原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.com 翻译：后羿A射日 转载请注明出处

原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处


Monday, September 16th: Peking to Suzhou.

9月16日，周一：北京到苏州。

Where are the roads?

路都去哪了?

Suzhou is a big city (pop. five million) 600 miles south of Peking on the eastern bulge of China, fifty miles west of Shanghai. We go there from Peking by gaotie, five hours and change.

苏州是一个大城市。位于中国东部隆起位置，北京以南600英里，上海以西50英里，大约有500万人口。从北京乘高铁五个小时就到苏州，然后再转车。

The interest of the place for us is that Rosie’s nephew Chiqian lives there. He is the only child of Rosie’s only sibling—her brother, who died of liver disease in 2007. Since Rosie’s parents are also dead, Chiqian is her closest living relative not older than she. A smart lad, aged thirty, still single, Chiqian trained as an architect and now works doing interior design for construction companies.

我们对苏州感兴趣是因为罗西的侄子迟前（音译）住在那里。他是罗西兄弟的独生子，她兄弟2007年死于肝病。罗西的父母也去世了，迟前是她在这个世界上最亲的亲人，迟前比她小。小伙子很聪明，30岁，单身。现在是建筑师，在一家建筑公司做室内设计。

Idly gazing out of the train window, I am struck by how few roads there are in the countryside we pass though. This is the flat agricultural land of east China, populated and farmed up at the Malthusian limit for millennia. China has been busy with massive road-building projects for thirty years. Yet as we zip through the terrain at 180 mph, whole minutes pass between us crossing one road and the next. To an American eye, it’s odd.

我懒洋洋地望着火车窗外，惊讶地发现高铁经过的乡村道路太少了。这里是中国东部平坦的农业土地，在马尔萨斯理论极限的土地上居住和耕种了几千年。30年来，中国一直在大规模地进行道路建设。然而，当我们以180英里每小时的速度快速经过这里时，两条路之间足足走了好几分钟。对于一个美国人来说，这很奇怪。

Staying at Chiang Kai-shek’s villa

住蒋介石住过的别墅

We are starting to get the notion that some nationwide directive went out that the Derbs should be spoiled rotten by everyone on this visit. Uncle and Aunt wouldn’t let us pay for anything—we almost got into fist-fights over it.

我们开始有这样的想法，全国范围内的指令已经发出，那就是不能让约翰·德比希尔（作者）在中国行中花一分钱。老姨和姨夫没有让我们发一分钱——我们还差点因此打起来。

Chiqian certainly got the directive. He has arranged for—and paid for—us to stay two nights at a special and very pricey hotel, the Garden. What’s special about it is, it was once a private estate belonging to Chiang Kai-shek. (Chiang was born about a hundred miles away in the next province.)

迟前肯定也收到了指令。他为我们安排并提前支付了两晚的费用，这是一家特别的而且非常昂贵的酒店——南苑宾馆。这家酒店的特别之处在于，这里曾经是蒋介石的私人庄园。(蒋介石出生在一百英里外的浙江省。)


As well as the Chiangs, many later notables have stayed at the Garden, most notably Mao Tse-tung’s hand-picked successor (until he tried to stage a coup) Lin Biao, who loved the place. They actually keep Lin’s car in a garage here: a great behemoth of a thing, Red Flag marque, license plate E 11097, badly in need of some detailing.

除了蒋介石夫妇，后来许多名人也曾住在这里，最著名的是林彪，他很喜欢这个地方。事实上，这家宾馆现在还把林彪的车停在车库里：一辆庞然大物，红旗牌，车牌苏E11097，不过这辆车该好好清洗清洗了。

Garden Hotel is a lovely place. In the lobby where we check in there is a little stage with, sitting on a stool and dressed in traditional costume, a very pretty young girl playing Chinese music on a pipa (Chinese lute). Oh, China.

南苑宾馆真不错。办理入住手续的大厅里有个小舞台，一位非常漂亮的年轻女孩，穿着传统服装坐在凳子上用琵琶演奏中国音乐。啊，这才是中国。

Tuesday, September 17th: Peking to Suzhou.

