Start with the name, because it explains the building. Cheng means a city wall and huang means the dry moat1 outside it. Put them together and you have the god who guards a walled city. Every walled city in imperial China had one, and the god was thought of as an official: he had a rank, a jurisdiction and a desk, and people brought him the kind of complaint they would otherwise take to the magistrate.
先从名字讲起，因为名字把这座建筑解释清楚了。城是城墙，隍是城墙外面那道干壕。两个字合起来，就是守护一座有城墙的城市的神。中国古代每座有城墙的城市都有一位，人们把这位神当官看待，他有品级、有辖区、有公案，百姓拿到他面前的，正是那些本该递到县衙去的状子。
This temple is unusual because it holds three of them. The first is Huo Guang, a general of the Han dynasty. The second is Qin Yubo, a Ming official2 from this area who refused to serve the new emperor until he was ordered three times, and who was made city god after his death. The third is Chen Huacheng, a Qing commander who died in 1842 defending the Wusong forts against the British fleet. Shanghai people added him because they wanted a protector who had actually defended the place.
这座庙特别之处在于供了三位。第一位是霍光，汉代的将军。第二位是秦裕伯，本地出身的明代官员，新朝三次下诏他才出仕，死后被封为本城城隍。第三位是陈化成，清军将领，1842 年在吴淞炮台抵御英国舰队时阵亡。上海人把他添进来，是因为想要一位真的守过这地方的保护神。
Now let me separate three things that visitors always merge. This building is the temple, and it is Taoist3. Behind it, through a separate entrance, is Yu Garden, a private Ming garden that has nothing to do with the temple except that it is next door. Around both of them is the bazaar, which is neither; it grew up because a busy temple attracts stalls, and the stalls became shops, and the shops became the bazaar4 you are standing in.
现在把游客总是混在一起的三样东西分开。这幢是庙，属道教。它后面，另有一个入口，是豫园，明代的私家园林，除了紧挨着以外跟庙没有关系。围着这两处的是商城，两样都不是；它是因为香火旺的庙会招来摊贩，摊贩变成店铺，店铺变成你现在站着的这片市集。
The bazaar looks old and is mostly not; the buildings are twentieth century imitations of Ming and Qing style, which does not make them bad, only younger than they look. Two things here are genuinely worth your time. Inside the temple, look at the plaques5 hung by people whose prayers were answered, some of them recent. And in the bazaar, the Nanxiang shop by the Nine-Zigzag Bridge is where the soup dumpling became famous. The queue is long. Take the takeaway window, not the dining room, if you are short of time. We meet at the bridge in ninety minutes.
这片商城看着老，多半不是；房子是二十世纪仿明清做的，这并不使它们变差，只是比看上去年轻。这里真正值得花时间的有两样。庙里，看看那些还愿的人挂上去的匾额，有些是近年的。商城里，九曲桥边那家南翔馒头店，小笼就是从那里出的名。队很长。时间紧的话走外卖窗口，别进堂吃。九十分钟后我们在桥头集合。