If He Walks and Talks Like a Monk, but Has His Hand Out ...
In Times Square, amid the dozens of Elmos, Mickey Mouses and superheroes who work the crowds for loose bills, new costumed characters have come to seek their fortunes.在时报广场，许多装扮成艾蒙(Elmo)、米老鼠(Mickey Mouse)和超级英雄的人为络绎不绝的游客提供服务，从而赚取一些小钱。如今，一批全新扮相的角色现身其中，也来寻找发财的机会。
They are mostly men of Chinese descent, with shaved heads, beatific smiles and flowing robes of orange, but sometimes brown or gray. They follow a similar script: Offering wishes of peace and a shiny amulet, they solicit donations from passers-by, often reinforcing their pitch by showing a picture of a temple for which the money seems to be intended. Then they open a notebook filled with the names of previous donors and the amounts given.
这些人大多是华裔男性，他们剃着光头，笑容慈祥，一身宽松的橙色长袍，也有人穿棕色或灰色长袍。他们的做法基本雷同：提供祝福或光闪闪的护身符，向路人索要捐赠，为了增加说服力，他们通常会展示一张寺庙的照片，看起来，他们要到的钱会用在这座寺庙上。然后，他们会打开一个笔记本，上面写满了之前的捐赠者和捐款数额。
The men appear to be Buddhist monks; a smaller number of similarly dressed women say they are Taoist nuns.
这些男子似乎是佛教僧侣；一些人数较少但装扮相似的女性则自称是道姑。
No one seems to know who they really are or where they come from. The police have taken no official stance, stepping in only when the monks become aggressive. Various Buddhists have confronted the men, asking about their affiliation or quizzing them about the religion’s precepts. The men remain silent or simply walk away.
似乎没人知道他们究竟是谁，来自哪里。警方没有采取行动，只在这些僧人变得咄咄逼人的时候，他们才会介入。许多佛教徒曾和这些男子对质，询问他们属于哪个教派，或让他们回答佛教的戒律。这些男子会保持沉默，或者转身离开。
They have become ubiquitous — so much so that the Naked Cowboy, the Times Square performer whose real name is Robert Burck, now simply refers to them as “co-workers.”
他们已经无处不在——以至于时报广场上的表演者赤裸牛仔(Naked Cowboy)——原名罗伯特·布尔克(Robert Burk)——现在干脆用“同事”指代他们。
“They’re littered all over,” he said.
“他们真是到处都是，”他说。
Even in New York, where people soliciting money are practically a tourist attraction, these monks tend to stand out, both for their attire and for their sense of entitlement. They offer the amulet and, in some cases, a bracelet; if they are not satisfied with the donation, they unabashedly demand $20 or more.
在纽约，乞丐事实上已经成了一景，但即便如此，这些和尚也格外引人注目，这既是因为他们的装扮，也是因为他们的那种理所当然的感觉。他们为人们提供护身符，有时是手链；如果对钱数不满意，他们会厚颜索要20美元（约合120元人民币），甚至更多。
This year, the police have arrested at least nine people who have presented themselves as monks, mostly on charges of aggressive begging or unlicensed vending.
今年，警方已经逮捕了至少九个和尚装扮的人，多数的罪名是强行乞讨或无照推销。
But merely begging in the streets is not against the law. The police have largely left these men alone, to the consternation of Buddhist leaders in New York’s Chinese neighborhoods, who portray them as nothing more than beggars who undermine Buddhists’ credibility.
不过，仅仅是在街上乞讨并不构成违法。警方基本上没去找这些男子的麻烦，这让纽约华人社区的佛教领袖感到担忧。他们把这些男子描述成破坏佛教公信力的乞丐。
“They are damaging the reputation of real monks and damaging the reputation of Buddhists in America,” said Shi Ruifa, a monk in Brooklyn who is president of a confederation of nearly 50 temples.
“他们正在破坏真正僧人的声誉，以及美国的佛教徒的声誉，”布鲁克林的僧人石瑞发（音）说。他是一个约50座寺庙组成的联合会的主席。
Similarly attired men have attracted scrutiny around the world. They are a familiar presence in Australia, where the authorities heralded their reappearance in Sydney with a press statement, “Bogus Buddhists Are Back.” They have also been seen in Canada and New Zealand. In Hong Kong, their presence has merited a Facebook page, Fake Monks in Hong Kong. Overall, there have been few arrests, though the authorities in China recently arrested seven men dressed as Shaolin Temple monks on charges of swindling $26,000 from tourists.
