网易教育讯 据美国侨报网编译报道，数千北京居民每天在优山美地（Yosemite）醒来；大群居民已搬入棕榈泉（Palm Springs），更别说还在修建的橙县（Orange County）和银湖（Silver Lake）；他们还去UCLA（这个名称亦是加州大学洛杉矶分校的简称，译者注）衣服店购物，还去合利屋（英语名：Hollywood）随便吃点东西。别以为他们到了加州，其实这些居民并没有离开北京。
据《洛杉矶时报》（LA Times）21日报道，当朱莉•马基宁（Julie Makinen）1年前来到中国时，她甚至有点担心在一个不太熟悉，各地区名字都不太一样的国家会有点想念自己的家乡加州。然而，不久她发现连北京也难以逃离加州的影响：几乎在每一处似乎都会有一些家的影子，至少是一些奇怪联系。
在香港，居民可以在封闭社区比佛利山庄（Beverly Hills）购买一处别墅，这个社区的设施非常便利，包括专门为学走器设计的走道，室内滑雪道和宠物医院。香港兰桂坊街区一栋27层建筑名叫加州塔（California Tower），里面有众多餐馆和酒吧。
重庆一家宾馆名为加州旅馆（California Inn）；四川的家长们把子女送往加州阳光幼儿园（California Sunshine kindergarten），而杭州的居民可以去加州阳光商场（California Sunshine mall）购物。
北京市区向北一个小时的车程，就可以看见名为橙县的住宅项目。这个项目由新港滩（Newport Beach）设计师设计，并从美国进口瓷砖和装修设备。
上海品牌咨询公司狼标（Labbrand）策略总监徐菲菲（Feifei Xu，音译）对此表示，中国人对加州明媚的阳光、海滩以及悠闲的生活方式印象深刻，这些印象都强调了幸福、开心和享受。
北京当然也有曼哈顿主题的公寓楼：中央公园（Central Park）、中央公园广场（Central Park Plaza）、SOHO等。然而加州的地名则更多用来命名商店、宾馆、住宅群和由加州引发灵感的各种业务。
中国国家工商行政管理总局（CSAIC）商标局（Trademark Office）数据显示，从衣服制造商到灯具制造商，全中国有271家公司的名字中含“加利福尼亚”这个词语，相比之下，只有63家含有“纽约”这个单词。
当然，加州和中国的联系可以追溯到19世纪的淘金时代，那个时候成千上万中国劳工远渡重洋到加州参与矿山、农场和铁路工作，遭遇制度化的歧视。不过当代文化已将那痛苦回忆的一页翻过。
徐菲菲提到，老鹰乐队（Eagles）的歌曲《加州旅馆》（Hotel California）和《加州之梦》（California Dreamin）对中国年轻人影响很大。今年一波又一波中国游客、学生和投资者到加州，带着无数回忆回到中国。例如，20世纪80年代美籍华人李北祺先生回到中国，创办了美国加州牛肉面大王（California Beef Noodle King U.S.A.）。随后众多模范者出现了，带有加州字眼餐馆的出现也带来了一些狂热的崇拜。
连洛杉矶市长艾瑞克•贾西堤（Eric Garcetti）都说：“现在，洛杉矶品牌在中国成为旅馆等商业入口的品牌。”
在北京开设餐厅的南加州居民迈克尔•蔡（Michael Tsai，音译）说，自己的中国顾客对洛杉矶印象是：天气温暖、浪漫、时髦而又悠闲的田园之地。“我们一直利用中国人的印象炒热我们的生意。我们可以从音乐、食物和服务下手，让顾客觉得自己置身洛杉矶，起码让他们暂时远离胡同来到洛县。我想这确实吸引了很多顾客。”
就连“UCLA”也在中国被视为洛杉矶生活方式的一种体现。这个衣服品牌以出售卡其裤和马球衫（Polo shirts）为主。这可不是盗用行为，加州大学洛杉矶分校确实容许一家中国合伙人使用自己学校的名字，这个衣服品牌在全国有20多家分店。
In China, the California name and connection are golden
Thousands of Beijingers wake up every day in Yosemite. Hordes more have moved to Palm Springs, not to mention Orange County and Silver Lake. They shop at UCLA and go to Hollywood for a bite to eat.
All without leaving the Chinese capital.
When I first moved to China about a year ago, I fretted a tad about missing the Golden State and living in a country where everything had unfamiliar names. Instead, I've found it hard to escape California's good vibrations: There seems to be a little slice of home — or at least some weird or wacky reference to it — almost everywhere you turn.
In Hong Kong, you can buy a villa in the Beverly Hills, a gated community whose amenities — a go-cart race track, indoor ski slope and pet hotel — appear aimed at those with 90210-type tastes and wallets. A new 27-story building in the territory's Lan Kwai Fong district, packed with restaurants and bars, is called the California Tower.
Chongqing has a California Inn, and you can check into a Hotel California of one stripe or another in cities across the country (and hopefully, at some point, leave). Parents in Sichuan send tots to the California Sunshine kindergarten, while Hangzhou shoppers can engage in retail therapy at the California Sunshine mall.
