2020-10-29 16:14:38
He came to New York from Tokyo to make it as a jazz musician, and he did, landing gigs in several touring bands and leading a trio of his own. He was elegant but never flashy on the piano, always well prepared and on time.
他从东京跑到纽约当爵士乐手，并在这里站稳了脚跟，他在几支巡回乐队获得了表演机会，自己还有一个三重奏乐队。他的钢琴演奏优雅却不浮夸，总是有备而来而且节拍到位。
It was not an easy path. On Sept. 27, at around 7:20 in the evening, that path got a lot harder.
这不是一条容易的路。9月27日晚上7点20分左右，这条路变得更为艰难。
Coming off the subway at West 135th Street after a video shoot, Tadataka Unno, 40, a new father, encountered a group of about eight young people who blocked his way to the turnstiles. When he tried to pass through, one of them shoved him from behind. Another said he had pushed her, and a young man near her said, “My girl is pregnant.”
那天，在录制完一段视频后，刚当上爸爸、现年40岁的海野雅威从西135街下了地铁，大约8个年轻人挡在他和闸机之间。他试图穿过去，其中一人从身后推了他。另一个人说他推了她，她身旁的一名年轻男子说，“我女朋友怀孕了。”
That’s when the beating started — first in the subway station and then up on the street, where he yelled for people to help him, to no avail.
双方动起手来——一开始是地铁站，然后是在街头，他大呼救命，但没人理睬。
“I thought that this was how I was going to die,” he recalled two weeks later, describing the attack in a written note because it was still painful to talk about it. He did not know how many in the group had hit him. They fractured his right collarbone, injured his arm and bruised him all over. After surgery for the broken bones, he was not sure whether he will ever be able to play the piano again. He has been unable to use his right hand at all, and said he is learning to do everything with his left hand.
“我以为自己要被打死了，”两周之后，他在一份描述那次袭击的书面材料中回忆道，他还是没有办法直接谈论那件事。他不知道那群人当中有多少人对他动了手。他们打断了他的右锁骨，弄伤了他的一只手臂，身上到处都是瘀伤。骨折部位做了手术后，他不确定自己以后还能不能弹钢琴。右手现在完全废了，他说自己正学着用左手做事。
The police have made no arrests, though Mr. Unno said the assault was captured on camera in the subway station. He remembered at least one of the attackers calling him “Asian” and “Chinese,” along with a profanity.
目前尚无人因此事被捕，尽管海野雅威说，地铁站的摄像头有拍到那次袭击。他记得至少有一名袭击者叫他“亚洲人”和“中国人”，还骂了一句脏话。
‘I needed to know the culture.’
“我需要了解这种文化。”
How quickly does a life change course?
人生改变的速度有多快？
Tadataka Unno was fated to arrive in New York. He started playing jazz piano at age 9, and playing professionally in Japan at 18. The work was steady and gratifying, with recording opportunities and gigs almost every night. But, after a decade, he felt there was something missing, he said in a telephone interview. He could listen to records in Japan, but jazz was more than recordings. “I needed to know the culture,” he said.
海野雅威命中注定要来纽约。他9岁开始弹爵士钢琴，18岁在日本成为职业演奏家。工作稳定又令人满意，几乎每晚都有录音和表演机会。但这样过了十年后，他觉得自己错过了什么，他在接受电话采访的时候说道。他在日本可以听唱片，但爵士乐的魅力不是唱片所能容纳的。“我需要了解这种文化，”他说。
In 2008, when he was 27, his mother cried when he said he was moving to New York, told him not to go. She thought New York was dangerous.
2008年，在他27岁时，他说要搬到纽约，母亲听说后哭了起来，让他不要去。她觉得纽约那个地方很危险。
“I wanted to meet my heroes, to play with them, to talk, to hang out,” he said. “If I stay in Japan it’ll never happen.”
“我想去见见我心目中的那些英雄，跟他们一起演奏，跟他们闲聊，跟他们混着，”他说。“如果住在日本，就不可能实现。”
He and his wife, Sayaka, arrived in Harlem on June 19, 2008. Harlem was where jazz history lived. “I didn’t know anybody,” he said. “I didn’t have any job. But I didn’t worry about it. I was just happy to be in New York.”
