D22: 固城 → 雄安新区 (双语)

October 16, 2024

I have a highly refined "sense of fashion" 我有着极为高雅的“时尚品味”。

In that there was an early 13th century pagoda, a traffic jam, and some active roadworks, more happened on this day than the preceding day; but, more than nothing still ain't much.

这一天遇到的事情比前一天要多，有一座13世纪初的宝塔，还遇到了交通堵塞，以及一些道路施工；但即便如此，发生的事情也不算多。

I started my day off making a surprisingly difficult one shot video of me standing in front of the "183km to Shijiazhuang" sign. Making videos has done more to improve my spoken Chinese than anything else I've done over the years but, no matter how simple the 'script' or how many times I repeat to myself something exactly the way I would say it to a person standing in front of me, the first thing I do when I turn the camera on myself is fuck up the words.

Then, I fuck them up three more times.

我这一天一开始就拍了一段视频，没想到拍这段视频还挺难的，我站在“距离石家庄183公里”的路标前进行拍摄。这些年来，拍视频对我提高汉语口语的帮助比我做过的任何其他事情都要大。然而，无论“台词”有多简单，也无论我把要说的话像对着面前的人说话那样在心里重复了多少遍，只要我把镜头对准自己，第一句话就会说错。

然后，我又接连说错了三次。

I don't especially remember noticing Jiang Taigong stones before, but this is definitely an area where they worship him 我不太记得以前见到过姜太公石，但这个地方肯定是崇拜姜太公的。

Including in large mural form 甚至还有大幅的壁画来表现。

Possibly homebrew kid-back tandem attachment 可能是自制的儿童自行车拖车装备。

After something like seven takes (not counting the ones that I immediately stopped and deleted because of a truck driving by), I decide that the one where I get especially over enthusiastic about using the word especially because I've somehow forgotten all other adverbs is just going to have to be the one I use.

在拍了大概七次之后（不包括那些因为有卡车经过而马上停下来删掉的拍摄），我决定就用这一版，在这之中我因为不知怎么忘掉了所有其他的副词，所以在使用“特别”这个词的时候表现得格外热情。

Edited the video to get rid of the umms and awkward pauses and to do bilingual subtitles while I ate a donkey mo and some salad-y kind of dish for brunch, then hit the road in the direction of the Guangming Master Pagoda.

Dating to 1203, my American sensibilities tell me that this ought to be the subject of a large protected area; this ought to have signs telling visitors how to get to it; and this ought to have lots of available information that I can look up online.

我一边吃着驴肉火烧和一些类似沙拉的食物当作早午餐，一边剪辑视频，删掉了那些“嗯”“呃”之类的语气词和尴尬的停顿，还添加了中英文字幕。然后，我就朝着光明大师塔的方向出发了。

这座塔建于1203年，以我这个美国人的观念来看，它应该位于一个大型保护区内；应该有指示牌告诉游客怎么去那里；而且网上应该有很多的信息。

I am preemptively awarding this "Best Historical Marker of the Year" 我要提前把“年度最佳历史标识奖”颁给这玩意。

If you sneak up on it at angle, and you move your head back and forth, it's actually readable 如果你从一个角度悄悄靠近它，然后来回移动你的头，实际上是可以看清上面的字的。

Instead, although it got a protective fence some time last year, it seems to mostly be completely ignored with my video being one of only four on the internet, and the only "marked at that spot" video that's actually about it.

然而，尽管去年的某个时候它有了一圈防护围栏，但似乎还是完全被人忽视了。在网上只有四个关于它的视频，而在标明了具体位置的视频里，我的视频是唯一的那个。

Also, for reasons that probably have to do with it not being a particularly unique or important specimen of early 13th century architecture, it's only a county-level heritage protection site and it's only been Protected since the late 90s¹.

The rest of the village's architecture is uninteresting, the roadworks and associated rural traffic jam caused by no one having anywhere they are able to go are merely frustrating, and, once I cross the water to Xiong'an New District, although it's one of the District's park areas, it's a 75% built park in Hebei in the fall.