Orange County — an hour's drive north of downtown Beijing — is a housing development designed by, yes, a Newport Beach architect and built with imported American tiles and fixtures. But authenticity is hardly a prerequisite for allusion: Beijing's Silver Lake is a gated community with large, boxy houses and no hipsters, architectural pearls or reservoir. The capital's Yosemite subdivision, meanwhile, boasts a boulder out front that resembles Half Dome if you squint, but the homes are McMansion-style, not mini-Ahwahnees.
"California has a strong impression among Chinese for its sunshine, beach, and relaxed lifestyle, which highlights happiness, enjoyment and indulgence," said Feifei Xu, strategy director of Labbrand, a Shanghai-based branding consultancy.
Sure, Beijing also boasts Manhattan-minded apartment complexes: Central Park, Central Park Plaza, Soho and Park Avenue. Paris is also a popular locale to name-check.
But California does stick out for the sheer multitude of shops, hotels, housing complexes and other businesses that take its inspiration from the state.
A search of records at the Trademark Office of China's State Administration for Industry and Commerce found 271 companies — from clothing makers to lighting manufacturers — that have registered the word "California" as part of their name, compared with 63 that use "New York." Countless other businesses never bother to register trademarks.
Of course, California and China have a long-standing relationship that dates to the gold rush era of the 19th century, when Chinese laborers came across the Pacific to toil in mines as well as on farms and railroads and in the garment industry — and faced significant institutionalized discrimination. But contemporary culture has largely overwritten those hardships in the popular imagination.
Xu, the branding expert, noted that songs such as the Eagles' "Hotel California" and the Mamas and the Papas' "California Dreamin'" (included on the soundtrack for Wong Kar-wai's 1994 cult classic film, "Chungking Express") have exerted a powerful influence on younger Chinese. They trigger, she said, "feelings of escape, exile and … a dreaming land."
The Chinese tourists, students and investors who have gone to California in waves in recent years have returned home with visions that echo in myriad and unpredictable ways.
Take, for example, Li Beiqi, a Chinese immigrant who returned from California in the late 1980s and opened a string of eateries called California Beef Noodle King U.S.A.
host of imitators soon jumped on the bandwagon and nowadays, if you head to a train station or shopping center food court, you're almost bound to see one of Li's shops (now simply called Mr. Li), or a branch of an imitator with the words California Beef Noodle prominently featured. (To my California tongue, the taste is 100% China.)
Beef noodles, though, aren't the only "California" cuisine in China. There's a California Barbecue south of Tiananmen Square, and a place called California Aromatic Chicken Ltd. A chain of cafes called Hollywood offers up everything from waffles to teriyaki chicken, and for dessert there was (until recently) a shop known as Hollywood Squirrel Yogurt.
In February, Southern California natives Michael Tsai and Christian Jensen opened what many Angelenos might recognize as a more "real" L.A. restaurant in Beijing. Situated in a hutong, or historic alleyway, Palms L.A. serves Mexican-Korean fusion cuisine — think kimchi quesadillas — pioneered in Los Angeles by chefs such as Roy Choi. Cocktails include a blue-and-brown mix called "L.A. Water" and another dubbed "El Immigrante," made with yerba mate-infused vodka.
"The perception of California as a mythical place is really strong in the minds of Chinese compared to other places in the U.S.," said Tsai, citing L.A.'s weather, proximity to China, prestigious universities and large population of Chinese exchange students.
The duo initially thought of opening a hot-pot restaurant, but realized the city was already packed with them and they needed a more distinctive theme. L.A. food trucks came to mind, and Palms L.A. was born.
The restaurant has developed something of a cult following — Mayor Eric Garcetti and several City Council members paid a visit when they were in China in November.
"The L.A. brand is a marquee brand here in China right now," Garcetti said.
Tsai said he listens in on his Chinese customers' discussions of L.A. and how they view the city: a place with long, warm days, one that's romantic, idyllic and chic but laid-back.
"We've been able to draw on that to strengthen our business," he said. "We want to make people feel like they're in L.A., whether it's the music or the food or the service, or just the overall experience of stepping out of the hutong and into Los Angeles, I think it's really a draw for a lot of people."
Even UCLA has seen fit to capitalize on the L.A.-as-lifestyle ethos in China. Head to a mall and you might stumble upon a store called UCLA that resembles the Gap and peddles khakis and polo shirts.
It's not a rip-off. The university actually licenses its name to a Chinese partner, which has more than two dozen outlets across the country.
Cynthia Holmes, director of UCLA Trademarks & Licensing, explained that in markets such as China, "UCLA" signifies not just the university but also a whole host of positive attributes that makes the name work as an "aspirational" fashion brand with products far beyond Bruin T-shirts and caps.
esides China, the school has licensees in markets such as India, Australia, Japan, the Middle East and Europe, which sell UCLA-branded clothing in both stand-alone shops and department stores. Worldwide royalties bring in nearly $1 million in annual revenue, with China one of the largest markets.
"The Southern California location, the image that there's always sunshine, the adjacency to the Hollywood scene, Disneyland … 'UCLA' includes some of that imagery," Holmes said.
Add it up and all these signs of L.A. are enough, sometimes, to make a gal feel like home is not so far away after all.
Now if I could just get a Dodger Dog or a Philippe's French dip....
（Special correspondents Nicole Liu, Tommy Yang and Sean Silbert contributed to this report.）
本文来源：网易教育频道综合
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