The scent of mutton skewers, dusted with chili pepper and cumin and roasting atop makeshift streetside grills, is one of the most cherished pleasures of summer in Beijing -- a cheap and seductive reward for suffering through a season otherwise marked by oppressive heat and pungent, chewable air.
简陋的街边烧烤摊上烤着的羊肉串、撒了辣椒和孜然，那股味道是北京夏天最令人神往的快乐之一。如果不是有这样一种廉价且诱人的奖赏，这里的夏天便只剩下难耐的酷热和刺鼻且厚重的空气。But just as they've moved to knock down the ancient alleyways that once gave Beijing its charm, City officials are now moving to rein in the skewer sellers. Among the main reasons: Air pollution.
然而，就像市政府官员采取行动拆除那一度让北京魅力无限的古老胡同一样，现在他们又开始动手整治烤串商贩。其主要理由之一是：空气污染。'As the weather warms up, the streets gradually fill up with roadside barbecue spots, sizzling kebabs on the grill and cold beer, which also create serious air pollution and undesired noise for the neighborhoods,' the state-run China Daily newspaper on Tuesday quoted Dang Xuefeng, spokesman for Beijing's bureau of city administration and law enforcement, as saying.
中国国有英文报纸《中国日报》(China Daily)援引北京市城管执法局发言人党学峰的话说：天气渐热，卖烤串和冰啤的路边烧烤摊会逐渐布满大街小巷，同时也会造成严重的空气污染，吵嚷声会打扰邻里。
City administration officials were stepping up inspections of unlicensed grilling operations around the city, threatening violators with fines up to 5,000 yuan ($815) and possible confiscation of barbecue paraphernalia, the paper said.
《中国日报》报道称，北京城管局官员一直在加强对无照烧烤摊的检查工作，说违规者最高将被处以人民币5,000元（815美元）罚款，烧烤用具可能也会被没收。Beijing has launched barbecue crackdowns in the past, but this is the first Time officials have used the city's notorious air pollution as a primary motive in going after the skewer stands -- a strategy that has raised eyebrows among environmentalists and Internet users.
北京过去也曾对市内的烧烤摊展开“严打”，但这是头一次以空气污染之名作为管理烤串摊贩的主要动机。这个策略不禁让环保人士和网友感到怀疑。China Daily cited Peking University public health expert Pan Xiaochuan in describing smoke from barbecues as a 'very common' source of PM2.5, shorthand for the tiny airborne particulate matter smaller than 2.5 micrometers in diameter that health experts say is particularly damaging to human health.
《中国日报》援引北京大学公共卫生专家潘小川的话说，烧烤产生的烟雾是PM2.5一种非常普遍的来源。PM2.5是悬浮在大气中、直径小于2.5微米的微小颗粒物，卫生专家说这种颗粒物对人体健康损害特别大。An environmental buzzword ever since angry social media users bullied Beijing into releasing better air pollution data in 2012, PM2.5 also turned up in a story about an anti-grilling sting in the city's Xicheng district that appeared during state broadcaster China Central Television's evening news broadcast on Monday. 'This outdoor barbecuing can cause the PM2.5 to rise rapidly,' a city administration official told CCTV.
2012年，迫于愤怒的社交媒体用户的压力，北京开始发布更详细的空气污染数据。之后，PM2.5就成了时髦的环保词汇。周一，中国国有电视台中央电视台(CCTV)晚间新闻节目在有关整治北京西城区大排档报道时也提到了PM2.5。一位城管对CCTV记者说，露天烧烤会导致PM2.5浓度迅速上升。The problem: It's not at all clear that skewer stands contribute in any meaningful way to the haze that typically envelopes China's capital.
问题是：笼罩在京城上空的雾霾到底有多少是因为烧烤摊所致，还完全没有定论。'I can't believe that it's actually a source [of PM2.5] that they need to worry about as compared with the enormous pollution that comes from motor vehicles, coal-fired power plants and big industrial factories,' said Vance Wagner, a senior researcher at the International Council on Clean Transportation, adding that smoke from cooking isn't typically included in scientific surveys of the sources of the city's air pollution.
国际清洁交通委员会(International Council on Clean Transportation)高级研究员瓦格纳(Vance Wagner)说，我简直难以相信，相比机动车、火电厂和大型工厂造成的严重污染，露天烧烤竟然是他们需要担心的一个PM2.5来源。他还说，对北京市空气污染源的科学调查通常并不包括烹饪形成的烟这一项。A person answering the phone at the Beijing Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau on Tuesday said no one at the bureau was available to provide information about the contribution of mutton grilling to the city's PM2.5 levels and directed China Real Time to the bureau's website. A scan of the website turned up no relevant statistics.
周二，北京市环保局一位接听电话的人说，该局无人能够提供有关露天烧烤对北京市PM2.5值影响的信息，并让《华尔街日报》“中国实时报”栏目的记者去参考该局的网站。记者浏览北京市环保局网站后未找到相关统计数据。The impact of summer grilling on Beijing air quality has been raised before in state media reports urging consumers to do their part to tackle pollution ( in Chinese) -- a strategy Mr. Wagner describes as misguided.
过去，国有媒体报道中也曾提到过夏季烧烤对北京空气质量的影响，报道敦促消费者尽自己的力量应对污染。瓦格纳称这一策略有误导性。'The idea that street vendors or regular consumers need to share that burden is just not fair, and it diverts attention from the real culprits, ' he said. 'It's such a shame, because outdoor barbecue is such a wonderful part of Beijing.'
他说，街边商贩或普通消费者需要分担治理空气污染的重担，这种想法完全不公平，会把人们的注意力从真正的罪魁祸首身上引开；这真丢脸，因为露天烧烤是北京如此美妙绝伦的一部分。Chinese social media users were likewise miffed at the idea, with some saying they suspected the city administration officials were just using air pollution as an excuse to bully the skewer vendors.
中国社交媒体用户也对这一想法颇为不满，一些人说他们怀疑城管部门只是在用空气污染作为借口来欺负烧烤商贩。'The people who set up barbecue stands work from dawn to dusk just trying to fill their stomachs, and the city administration officers come in swat them down like rats,' wrote one user of the Twitter-like microblogging service Sina Weibo. 'Why don't they go after car exhaust or industrial pollution?'
一位新浪微博用户写道：那些摆烧烤摊的起早贪黑仅仅是为了填饱肚子，可被城管当过街老鼠一样打。TMD，怎么不严打汽车尾气，工业废气。'Flatulence also raises the PM level,' wrote another, using Chinese slang for speaking nonsense.
另外一位新浪微博用户写道：放屁也能增加PM值！Surprisingly, none of the state media reports about the attack on one of Beijing's best loved culinary traditions mentioned the one justification most likely to earn public support: the risk that some of the unregulated vendors might be trying to pass off rat as mutton.
让人感到意外的是，国有媒体有关治理北京最让人喜爱的烹饪传统之一的报道都未提到一个最有可能获得公众支持的理由：露天烧烤存在隐患，部分不法商贩可能试图用老鼠肉假冒羊肉。