9月17日，周二：北京到苏州。

Sightsmelling in Suzhou

观味苏州

Suzhou is famously beautiful. It is yoked with neighbor city Hangzhou in a famous old couplet: “Above there is the Hall of Heaven, below there are Suzhou and Hangzhou.” (It rhymes in Chinese.)

苏州是出了名的漂亮。苏州和隔壁城市杭州经常出现在著名的对句中:“上有天堂，下有苏杭。”(中文押韵。)
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So there are a lot of tourists, including laowais, i.e. non-Chinese. We actually see a whole flock of laowais at the Netmaster’s Garden.

所以这里有很多游客，包括老外，也就是外国人。我们在网师园就看到了一群老外。
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“Flock”? I wonder aloud whether there should be a collective noun for laowais, like “school” for fish or “gaggle” for geese.

“flock（一群）”?我很想知道这是不是专门用来形容“老外”的集体名词，就像scool形容一群鱼，gaggle形容一群鹅一样。

Rosie, who has just recently placed second in a marital tiff of the minor sort, suggests “a stink of laowais.”

最近在一次小的婚姻拌嘴中，罗西屈居第二名，她就暗暗地说了句，“臭老外”。

I let it go, satisfying myself with a recollection of one of my favorite China stories, one I have told before.

随她去吧，能让我回忆起我最喜欢的中国故事之一我就满足了，一个我曾经讲过的故事。

A dog’s life in China

一条狗在中国的生活

China’s dogs make an interesting study. There are apparently no leash laws here. Dogs just wander about freely. Given the conditions of Chinese traffic (the old Turkish quip comes to mind: “In other countries people die by accident: in Turkey we live by accident”) you’d expect Chinese roads to be lined with canine corpses. Yet in fact you never see a dead dog.

中国的狗其实挺有意思的，值得好好研究。中国在养狗方面没有任何法律条文。狗可以到处乱逛。考虑到中国的交通状况(我想起了一句古老的土耳其俏皮话:“其他国家，人们因为意外而死亡;而在土耳其，我们因为意外而活着”)，你可能会以为中国的马路上到处都是死狗。但事实上，你从来没见过。

The dogs you do see are sauntering around confidently among the cars and motor-scooters. Twice I have seen dogs ambling across the road on pedestrian crossings, the traffic pausing or swerving to let them go.

你能看到狗在汽车和摩托车流之间自信地穿梭。我曾两次看到狗在人行横道上慢吞吞地过马路，路上的车辆会停下来等它们离开，或者转弯绕过它们。
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处


My best guess here is that when motor traffic came up in a serious way some swift Natural sextion kicked in. Less traffic-capable dog lineages were swept out of the gene pool. I am, though, open to other explanations.

我的最佳猜测是，当机动车以危险的方式出现时，快速自然选择就开始了。无法适应中国交通状况的狗被从基因库中清除。不过，我也接受其他解释。

Wednesday, September 18th: Suzhou.

9月18日，周三：苏州。

The temple on Cold Mountain

寒山寺


One of the best-loved of China’s old poems is Zhang Ji’s “Night Mooring at Maple Bridge,” fully covered by me here.

中国古诗中最受欢迎的一首是张继的《枫桥夜泊》，我在中国的时候读过这首诗。

As I describe, Maple Bridge is an actual place in Suzhou. I visited it in 2001 but omitted to get a photograph taken. Hoping to rectify this, I now head for the place; but it’s having some restoration work done and is out of bounds to visitors. Apparently the poetry gods don’t want me photographed at Maple Bridge.

正像我说的，苏州确实有枫桥这个地方。2001年我去过那里，但没有拍照片。为了纠正这个错误，我马上就来到了枫桥；可惜正在进行修复工作，禁止游客进入。显然诗神不希望我在枫桥拍照。
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The “temple on Cold Mountain” from which Zhang heard the midnight bell is open for business, though.