他和妻子早矢香(Sayaka)于2008年6月19日抵达纽约的哈莱姆区。那里是爵士乐书写历史的地方。“我谁也不认识，”他说。“也没有工作。但我并不担心。我就是很高兴来到了纽约。”
New York breaks those dreams more often than not. But Mr. Unno made them work.
纽约惯于打破这种梦想。但是海野雅威的梦想实现了。
“He’s one of the workman jazz piano players on the New York scene,” said Spike Wilner, a pianist who owns and runs Smalls and Mezzrow, two clubs downtown. “He works hard, practices hard, but he’s not necessarily high profile. But he’s a tasty pianist, elegant. And a sweetheart of a guy, very gentle. He calls me Spike-san, and I call him Tada-san. Everybody loves him.”
“他是纽约爵士乐圈子里那种兢兢业业的钢琴手，”钢琴家斯派克·威尔纳(Spike Wilner)说，他拥有并经营着两家位于市中心的俱乐部Smalls和Mezzrow。“他努力工作，努力训练，但并不高调。但他是个很有品味的钢琴家，很优雅。也是个可爱的男人，非常温柔。他叫我斯派克桑，我叫他雅桑。每个人都喜欢他。”
He got work playing with Jimmy Cobb, who played drums on Miles Davis’s album “Kind of Blue,” which is like being second from the end at Mount Rushmore. This led to a two-year stint with the trumpeter Roy Hargrove, a phenom closer to Mr. Unno’s generation.
他找到了和吉米·科布(Jimmy Cobb)一起演奏的工作，后者曾在迈尔斯·戴维斯(Miles Davis)的专辑《Kind of Blue》中担任鼓手，这就像是跻身于拉什莫尔山总统雕像之列。这让他在小号手罗伊·哈格罗夫(Roy Hargrove)手下工作了两年，哈格罗夫是一个与海野雅威那一代更接近的杰出人物。
“That was a historical moment, because Roy never hired an Asian guy before me,” Mr. Unno said with obvious pride. Mr. Hargrove died of cardiac arrest brought on by kidney disease two years ago, at age 49. Mr. Unno was his last regular pianist. “He gave me so much love and culture, history,” Mr. Unno said. “I feel I have a responsibility for what I learned from him. I need to make it my own way, through my music.”
“那是一个历史性的时刻，因为罗伊在我之前从未聘用过亚洲人，”海野雅威带着明显的自豪说。哈格罗夫两年前死于肾病引起的心脏骤停，享年49岁。海野是他最后一位固定钢琴手。“他给了我那么多的爱、文化和历史，”海野说。“我觉得我对从他身上学到的东西负有责任。我需要用我自己的方式、通过我的音乐来成功。”
Mr. Unno was always keenly aware of the racial dynamic of jazz, that he was working in a music genre developed by African-Americans, said his friend Jerome Jennings, a drummer and jazz educator who met him back in Japan.
他的朋友杰罗姆·詹宁斯(Jerome Jennings)说，海野一直敏锐地意识到爵士乐的种族动力，以及他所从事的是一种由非裔美国人发展起来的音乐类型。詹宁斯是一名鼓手和爵士乐教育家，在日本与海野相识。
“He was always asking questions to get a better understanding of the culture,” Mr. Jennings said. “There’s a song lyric, ‘You can keep your Dixie/Drop me off in Harlem.’ Tada asked me, ‘What does Dixie mean?’ He was totally open to ingesting the culture and understanding it by any means. He just soaked it up. Living in Harlem was part of that. He understood it was where all those great musicians lived. He knew the importance.”
“他总是问一些问题，以便更好地了解爵士文化，”詹宁斯说。“有一首歌的歌词是这样的，‘你的迪克西我没兴趣/让我在哈莱姆下车’。海野问我，‘迪克西是什么意思？’他完全愿意接受这种文化，也愿意以任何方式理解它。他完全吸收这些东西。生活在哈莱姆区就是其中的一部分。他知道那是所有伟大的音乐家居住的地方。他知道这件事的重要性。”
By 2020, most of what he had envisioned when he left Tokyo for New York had come his way. He had peers, recognition and music. In June he and his wife had their first child, a son.
到2020年，他离开东京去纽约时设想的大部分事情都实现了。他有同事、知名度和音乐。今年6月，他和妻子有了他们的第一个孩子，一个儿子。
“He was so happy,” Mr. Wilner said. “Of course, it puts a lot of pressure on him to keep working, keep things coming in. But he’s very excited.”
