October 10, 2024
I2/1: 中关村 → 首都机场 （双语）
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While I have received very minimal payments for some of the things I've done with national media, the stuff that counts as "work" is almost entirely at the provincial level.
So, even having been warned by a colleague that the Very Important Collection of TV Stations who I'm kind of deliberately not naming in this entry have a tendency to be (in her words) "stingy twats," I'm still not at all prepared for what happens today.
虽然我为国家级媒体做的一些事情得到的报酬但是极少。大多数能算作“工作”的媒体活儿几乎全是在省级层面上的。
所以，即便有一位同事警告过我，说有一家非常重要的电视台（我在这篇文章里刻意不说名字），用她的话来说，往往是“小气鬼”，但我对今天发生的事情依然毫无准备。
I'm expecting something casual so I take the "arrive before noon" message the way anyone from Hainan would and get there around 10:15.
I figured I'd be waiting.
我原本以为这是件轻松随意的事，所以我就像每个海南人对待“中午前到达”这样的通知一样，大概10点15分就到了那儿。
我料到自己可能要等一会儿。
I didn't figure it would be until 11:45.
Had I know that, or had any idea how much of my afternoon they were planning on eating up, I'd have brought snacks.
但没想到要一直等到11点45分。
要是我早知道会这样，或者知道他们打算占用我下午那么多时间，我就会带上点零食了。
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Even before we go into the large meeting room, I can see that, in addition to being the only foreigner, I'm also the worst dressed. Once in the meeting room, I'll peek at the forms filled out by the guy sitting to my left and the lady on my right, and being as we're all supposed to be company owners and I recognize the names of both companies¹, I'm thinking, by inviting me, someone did a really bad job at researching what sort of people they want on this show.
Of course, I'd already gotten that impression during the bit where I'd been talking face to face with the fellow who I'd been having phone calls with.
甚至在我们走进那个大会议室之前，我就发现，除了我是唯一的外国人之外，我穿得也是最不得体的。进了会议室之后，我偷看了坐在我左边的男士和右边的女士填的表格，既然我们都是公司老板，而且我还知道这两家公司的名字，我就心想，邀请我来参加这个节目的人，在研究让什么样的人上这个节目方面可真是做得太糟糕了。
当然，在我和之前一直通过电话交流的那位先生面对面交谈的时候，我就已经有这种感觉了。
"What benefits do you think you'll get from being on national TV"
None.
"How will being on national TV help your company?"
It won't.
“你觉得上国家级电视台能给你带来什么好处呢？”
没什么好处。
“上国家级电视台对你的公司会有什么帮助呢？”
没什么帮助。
The meeting is supposed to be an in depth intro to the program and the selection process of who, having made it to this round, is going to go on to a next round and what will happen in filming.
It reminds me of nothing more than that one time Mike and I ended up at a timeshare presentation.
这次会议本应是对这个节目以及选拔流程的深入介绍，说明谁进入这一轮，谁会进入下一轮，以及拍摄过程中会发生什么。
这让我不禁想起有一次我朋友迈克和我误打误撞参加了一场分时度假产品推介会的情景。
And, because I'm the only foreigner, I've been put in the front row. Which means that, even if I managed to wait until after the meeting is over to stop stifling my inclination to laugh at their offer, I can't be fussing with my phone.
而且，因为我是唯一的外国人，我被安排在了前排。这就意味着，我要忍住不嘲笑他们的提议直到会议结束，而且我也不能在这期间玩手机。
Most media programs that I do stuff with pay me. Some of them pay me quite well. None of them, including the other "now scheduled for likely filming date" program with the same Very Important Collection of TV Stations, have ever asked me for money.
At most, and only when I was doing something nakedly promotional, they asked me for free event tickets.
我参与的大多数媒体节目都会给我报酬。有些给得还挺不错。包括和同一家非常重要的电视台集团合作的另一个“现已安排好可能的拍摄日期”的节目在内，没有一个节目曾经问我要钱。
最多，只有在我做一些明显是宣传性质的事情时，他们才会问我要免费的活动门票。
So, um, yeah, even if they are willing to mark it down lots on account of my being a small business owner whose business doesn't get customers via advertising, I would still be saying "no" if half or more of the zeroes in the CNY 300,000 price tag were gone.
It's past 5pm by the time I start biking towards O & A's. Ignoring for a moment that I've skipped lunch and will be needing to take a meal break, there's no way I'm getting all the way over to their side of the city before it's too late to sociably drop by².