可能是因为它并不是13世纪早期建筑中特别独特或重要的一个范例，所以它只是一个县级文物保护单位，而且直到90年代末¹才被列为保护对象。

村子里其他的建筑都没什么意思，道路施工以及因为人们无处可走而造成的乡村交通堵塞也只是让人感到沮丧。当我过了河来到雄安新区后，虽然这里是新区的一个公园区域，但这只是河北一个已经完工75%的秋期公园而已。

Note to Self: Find out why central Hebei likes seal script so much 记一下：要弄清楚为什么河北中部这么喜欢篆书。

Only one lane of one east west road is open 东西走向的只有一个车道是开放的。

The guys stringing high voltage power cables on a series of towers that are in the process of going up are more interesting than anything to my left or right.

As my friend is arriving by way of Capital Airport with a busload of people from the US who I'm totally sure I wasn't told were going to be high school students, I actually get to the hotel before anyone else.

正在一系列塔架上串起高压电缆的工人们，比我左右两边的任何事物都要有趣。

我的朋友要从首都机场和一整车从美国来的人一起过来，我敢肯定之前没人告诉我这些人会是高中生。结果我比其他人都先到了酒店。

This gives me plenty of time to be quietly critical of just about everything related to the hotel's facilities without actually showing my disappointment that something so bright and shiny sucks this bad

Coming in at 370 yuan a night (of someone else's money) in a county where a quick perusal of the listed hotel prices on Maps seems to indicate that the average price is closer to 75 a night, the first thing² I notice is the Health Department poster behind the front desk giving them a "C" rating³.

这让我有充足的时间对酒店几乎所有设施都默默挑刺，而不必表露出内心的失望——明明看起来光鲜亮丽，实际却如此糟糕。

这家酒店一晚要370元（当然不是我掏钱），而在这个县城里，快速浏览一下地图上列出的酒店价格就会发现，这里酒店的平均价格一晚更接近75元。我注意到的第一件事²，就是前台后面卫生部门张贴的海报，给这家酒店评了个“C”级³。

My photos with people are on the other phone 我拍人的照片在另一部手机上。

Was there a sale on statues? 从雕像折促销活动买的？

Sketchiest "Open to Traffic" Bridge⁴ of the Year 今年最粗略的“通车”桥梁⁴

Usually expressed as a green smiley face, a yellow neutral, and a red frown, the ratings are effectively "Excellent," "Some Improvement Possibly," and "Needs Work."

I've seen a "D" before, but only once, and they were doing everything in their power to hide it⁵.

这些评分通常用绿色笑脸（表示“优秀”）、黄色中性脸（表示“可能需要改进”）和红色皱眉脸（表示“有待完善”）来呈现。

我以前见过评“D”级的，但只见过一次，而且他们当时正竭尽全力地把那个评级藏起来⁵。

"B" ratings are normal. Most places that aren't international five star hotels (or large McDonald's) get a "B." Even the Beijing rebbetzin's kosher restaurant took a few years of nitpicking from inspectors before eventually getting their "A".

But "C"? C is for places where, as a customer, you don't want to look in the kitchen and you probably have to bring your own soap and paper when you go to the toilet.

评“B”级是很常见的。大多数不是国际五星级酒店（或者麦当劳）的地方都会得到“B”级。就连北京那位犹太教拉比妻子开的犹太洁食餐厅，也是在检查员多年的吹毛求疵之后，才最终得到了“A”级评级。

但是“C”级呢？“C”级代表着作为顾客，你不会想往厨房里面看，而且你去上厕所的时候可能还得自己带肥皂和纸巾。

Fancy places with lobbies and decór shouldn't be getting a "C". Of course, they also shouldn't have Random Vending Machines in the lobby, an elevator lobby that's a different height than the floor it goes up to, or Certificates of Authentic Artwork next to their very random selection of wall art.

Also, not sure that I would have noticed it if I wasn't wheeling my bike around trying to find my room in a poorly labeled labyrinth, but the concrete floor didn't even get basic levelling before they put the carpet down.