“他很高兴，”威尔纳说。“当然，这给他施加了很大的压力，迫使他继续工作、保证收入。但他非常兴奋。”
The racial epithet
种族歧视的绰号
As the attack went on, Mr. Unno said he was saved by a woman who called for an ambulance, which took him to Harlem Hospital Center. He was in shock from the beating and from the unwillingness of bystanders to step in. Nothing like this had ever happened to him before. He could not move his arm, and would have to return for surgery. At home, he said, he felt like his wife had “two babies to take care of.”
海野说，随着袭击一直持续，一个女人叫了救护车，救了他。救护车把他送到了哈莱姆医院中心(Harlem Hospital Center)。他被殴打和旁观者不愿介入的态度吓坏了。他以前从来没有遇到过这样的事。他的手臂不能移动，需要重回医院再做手术。他说，在家里，他感觉自己的妻子有“两个孩子要照顾”。
On Oct. 3, Mr. Jennings created a GoFundMe campaign to raise money for medical bills and other expenses. Since the start of the pandemic in March, Mr. Unno, like other musicians, had been unable to earn money by performing. Now his downtime was indefinite, with a baby at home and bills piling up.
10月3日，詹宁斯发起了GoFundMe活动，为海野的医疗账单和其他费用筹款。自3月份疫情爆发以来，海野和其他音乐家一样，无法通过表演赚钱。现在，他无限期停工，家里还有个孩子，账单堆积如山。
The GoFundMe campaign, which made no mention of any racial remarks made by the attackers, surpassed its modest goal of $25,000 on the first day. The money kept coming in, with posts on social media spreading the word and wishing Mr. Unno a full recovery.
GoFundMe的筹款活动没有提到袭击者的任何种族言论，但在第一天就超过了本就定的不高的2.5万美元目标。钱不断流入，社交媒体上的帖子传播着这个消息，并祝愿海野完全康复。
Then on Oct. 6, the Japanese news outlet Asahi Shimbun quoted Mr. Unno saying that one of the attackers had used the word “Chinese” during the attack. Other outlets in Asia and the United States picked up the story, emphasizing the slur. “Japanese Musician Beaten Up in New York for Being ‘Chinese,’” ran the headline in Japan Today. Many noted that crimes against Asian-Americans have risen since the start of the pandemic, which Donald Trump has repeatedly blamed on China.
然后，10月6日，日本新闻出版物《朝日新闻》引用海野雅威的话说，其中一名袭击者在伤人过程中使用了“中国人”这个词。其他亚洲和美国媒体也发现了这个故事，并强调了其中的歧视。“日本音乐家在纽约被认成‘中国人’遭殴打”登上《今日日本》的头条。许多报道注意到，自大流行开始以来，针对亚裔美国人的犯罪激增——唐纳德·特朗普曾反复将疫情怪罪于中国。
The tenor of social media posts changed. Now it was a story about racism, about “white thugs” inspired by Mr. Trump in one post, or, in a Twitter post soon after, about “racist blacks in Harlem” who “get away with racial slurs and violence.”
社交媒体贴文的氛围变了。现在，它成了一个有关种族歧视的故事。在一条推文中，它和受到特朗普鼓舞的“白人暴徒”有关，在另一条即将发布的推文中，又和“住在哈姆莱区的黑人种族主义者”有关，这些使用“歧视语和暴力的人得以逍遥法外”。
As a window on racial violence rather than a random assault, social media posts spread beyond jazz circles. Grace Meng, a congresswoman representing part of Queens, wrote that “Hate — against AAPIs and against any community — has no place in New York,” using the abbreviation for Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders. Any uncertainty about the attackers’ motives seemed to evaporate.
作为种族主义暴力而不是一场随机袭击的缩影，相关社交媒体贴文的传播范围超出了爵士圈。代表部分皇后区的国会议员孟昭文(Grace Meng)写道，“仇恨——针对AAPI或任何群体的——在纽约都不能被接受的。”AAPI指的是亚裔美国人和太平洋岛民(Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders)。关于袭击者意图的所有不确定性似乎烟消云散。
Mr. Unno received an outpouring of messages from Japanese Americans who recounted their own experiences with racism. He was astonished by their number. As he read the messages, he said, “My pain was their pain.”