所以，嗯，是的，即使他们考虑到我是个小商户，而且我的生意也不是靠广告招揽顾客的，愿意把30万元人民币的标价大幅降低，哪怕这个价格标签少掉一半甚至去掉几个零，我还是会说“不”。
等我开始骑车前往O&A家的时候，已经过了下午5点了。先不说我没吃午饭，还得找时间吃顿饭，反正我根本不可能在太晚（不适合登门拜访²）时赶到城市另一边他们住的地方。
I pick a cheapish place in the airport hotel district 8 or 10 kilometers away from them. Okay, maybe "cheap" is a better description than "cheapish."
I'm in bike trip mode, my standards are effectively non-existent, and if I get rejected I not only have recent Notices on my side, I've also got Consumer Protection Law guaranteeing me a much nicer place at someone else's expense.
我在离他们家8到10公里远的机场酒店区选了一家还算便宜的地方。好吧，也许用“便宜”来形容比“还算便宜”更合适。
我现在处于骑行旅行的状态，我的标准实际上形同虚设，而且如果我被拒绝入住，我不仅有最近发布的相关通知作为依据，还有《消费者权益保护法》为我撑腰，能让我免费住进条件好得多的地方。
Other than the initial problem in finding the hotel and the massive amount of beer fumes the manager kept breathing in my face, everything was incredibly civilized.
No one was interested in listening to me try to explain that "no, really, you really can take me" but there also wasn't any yelling, and Beer Breath's very obsequious behavior towards the person who seemed like the kind of person that was going to complain about this included proactively offering to both pay for my upgraded room at a "more suitable hotel" and telling me to cancel the original room for a refund.
除了一开始找酒店时遇到的麻烦，以及经理一直对着我呼出很大的啤酒味之外，一切都还算文明。
没人愿意听我解释“不，说真的，你们真的可以让我入住”，但也没有人对我大喊大叫，而且那个浑身啤酒味的人对可能发起投诉的人表现得极为谄媚，主动提出为我在“更合适的酒店”支付升级房间的费用，还让我取消原来的房间以便退款。
The app he decided to use to get me a room elsewhere is one of the many that is waiting until they get in trouble for ignoring the Ministry of Commerce Notice that calls out "online travel platforms" as one of the specific places that are not allowed to not allow foreigners to book hotels and my English name would not go through.
So, with me standing there, he called the new hotel. Told them I was American. Told them I was on a bike. Asked if there would be a problem. Confirmed that there wouldn't be. And booked me in under my Chinese name.
他所用的订房应用程序，是众多无视商务部通知的应用程序之一。商务部的通知明确指出“在线旅游平台”不允许拒绝外国人预订酒店，而我的英文名在这个应用程序上根本无法完成预订。
所以，我就站在那儿，看着他给新酒店打电话。他告诉对方我是美国人，我是骑着自行车来的。问对方会不会有什么问题。确认了不会有问题。然后用我的中文名帮我订了房。
However, as my life can be summed up in five words: "and then it got weirder," when I got to the upgraded hotel, the first words out the Front Desk lady's mouth were "we can't take foreigners. You need to go somewhere else."
"No. I don't. Not only has it been over 20 years since there were restrictions, it's literally been less than 20 minutes since I listened to the guy at the other hotel call you on the phone and ask" at which point she goes "oh, was that you?" because foreigners showing up on bicycles at 10pm is totally a perfectly normal occurrence and perhaps he was calling about a different foreigner who isn't here yet; asks for my passport; clicks on the foreigner component of the hotel guest registration system that she obviously already knew how to use; and registered me.
然而，正如我的生活可以用这句话来概括：“然后事情变得更离奇了”，当我到达那家升级后的酒店时，前台女士说的第一句话就是“我们不能接待外国人。你得去别的地方。”
“不，我不用。不仅早20年前已没有限制，而且就在不到20分钟前，我还听到另一家酒店的那个人给你们打电话问过了。”这时她就说“哦，原来是你啊？”因为晚上10点骑着自行车出现的外国人显然是再正常不过的事了，也许他打电话问的是另一个还没到的外国人呢。她要了我的护照，点击了酒店客人登记系统里那个她显然早就知道怎么用的外国人登记系统，然后给我办了登记入住手续。
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--
¹ Not that I see either of them as needing translation but I kind of wish I'd had the opportunity to try to get their contact info.
¹倒不是说我觉得这两个需要翻译，不过我有点希望自己当时有机会要到他们的联系方式就好了。
² Having already used them as a mail drop and bag storage point where I couchsurfed once on my way out of Beijing, I don't personally feel like the bottle of wine I bought them is anywhere near enough return niceness to be showing up late at night and sufficiently without existing lodging that they might feel obligated to offer
²我上次在北京的时候，曾在他们家借住过一次，还把他们家当作邮件代收点和行李存放处，所以我个人觉得，我给他们买的那瓶酒远远不足以报答他们的好意，要是我深夜到访，又没有地方住，他们可能会收留我。
Today's ride: 47 km (29 miles)
Total: 1,154 km (717 miles)
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