尽管如此，张继听到夜半钟声的寒山寺依然营业。

And business is definitely what they are open for. There are 1.4 billion Chinese, and every blessed one of them learned that poem in school. For the temple, it’s a gold mine. They have it carved on a big stone slab in one of the temple courtyards.

而且寒山寺营业确实是为了生意。中国有14亿人口，所有人在学校里都学过这首诗。对寺庙来说，这就相当于一座金矿。寺庙的僧人把这首诗刻在了寺庙庭院的大石碑上。

Having failed to get a photograph taken at the bridge, I thought the next best thing would be to have one taken with the poem, so to that courtyard we went.

没能在枫桥上拍照留影，我想接下来最好的办法就是和这首诗来张合影，于是我们就进了寺院。

There were a couple of hundred people there with the same idea. I got my picture at last, but it was a long wait.

有好几百人和我有同样的想法。最终我如愿以偿拍了照，但是真的等了好久。
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处


Now come on: How can you not like a country where a great throng of citizens jostle to have their picture taken with a poem?

好吧:一大群人挤在一起就为了和一首诗合影，这样的国家你怎么能不喜欢呢？

Politics, East and West

政治，东方和西方

Over the obligatory already-paid-for banquet—we are really being spoiled here—I try to draw out Chiqian on matters social and political.

在已经结账的强制性宴会上——我们真的被宠坏了——我鼓励迟前说出中国的社会和政治问题。

It’s not my first attempt this trip. In Peking, also at a banquet, I’d tackled Rosie’s cousin (i.e. Uncle and Aunt’s son, thirty-something, senior manager in a government IT enterprise) on these topics. He hadn’t been forthcoming, but I put that down to his being a Party member.

这次旅行中，这已经不是我第一次尝试了。在北京的一次宴会上，我曾就这些话题与罗西的堂兄(即姨夫和老姨的儿子，三十多岁，在一家IT企业任高级经理)进行了交谈。他没有接我的话茬。

Chiqian’s not a Party member, so I thought he might be franker, but he’s just honestly not much interested.

我觉得他可能会更坦率一些，不过说实话，他不怎么感兴趣。

The Social Credit system? “It’s no trouble if you don’t do dumb things like drive drunk.”

社会信用体系?“如果不做醉酒驾驶之类的傻事，那就没问题。”

The Great Firewall of China? “There’s an app you can get, fan qiang [‘climb over the wall’]—everybody knows. I can watch YouTube, get Google, no problem.”
……
Like everybody else we’ve met here, Chiqian is pretty content with things as they are. Most Chinese people aren’t any of those things either, though. Most shrug and get along as best they can.

和我们遇到的其他人一样，迟前对现状非常满意。不过，大多数中国人都不属于这些人。大多数人只是耸耸肩，尽量和睦相处。

Thursday, September 19th: Suzhou to Hangzhou.

9月19日，周四：苏州到杭州。

Railroad station nightmares

火车站噩梦

Off this morning on the train to Hangzhou. The personal factor here is that one of Rosie’s college classmates, and so one of my students, now has a high position in the administration of a big STEM university there. She invited us to come and visit for a couple of days, staying at the college hotel, all expenses comped.

今天早上离开苏州，坐上了去杭州的火车。我们来杭州是因为这里有罗西的大学同学，也就是我的学生，现在是杭州电子科技大学（STEM科学、技术、工程、数学)管理层身居高位。她邀请我们到杭州住几天，她把我们安排在学校的宾馆，费用全免。

Our Hangzhou visit doesn’t start well. Hangzhou railroad station is about the size of Dallas, and not well signposted. We got totally lost on arrival, and it’s half an hour before we find our hostess, who has waited patiently for us with a college car and driver.

杭州之行一开始就不顺利。杭州火车站大约有达拉斯那么大，而且路标不是很清晰。我们下了火车就不知道东南西北了，半小时后我们才找到我们的女主人，她和司机在学校的车里耐心地等着。
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处


(Hangzhou isn’t exceptional here. At this point I’m having nightmares about Chinese railroad stations. I could swear we have clocked up more miles wandering around the damn places looking for the ticket office, information booth, restrooms, or exit than we have actually riding the trains.)