海野雅威收到不断涌现的来自日裔美国人的消息，讲述了他们遭到种族歧视的经历。他对这个数字感到震惊。当他阅读这些消息的时候，他说，“我的痛苦就是他们的痛苦。”
But the motives behind a seemingly senseless crime can be hard to know with certainty.
但是，一桩看起来毫无意义的犯罪背后的动机很难被确知。
The police have found no indication that the group attacked Mr. Unno because of his race, and have not classified the attack as a bias crime. Mr. Unno said the attack was a “blur,” but that he was sure he had heard the slur. There was no evidence that Mr. Trump’s influence had a role in the attack.
警察没有找到那群人袭击海野雅威是因为他的种族的任何迹象，也没有将这桩袭击列为偏见犯罪。海野雅威说，他对那次袭击的记忆已经“模糊”，但他确定自己听到了歧视的声音。没有证据表明特朗普的影响力与这场袭击有关。
An officer from the police department’s Asian Hate Crime Task Force, which formed in August because of the rise in violence, interviewed Mr. Unno but did not consider the attack to be motivated by race.
一名来自警察部门亚裔仇恨犯罪专案组的官员访问了海野雅威，但他并不认为这次袭击是由种族问题所引发。该小组因暴力案件频发在今年8月成立。
Mr. Jennings cautioned against calling it a hate crime without more evidence. The attackers, he said, were young people in a time of heightened stress and anger. “I think some of the papers are spinning a bit,” he said.
在没有更多证据的情况下，詹宁斯对将其称为仇恨犯罪表示谨慎。他说，这些袭击者都是年轻人，且正处于一个压力和愤怒倍增的时期，“我认为有些报纸有点扭曲，”他说。
The GoFundMe campaign recently passed $165,000.
GoFundMe活动的筹款最近已经超过16.5万美元。
Mr. Unno said he still needed “very strong painkillers” to get through the day. He is unable to play piano or hold his son, and does not know how much function he will regain. Even as he worries about his physical recovery, he fears that recovering from the emotional trauma may be even more difficult. Since the attack he has not left the apartment except for medical treatments because he is afraid. He does not think he could recognize the attackers, because he lost his glasses with the first blows.
海野雅威说，他仍然需要“效力很强的止痛药”来熬过白天。他无法再弹钢琴，不能再抱他的儿子，也不知道自己能恢复多少机能。而在对身体恢复情况感到担心的同时，他更害怕从心理创伤中走出来会更难。自受到袭击以来，除了去接受治疗，他因为感到害怕，从未离开过公寓。他觉得自己认不出袭击者，因为他的眼镜在第一拳时已经被打飞。
Until the attack, he had never experienced racism in New York, he said, and it shook him. He had come to the city to mix with people not like him, and now he was suffering for this difference.
在这次袭击前，他从未在纽约感受过种族歧视，他说，这让他感到震惊。为了与和他不一样的人生活在一起，他来到这座城市，但如今，他正是因为这种差异而受伤。
He said he was considering leaving the city that once drew him like the sun, possibly returning to Japan. “My wife and I worry about raising kids here, especially after this happened,” he said.
他说，他正在考虑离开这座曾经像太阳一样吸引他的城市，也许会回日本。“我和妻子都对在这里抚养孩子感到担忧，尤其是发生了这样的事之后，”他说。
The messages from other Asian-Americans talking about their own ordeals, he said, brought home that “there isn’t a major movement like Black Lives Matter that creates a space for Asians to talk about these issues.”
他说，从其他亚裔美国人那里收到的谈论他们自己痛苦经历的消息让他深刻意识到，“还没有一个像‘黑人的命也是命’(Black Lives Matater)一样的重要运动，为亚裔谈论这些问题创造一个环境。”
That needed to change, he said. “The Asian community is not so tight. Asian people need to stand up and take action.”
这一点需要改变，他说。“亚裔社群并不十分紧密。亚裔需要站起来并且采取行动。”
John Leland是城市版面记者，自2000年加入时报。他最新出版的书《Happiness Is a Choice You Make: Lessons From a Year Among the Oldest Old》基于时报系列报道写成。
翻译：杜然、Jingyi Ma、Yizi
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