装扮成僧人的男子已经在世界各地引发了严密审视。他们在澳大利亚也常常可见。当局甚至在一份新闻稿中通报了他们在悉尼卷土重来的消息，题目是《假和尚回来了》。这些人还出现在了加拿大和新西兰。在香港，有一个关于他们的Facebook页面，叫做“香港的假和尚”。总体上看，没有几个人被拘捕，不过，中国当局最近逮捕了七名打扮成少林寺僧人的男子，罪名是从游客那里诈骗了2.6万美元。
In Toronto, the police received reports a year ago of monks asking for money and threatening to put a hex on those who did not donate, according to Constable Victor Kwong, a spokesman for the Toronto Police Service.
多伦多警队的发言人维克多·邝(Victor Kwong)警官说，一年前在多伦多，警方曾收到多个报警称，一些僧人强行要钱，并威胁让不捐钱的人遭受厄运。
Toronto, like New York, prohibits aggressive panhandling. Although “people thought they were being duped,” Constable Kwong noted, “nothing is illegal about walking around dressed like a monk.” No arrests were made.
与纽约一样，多伦多也禁止强行乞讨。尽管“人们认为自己受到了愚弄，”但邝警官指出，“穿的像和尚一样在大街上走没有触犯任何法律。”因此，没有人被逮捕。
In New York, the men have inspired a Fake Monks in New York City page on Facebook, documenting its subjects’ whereabouts, from Central Park to the city’s Chinese neighborhoods, where local monks have mostly driven them away. Last year, Mr. Shi confronted a man in orange robes in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, and quizzed him on the Five Precepts of Buddhism.
在纽约，这些男子催生了Facebook上一个名为“纽约市假和尚”的页面，这个主页记录着假和尚的位置，包括从中央公园到纽约市华人社区的各个区域。在华人社区，那里的僧人已经基本上赶走了假和尚。去年，石瑞发在布鲁克林的日落公园质问一名穿橙色长袍的男子，要求他回答佛教的五戒。
The man “didn’t know even one,” he said.
他说，这名男子连一个都不知道。
In another exchange, Harry Leong, a practicing Buddhist for 25 years, said he respectfully asked a robed man in Times Square for his religious name and temple.
信佛25年的佛教徒哈里·莱昂(Harry Leong)说，在时报广场，他曾经恭敬地询问一个穿僧袍的人，法号是什么，来自哪家寺院。
“He did not give me any direct answer, even after I repeated the same questions to him several times,” Mr. Leong recalled. “I then asked him if he was a fraud, and he ran away from me.”
“他没有给我任何直接的回答，虽然我把问题重复了好几遍，”莱昂回忆说。“然后我问他是不是骗子，他就跑了。”
In interviews, the robed men were evasive about where they were from and generally refused to answer any questions about their background, temple or training. They tended to speak little English, favoring Mandarin, with accents hinting of provinces all across China.
在采访中，当被问及来自哪里时，这些穿着僧袍的男人往往闪烁其词，而且他们通常拒绝回答有关自己背景、寺庙或师承的任何问题。这些人往往能说一点英语，喜欢说普通话，从口音来听，他们来自中国各地。
One woman dressed as a nun said her temple was in Taiwan, but declined to give specifics.
一个尼姑穿着的女人说，她的寺庙在台湾，但拒绝透露具体细节。
“I cannot tell you where my temple is,” answered another woman dressed as a nun, who said her family name was Lin and that people called her Little Lin. “I won’t tell you. But it’s not that I don’t have a temple.” At another point, she grabbed at the sleeves of her robe and said, “If I didn’t have a temple, why would I be dressed like this?”
“我不能告诉你是哪所寺庙，”另一个穿着尼姑服饰的女人说；她说自己俗家姓林，大家叫她小林。“我不会告诉你。但是那并不是说我没有寺庙。”后来，她抓着自己长袍的衣袖说：“如果我没有寺庙，我怎么会穿成这样？”
Another man dressed as a monk, eating a hot dog while three topless women and a Spider-Man nearby posed for pictures with tourists, defended his actions. “I’m not a terrorist,” he said in Mandarin. “I’m not an outlaw, I’m not a thief.”
另一名穿着僧人服饰的男子，正吃着一个热狗，三名无上装女子和一个打扮成蜘蛛侠的人就在附近跟游客合影留念；这个人为自己的行为辩护。“我不是恐怖分子，”他用普通话说。“我不是逃犯，也不是小偷。”
With that, he got up and began walking toward the subway, saying, “I’m going back to Flushing.”
说着，他站了起来，开始向地铁走去，说：“我要回法拉盛了。”
On another afternoon, a mustard-robed man, apparently finished with his solicitations for the day, headed to the restroom at Bryant Park, emerging minutes later in street clothes, his robe apparently packed in a leather bag.