杭州也不例外。此刻，我认为中国的火车站简直是噩梦。我敢发誓，我们在这个该死的地方找售票处、问讯处、洗手间或出口的路程，比我们坐火车的路程还长。

Language learning and mimicry

语言学习和模仿

Our hostess’s duties include supervision of the university’s many foreign students. When we get there at last around 11 am she excuses herself: “I have to go expel a student.” Off she goes, leaving us to settle in to our room at the college hotel.

杭州的女主人的职责包括管理这所大学许多外国留学生。当我们终于在上午11点左右到达学校时，她有事要离开一会，她说:“我要开除一个学生。”说完她就走了，我们在学院宾馆里住下了。

Later, over lunch with her, I ask her about the student she expelled. He was one of the internationals, from Morocco. His offense? “Marijuana. He was found in possession.” How did he get his hands on mary jane in China? “Brought it in with him.”

过一会，她过来和我们一起吃午饭，我问起了她开除的那个学生。这个学生来自摩洛哥。他犯什么事了?“大麻。我们发现他持有大麻。”他怎么在中国找到大麻烟的?“他自己带进来的。”

She tells us stories about the international students. A high proportion are from Russia and Central Asia, all part of “Belt and Road” scheme to lock the whole world into Chinese mercantilism.

她给我们讲了些国际学生的故事。其中很大一部分来自俄罗斯和中亚，中国“一带一路”计划经过这几个国家，一带一路计划旨在将整个世界纳入商业版图。

There is also a number of West Africans, who, she said, get good at Chinese more quickly than the average foreigner. She tells the following story.

还有很多西非学生，她说，这些人比一般外国人学习汉语的速度更快。她还给我们讲了一个故事：

Some Chinese students were walking to class when they saw a black student ahead of them. He was from Cameroon, it later turned out — very black. One of the Chinese students remarked on this: “See how black his skin is!”

几个中国学生走着去上课，他们看到一个黑人学生在他们前面。这个黑人学生来自喀麦隆，肤色确实非常黑。其中有个学生说:“看他的皮肤多黑!”

The Cameroon student stopped, turned, and addressed them in very colloquial Mandarin: Ni tama shuo shei?—”Who the f*** are you talking about?”

这名喀麦隆学生停下来，转过身，用非常口语化的普通话说:-“你他妈说谁呢?”
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处


Other people have noticed the same thing about West Africans. I remarked on it myself when reviewing Tété-Michel Kpomassie’s book about Greenland.

其他人也发现西非人在语言方面确实有天赋。我在评论戴戴-米歇尔·保马西写的《格陵兰游记》一书时就提到了这一点。

Here’s some video of a case quite famous in Japan. The lix was sent to me by a reader. I passed it on to my go-to guy for things Japanese, a white American who lives over there and speaks Japanese. He:

还有在日本很知名度很高的视频。链接是一位读者发给我的。有个人我经过咨询一些关于日本的问题的人，我把链接发给他，他是美国白人，住在日本，会说日语。他说:

I lived in Africa. I knew multilingual Africans. While all of them seemed fluent, none could engage in the sort of conversations you and I have had together in any language. They could not read Robert Louis Stevenson. When your entire thought universe has a vocab of a couple thousand words, I think its easier to move into new languages … Japanese people judging a foreigner’s Japanese? Well. No one is ever going to criticize a foreigner’s Japanese.

我在非洲待过。我认识会说多种语言的非洲人。虽然他们说得很流利，但没有一个人能用其他语言像你我这样交谈。他们读不懂罗伯特·路易斯·史蒂文森。当你思想世界只有几千个词汇时，我认为学习一门新语言会更容易。日本人评价外国人的日语？好吧，还没有人会批评一个外国人的日语不好。

A different friend, not a Japanese speaker but a race realist:

另一个朋友，不会说日语，不过是以为种族现实主义者说:

What West Africans tend to be good at is mimicry. A lot of black comedians work that. Mimicry will quickly get you some way into a language, but no further. Your pal in Japan is right: you won’t be reading novels.

