. Pay for new graduates is in fact very limited, no matter where you’ve studied.”

市场波动

对希望把资金投向海外、以规避本国日益波动市场的中国家庭而言，在剑桥购置房产也有其经济上的合理性。来自广州的剑桥学生王凯丽（Keri Wong）解释说：“中国父母宁愿孩子把房租交给他们，而不是交给别的房东——这样钱就留在家庭内部了。而且尽管中国中产有不少存款，国内市场却被认为非常不稳定。英国房产是一种很有吸引力的资产分散选择。再者，房产投资还可能带来未来获得英国居留身份的机会。”

我们不希望我们的住房市场因为中国经济而在繁荣与崩盘之间循环。

Volatile market

Buying property in Cambridge also makes financial sense for Chinese families looking to invest their money outside of the increasingly volatile market back home. “Chinese parents would rather their children pay rent to them than to another landowner, keeping the money in the family,” explains Keri Wong, a Cambridge student from Guangzhou. “And while the Chinese middle classes have a lot of savings, the market at home isregarded as really unstable. UK property is an attractive divestment. Plus property investment presents the option of being able to eventually gain UK residency status.”

We don’t want our housing market going through a boom-or-bust cycle based on the Chinese economy

剑桥与中国的联系可以追溯到19世纪：当时大学参考中国科举制度进行自我改革，随后又在1888年设立了英国第一个中文（汉学）教授席位。

The link between Cambridge and China goes back to the 19th century, when the university reformed itself based on the Chinese imperial examination system, before launching the UK’s firstprofessorship of Chinesein 1888.

两个世纪之后，这种联系似乎只会更紧密。随着英国内政部推出一项新签证制度，允许中国游客在两年内多次入境，再加上中小学与大学申请人数逐年上升，城市中鲜明的中国存在感几乎必然会继续增长。

Two centuries on, the link only looks set to strengthen. With the Home Office launching a new visa system that allowsChinese tourists to make multiple visits over a two-year period, and school and university applications rising every year, the distinct Chinese presence in the city is surely only going to grow.

而对那些已经担心剑桥住房供应跟不上需求的本地居民而言，这股兴趣可能带来的影响仍令人忧虑——即便如 Bentley 所指出的，海外买家购房的比例总体仍然相对较小。

And for local residents already worried that Cambridge’s housing supply isn’t keeping up with demand, the potential impact of such interest remains a concern – even if, as Bentley points out, the percentage of purchases from overseas buyers is still relatively small.

Stott 补充说：“这确实是一个很难着手解决的问题。但中国买家的强烈兴趣，只会给本就紧张的住房市场再加一层压力——它让原本住在这里的人想要拥有自己的房子变得越来越困难。”

“It’s a difficult problem to do anything about, but having such strong interest from Chinese buyers just puts even more pressure on an already strained housing market,” Stott adds. “It simply makes it more and more difficult for people who already live here to be able to own their own homes.”