有着大堂和精美装饰的高档场所不应该得到“C”级评级。当然，它们也不应该在大堂里放一些的自动售货机，电梯厅的高度和它通往的楼层高度不一致，或者在那些随意挑选的墙上装饰品旁边放着所谓的“真品证书”。

而且，如果不是我推着自行车在标识不清、如同迷宫一般的地方找房间的话，我可能也不会注意到，在铺地毯之前，水泥地面甚至都没有进行基本的铺平处理。

I'm also Unimpressed by the beds.

And then even more Unimpressed by my friend's department head thinking that, after asking a few days ago if we could share a room (and being told "no" with a polite but flimsy excuse of my having brought nothing to sleep in), she could publicly guilt me into sharing a room anyways because I've been put into a room with two beds⁶.

这里的床给我的印象也不好。

然后，我朋友所在部门的主管让我更无语了。几天前她问我能不能和我合住一个房间（我礼貌地拒绝了，找了个敷衍的借口，说我没带睡觉用的东西），现在她却觉得，因为我被安排到了一个双床房间⁶，所以她就可以公开地让我感到愧疚，从而让我和她合住。

And it's not even every painting or photo 而且还不是每一幅画或照片都有真品证书。

¹ Which is about 15 years after it was put back together from the Red Guards deliberately knocking it down early on in the Cultural Revolution

¹大约在“文革”初期被红卫兵故意推倒的状态下重新修复后的15年才被列为保护对象。

² Actually, the first thing I noticed was the vending machine selling men's shirts. But my wandering around while I waited for what I was supposed to tell the Front Desk in order to check in doesn't make for good narrative flow

²实际上，我注意到的第一件事是那个售卖男士衬衫的自动售货机。但我在等待前台告诉我办理入住手续时四处闲逛的情节，对故事的连贯性没什么帮助。

³ This could mean that the local Health Department is super, duper strict. However, considering the lack of attention to detail in construction, it probably just means that they suck.

³这可能意味着当地卫生部门极其严格。然而，考虑到建筑方面对细节的忽视，这很可能只是意味着他们酒店很糟糕。

A public Birth Control Policy blackboard where the most recent local marriage whose information is posted is from June 2006 关于计划生育政策的黑板报，上面公布的最近一对当地新人结婚的信息是2006年6月的。

A small "private" restaurant that probably belongs to someone from Beijing 可能属于某个北京人的一家小型“私房”餐馆。

⁴ I was going to give it "Sketchiest Bridge of the Year" but then I remembered that possibly 18th century thing that got Dr. M telling me after the fact that one of the Rules of Fieldwork is "never attempt to cross a half collapsed bridge until after you've had a look at it from underneath†"

²我本来想把它评为“今年最粗略桥梁”的，但后来我想起了那座可能建于18世纪的桥，那件事之后，M博士告诉我，实地调查的一条规则就是“在从桥下看一座半塌的桥之前，绝不能试着过桥，†”。

† And which she was unwilling to cross after having had a look at from underneath

† M博士在从桥下查看过那座桥后，也不愿意过桥。

⁵ Rating for the cafeteria of the school where June's ChineseBridge Storytelling SemiFinals took place

⁵ 这是六月“汉语桥”讲故事半决赛举办学校的食堂的评级。

⁶ Among other things, because I hadn't expected her to be asking such a thing, when I came downstairs to meet people I was already using the non-sleeping bed as a large flat surface for Things and had left my dirty clothing scattered on the floor†.

⁶其中一个原因是，因为我没想到她会提出这样的要求，所以当我下楼去见其他人的时候，我已经把那张空床当作一个放东西的地方在使用了，而且还把我的脏衣服扔得满地都是†。

† One of the many habits of mine that Chinese Boyfriend considers uncouth and uncivilized, I don't see any reason why clothing I don't plan on wearing again until after it has been washed needs to be treated nicely.

† 中国男朋友认为这些习惯粗俗又不文明，但我觉得对于那些我打算洗了之后才会再穿的衣服，没必要好好对待它们。

Today's ride: 48 km (30 miles)
Total: 1,426 km (886 miles)

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