西非人最擅长模仿。很多黑人喜剧演员都擅长模仿。通过模仿能很快地掌握一门语言，但无法更进一步了。你那个住在日本的朋友说的不错:他们看不懂小说。

That sounds right to me. The early stages of language learning are mostly mimicry. Our hostess in Hangzhou speaks excellent English; but before we got here I spent ten days among people who spoke only Chinese (not counting the Mrs, of course). Rosie tells me my Chinese has improved considerably these ten days.

我觉得说的挺对。语言学习的早期阶段主要是模仿。我们杭州的东道主英语说得很好；但在我们到这里之前，我花了十天时间和只说中文的人在一起(当然不包括我老婆)。罗西说这十天我的中文进步很大。

A mutual acquaintance

共同的熟人

Our hostess is a very busy lady. This afternoon, when she is showing us her office, two male international students come in with documents she has to sign—something to do with immigration. The students look Central Asian.

我们的女主人很忙。今天下午，当她带我们参观办公室时，两个男国际学生拿了文件来让她签字——好像与移民有关。这两个学生看起来像中亚人。

While the documents are being read, I ask the students in English where they are from.

我们的女主人看文件时，我用英语问他们来自哪里。

He: “We are from Turkmenistan.”

学生:“土库曼斯坦。”

Me: “Ah—Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov!”

我:“呃，库尔班古力·别尔德穆哈梅多夫（土库曼总统）!”
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处


The two students look at each other, giggle nervously, then turn away.

两个学生面面相觑，紧张地笑了笑，然后转身走了。

What is socialism?

什么是社会主义?

What are the Twelve Principles of Socialism? From one of the posters:

社会主义的十二个价值观是什么?其中一张海报上写道:

Prosperity, Democracy, Civility, Harmony; Freedom, Equality, Justice, Rule of Law; Patriotism, Dedication, Integrity, Friendship

富强、民主、文明、和谐；自由、平等、公正、法治；爱国、敬业、诚信、友善。

Wenming in the privy

厕所里的文明

Of the Twelve Principles, civility—wenming in Chinese—is being pushed hardest of all.

在这十二个核心价值观里，文明是最难的。

China’s leaders have become acutely aware that Westerners regard some of their long-established social customs—spitting in the street, promiscuous smoking, fighting scrimmages to get on trains—as uncouth. They want their citizens to clean up their acts, as a matter of national pride.

中国人已经敏锐地意识到，西方人认为中国一些长期形成的社会习俗——随地吐痰、不分场合地抽烟、争先恐后上火车，不惜打上一架，这些都是不礼貌的行为……

It’s working, at any rate in the big cities. I was astonished to see, in the Peking subway, people standing in neat lines waiting for the trains. (How do they know where to stand? The track is sealed off from the platform by a transparent partition, with doors that open automatically right opposite the train’s doors when the train stops.)

不管怎么说，在大城市确实有用。我惊讶地发现，在北京地铁，人们排着整齐的队伍等车。(他们怎么知道该站在哪里?铁轨与站台之间用透明隔板隔开，当列车停站时，屏蔽门会自动打开，正好对着车门。）

I saw a cute example of wenming promotion in a public convenience at one of the Peking parks. Set in the wall above the urinal was a card with the message: Qianjin—xiao bu; Wenming—da bu
“Advance—a small step; civility—a big step.” It’s a rough equivalent of the sign sometimes seen on American urinals: “We aim to please. You aim too, please.”

在北京的公园里，我看到了公共场所“文明”得到提升的有趣的例子。便池上方的墙上挂着一块小牌子，上面写着: “前进一小步，文明一大步。”这大致相当于有时在美国一些小便池上的标识:“我们的目标是取悦你，你要做的就是瞄准。”

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