另一天下午，一名穿着芥末色僧袍的男子，似乎结束了自己这一天的化缘活动，走进了莱恩特公园的洗手间；几分钟后，他穿着街头便装出现，僧袍显然是装在了他的皮包里。
He eventually boarded a No. 7 train to Flushing, Queens, which has a large Chinese population. There, he and another man bought a $12.99 jug of red wine and repaired to a flophouse that caters to recent immigrants.
他最终登上了前往皇后区法拉盛的7号列车，那个区域有很多中国人。到地方后，他和另一名男子买了一瓶12.99美元的红葡萄酒，进了一家接待新移民的廉价旅馆。
Begging is an important ritual among Buddhist monks: A begging bowl is one of the few possessions allowed, typically used to collect food.
乞讨是佛教僧侣的一个重要修行活动：僧侣允许拥有的物品很少，乞讨用的碗是其中之一，通常用来装食物。
“Aggressive begging is utterly unheard-of in the Buddhist tradition,” said Robert Buswell, director of the Center for Buddhist Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. The monks typically do not even acknowledge the offering.
“在佛教传统中，纠缠式乞讨完全是闻所未闻的，”加州大学洛杉矶分校(UCLA)佛学研究中心的主任罗伯特·巴斯韦尔(Robert Buswell)说。僧侣们通常甚至不会答谢布施。
“No thanks given, no or very little eye contact with the donor and certainly no active solicitation of donations, no requests for money and no selling of amulets or rosaries,” Professor Buswell added.
“僧侣不会道谢，和布施者也几乎不会有目光接触，他们肯定不会主动讨要布施，也不会索要钱财，不会出售护身符或念珠之类的东西，”巴斯韦尔教授说。
That was not the behavior of Wang Rongzeng, 64, who was charged with aggressive begging after a New York police officer observed him demanding cash in exchange for bracelets, according to records of a January court hearing. At the time, Mr. Wang told the judge that he intended to return to China in time for the Lunar New Year, then two weeks away. He was arrested again last month in a similar episode.
64岁的汪容增（音）并不是这样做的，纽约警察看到他向人们索要现金来换取手串，于是他被指控进行纠缠性乞讨，今年1月的一份庭审记录显示。当时汪容增告诉法官，他打算回中国过春节，而春节就在两周之后。而上个月，他再次因类似的行为被逮捕。
On a recent Saturday, two women dressed in gray robes and beige baseball caps successfully solicited donations along Fifth Avenue near Herald Square in Manhattan. Ali Sawab, 47, in town on business, had just left a Burger King when one of the women offered him a shiny amulet card with the words “Work Smoothly, Lifetime Peace” on one side and the likeness of Guanyin, the Bodhisattva of Compassion, on the other.
不久前的一个周六，两名身着灰色长袍，戴着米色棒球帽的女子，在曼哈顿先驱广场附近的第五大道沿路化缘，收获颇丰。47岁的阿里·萨瓦博(Ali Sawab)出差来到这里，刚刚离开一家汉堡王，其中一名女子就给了他一张闪亮的护身符卡片，卡上一面是“工作顺利，一生平安”的字样，另一面是观音菩萨的图像。
She then gently slipped a bracelet onto Mr. Sawab’s wrist. “For luck,” she repeated as she caressed his arm. But after he gave her a dollar, the woman took back the amulet card.
然后，她轻轻把一个手串套上萨瓦博的手腕。“这能带来好运，”她一边抚摸着他的胳膊一边说。但在他给了一美元后，她拿回了护身符卡片。
Mr. Sawab said he assumed the women were inauthentic. “This is New York,” he said. “People just don’t go around touching each other.”
萨瓦博说，他认为这女人是假冒的尼姑。“这是纽约，”他说。“人们不会随便去摸对方。”
And now it can be difficult for authentic monks to walk around in Midtown without drawing negative attention.
现在，真正的僧侣在中城地区走动时，很容易招来负面的关注。
Puttar Chansomboon, a 32-year-old monk from Thailand, had his recent sightseeing trip in Times Square interrupted by a man hawking tickets for a bus tour. The man, seeing Mr. Chansomboon dressed in an intricately wrapped yellow robe, did not ask whether he was interested in the bus tour.
普塔·西摩普(Puttar Chansomboon)是一名32岁的泰国僧人，他最近在纽约时报广场(Times Square)观光，被一名兜售观光巴士车票的男子打断了。卖票男子看见西摩普身着一件穿法复杂的黄色僧袍，没有问他是否有兴趣上观光巴士。
As Mr. Chansomboon recalled, “The guy was asking, ‘Are you the same monks who are smoking and begging?’ ”
西摩普回忆道，“那人问，‘你跟那些又吸烟、又讨钱的和尚是一伙的吗？’”
Emily S. Rueb contributed reporting.
Emily S. Rueb对本文有报道贡献。
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