所谓“老克腊”指的是某一类风流人物，尤以五十和六十年代盛行。
"LAO KE-LA" REFERS to a specific breed of debonair figures active during the fifties and sixties.
在那全新的社会风貌中，他们保持着上海的旧时尚，以固守为激进。
These were the keepers of old-style Shanghai fashion in the new society, at a time when holding on to the past was considered radical.
“克腊”这词其实来自英语“colour”，表示着那个殖民地文化的时代特征。
The term probably originated with the English word "old colour," or perhaps "old classic," a remnant of the colonial culture of Shanghai in the day of the treaty ports.
英语这种外来语后来打散在这城市的民间口语中，内中的含义也是打散了重来，随着时间的演进，意思也越来越远。
As the lingo of the city incorporated bits and pieces of foreign languages, words became dismembered and, with the passage of time, grew increasingly distant from their original meanings.
像“老克腊”这种人，到八十年代，几乎绝迹，有那么三个五个的，也都上了年纪，面目有些蜕变，人们也渐渐把这个名字给忘了似的。
By the eighties, people who fell into the category of "Old Colour" were virtually extinct.
The surviving handful were all fairly advanced in age, their erstwhile shape completely transformed; eventually even the term itself was forgotten.
但很奇怪的，到了八十年代中叶，于无声处地，又悄悄地生长起一代年轻的老克腊，他们要比旧时代的老克腊更甘于寂寞，面目上也比较随和，不作哗众取宠之势。
But then something odd happened.
In the mid eighties, a new generation of Old Colours emerged quietly upon the scene.
Lacking their predecessors' craving for notoriety, they were not compelled to behave ostentatiously and appeared more easygoing.
在熙来攘往的人群中，人们甚至难以辨别他们的身影，到哪里才能找到他们呢？
It was not even easy to spot them in the crowd.
Where might one go to find such a specimen?
人们都在忙着置办音响的时候，那个在听老唱片的；人们时兴“尼康”“美能达”电脑调焦照相机的时候，那个在摆弄“罗莱克斯”一二零的；手上戴机械表，喝小壶煮咖啡，用剃须膏刮脸，玩老式幻灯机，穿船形牛皮鞋的，千真万确，就是他。
These Old Colours—when everyone was out buying a stereo, they were listening to old phonographs.
When Nikon and Minolta cameras equipped with auto-focus features were all the rage, they were busy fiddling with their vintage Rolleiflex 120s.
They sported wind-up watches, drank coffee brewed in small pots, shaved with old-fashioned razor blades and shaving cream, took great delight in antique slide projectors, and wore large leather shoes shaped like boats.
When you saw these markings, you could be certain that you had found one.
找到他，再将眼光从他身上移开，去看目下的时尚，不由看出这时尚的粗陋鄙俗。
Then, having found one, you couldn't help but notice just how crude and boorish the so-called fashionable were in comparison.
一窝蜂上的，都来不及精雕细刻。
The rush to be trendy left no time for elegance or refinement.
又像有人在背后追赶，一浪一浪接替不暇。
One was driven about by a succession of waves.
一个多和一个快，于是不得不偷工减料，粗制滥造，然后破罐破摔。
Speed and quantity were all that mattered, and the result was that corners were cut and things got done in a slipshod manner and had eventually to be discarded.
只要看那服装店就知道了，墙上，货架上，柜台里，还有门口摊子上挂着大甩卖牌子的，一代流行来不及卖完，后一代后两代已经来了，不甩卖又怎么办？
You could tell this by looking at the clothing shops where advertisements for markdowns were posted all over the walls, shelves, and counters—even the stalls outside.
Before the last season's clothes had sold out, they were two steps behind the latest fashion, which had already arrived.
What choice was there but to run constant sales and markdowns?
“老克腊”是这粗糙时尚中的一点精细所在。
In this crude and uncultured fashion world, the "Old Colours" were the stewards in charge of safekeeping refinement.
他们是真讲究，虽不作什么宣言，也不论什么理，却是脚踏实地，一步一个脚印，自己做，让别人说。
They were the only ones paying attention to the things that mattered; though they never advertised themselves or talked about what they were doing, they had their feet firmly planted on the ground.
They took things one step at a time; men of action, they let others do the talking.
他们甚至也没有名字，叫他们“老克腊”只是一两个过来人的发明，也流传不开。
They didn't even have a name.
The term "Old Colour" was given to them by the few who remembered the old days, but it never gained wide circulation.
另有少数人，将他们归到西方的“雅皮士”里， 也是难以传播。
A small minority called them Western-style "Yuppies," but that never caught on either.
因此，他们无名无姓的，默默耕耘着自己的一方田地。
And so they remained nameless, silently tilling their little plot of land.
其实，我们是可以把他们叫做“怀旧”这两个字的，虽然他们都是新人，无旧可念，可他们去过外滩呀，摆渡到江心再蓦然回首，便看见那屏障般的乔治式建筑，还有歌特式的尖顶钟塔，窗洞里全是森严的注视，全是穿越时间隧道的。
We could, if we chose, refer to them as nostalgic "lovers of the past," although they were all young and didn't have a past to love per se.
But they had all been to the Bund and seen, riding on the ferry, what it looked like from out on the water: there they saw the ramparts formed by the Georgian buildings, the Gothic bell tower with its pointed steeple, and the dark forbidding windows staring back at them—all of which sent them down the tunnel of time.
他们还爬上过楼顶平台，在那里放鸽子或者放风筝，展目便是屋顶的海洋，有几幢耸起的，是像帆一样，也是越过时间的激流。
They had also climbed up to the rooftops to release pigeons and fly kites, and there, looking out over the sea of rooftops, a few of which jutted out like sails, felt as if they were navigating against the currents of time.
再有那山墙上的爬墙虎，隔壁洋房里的钢琴声，都是怀旧的养料。
Besides these, the ivy crawling up the sides of the walls and the sounds of someone playing the piano in the Western-style house next door also came to feed their nostalgia.
王琦瑶认识的便是其中一个，今年二十六岁。
Wang Qiyao knew one of these "Old Colours." He was twenty-six years old, so calling him an "Old Colour" was a bit ironic, a way of emphasizing his youth.
人们叫他“老克腊”，是带点反讽的意思，指的是他的小。
Wang Qiyao knew one of these "Old Colours." He was twenty-six years old, so calling him an "Old Colour" was a bit ironic, a way of emphasizing his youth.
他在一所中学做体育教师，平时总穿一身运动衣裤，头发是板刷式的那种。
A gym teacher at a local middle school, he normally dressed in sweatpants, and his hair looked like the bristle end of a scrub brush.