D25: 定州 → 定州 (双语）

October 20, 2024

Taking a photo of the pagoda reflected in a Very Small Pond 拍摄宝塔在超小池塘的倒影

Although he'll later on go and also leave Shijiazhuang hours before I arrive there I can't exactly blame Dr. M's colleague for not changing his schedule in order to meet someone who he has to know he'll eventually meet anyways. As a bit of an apology for not sticking around, he did go and tell the local Comprehensive Media Center that I'm around in order to make a video about Dingzhou being the 700th Chinese town I've spent the night in while on a bike tour¹, and I'll spend the morning touristing with them.

The only negative about doing anything with the people from the Dingzhou Media Center is that if I'd been paying to go to the local pagoda park instead of being treated as a guest, I would have paid for the right to go inside, climb up to the top, and look at the various primarily late-Qing murals. However, because they were treating me, we moved through places at the speed of trying to capture content of me enjoying these places in ways more akin to how normal tourists experience them.

尽管M博士的同事后来还是离开了石家庄，而且在我抵达前几小时就走了，但我也不能苛责他——毕竟谁也不会为了一个迟早要见面的人特意改变行程。作为未能久候的歉意，他倒是特意把我的行程告诉当地融媒体中心，让他们为我制作一期特别节目：定州将成为我骑行途中过夜的第700个中国城镇¹。于是我上午便与他们一同游览采风。

，

与定州媒体中心团队合作唯一的遗憾在于：若我自费参观当地宝塔公园，本可以花钱进入塔内登顶，细看那些以晚清为主的壁画。但作为被接待的客人，我们游览的节奏更像是在捕捉“游客享受景点”的画面，而非真正深入体验。

Thinking myself clever I ordered a dish I'd never heard of only to have the boss tell me it was a local specialty from Suzhou 自作聪明点了道从没听说过的菜，结果老板告诉我这是苏州特色菜。

Also, and I'm not sure if this actually counts as a complaint about them, their having mommas that successfully taught them how to treat other people provided a harsh and immediate contrast with the people from the [deliberately not named] national media outlet that caught up to me in the early afternoon.

Being as this is my first time working with this specific media outlet and given that I've heard negative things said about the staff of organizations that I personally have good experiences with, I want to believe that everything I would see over this and the next two days is not corporate culture so much as it was a case of my having unfortunately been saddled with three highly inconsiderate and entitled people who fed off of and encouraged each other's bad behavior.

我不确定这是否算抱怨，他们从母亲那里学到的待人之道，与下午和我碰面的某国家级媒体（故意不提名）成员形成了强烈反差。

这是我首次与这家媒体合作，且我曾听说过一些对其他机构的负面评价（但我自己与那些机构合作愉快），因此我愿意相信，这两天遇到的种种并非企业文化所致，而是不幸碰上了三个极度无礼、自视甚高且互相纵容恶劣行为的人。

The adorable trio of media workers from Dingzhou 可爱的定州媒体三人组

Stone Memorial Column made by the Japanese in commemorating the establishment of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere 日本人建造的“大东亚共荣圈”纪念石柱

Even before the dismissive way they treated me started to get under my skin, the first thing I noticed was how they treated people who were much much lower status and from whom they weren't trying to get something.

早在他们对我的轻慢态度让我反感之前，我首先注意到的是他们对待地位远低于自己、且无利用价值之人的方式。

These days, in addition to a huge reduction in offline petty theft, China has security cameras everywhere which, combined with the various camouflage measures² I've done to make my bike look "not expensive," (despite not making it any less expensive or stealable) are enough to make me willing to visit places where the only place I can leave it is a gated parking lot.

如今，中国不仅线下小偷小摸现象大幅减少，监控摄像头也遍布各处。再加上我采取的“让自行车看起来不昂贵”的伪装措施²（尽管并未降低其实际价值或被盗风险），足以让我放心前往那些只能将车停在有人看管的停车场。

When part of the pagoda collapsed in the 19th century, it revealed an earlier pagoda inside it 19世纪宝塔部分坍塌时，露出了内部一座塔。

In the morning, when I went to the pagoda with the trio from the local media center, they asked the security guards if it would be okay to put my bike in their staff parking. Then, when we went to the museum, as there was no fenced-off staff parking area and we were in the center of downtown, one of the women stayed outside and did work type stuff on her phone while sitting next to it.

After lunch, when the trio from [redacted] went back to the museum with me, they told the security guards at the entrance "you will watch her bike." This, nor them having me put the bike under the umbrella that's where the guards stay out of the sun and rain, would have made no lasting impression on me if we'd left the museum an hour later, or two hours later, or even three hours later.

上午和当地媒体三人组去宝塔时，他们帮我向保安申请将自行车停在员工停车场。随后去博物馆时，由于是没有围栏围起的员工停车区，且地处市中心，有一位女士便坐在车旁，一边用手机处理工作一边看守。

午餐后，某个国家媒体机构的三位陪我再次前往博物馆时，他们对入口保安说：“你负责看着她的自行车。”如果我们在一小时、两小时甚至三小时后离开博物馆，包括让我把车停在保安避雨遮阳的伞下，这些做法或许不会给我留下多深的印象。

Collection of plants that look just like one of the featured plants in "An Analysis of the Plant Imagery in the Nirvana Sutra Mural on the North Wall of Maijishan Cave 127" with the bonus feature that one of these artifacts includes the Buddha on his bier 一组与《麦积山第127窟北壁涅槃经变壁画植物意象分析》中主植物高度相似的展品，其中一件还包含佛陀涅槃像

However, we left well after the museum had already closed up around us, and the guards were left standing there waiting for me to come get my bike 20+ minutes after they were supposed to be off work. So—as the first in what would end up being a very long list of examples of displaying no respect for anyone and even less respect for people beneath them—it ended up making quite a deep impression on me.

然而，当我们离开时，博物馆早已闭馆多时。那几位保安本该下班，却硬是站在那儿多等了二十多分钟，就为了守着我的自行车。这件事——作为后来一长串"目中无人，尤其轻慢地位低于自己者"事例的开端——最终在我心里烙下了极深的印记。

After most of an hour pretending for the camera to look up hotels on Maps while sheltering from a sudden bone chilling drizzle, we went back to the same hotel where I'd spent the previous night. We chose this hotel because I liked the boss and staff, found it "comfortable enough" for the price, and had them insisting (up until after we were there and they were turning their noses up at how low class it was) that they were totally fine with "wherever [I] usually stay." Once there though the pattern of disregard and disrespect continued.

在公交站避刺骨的冷雨中，我们对着镜头假装用地图查了将近一小时的酒店后，最终还是回到了我昨晚住过的那家旅馆。选择这里是因为我喜欢老板和员工的朴实，觉得"性价比不错"——尽管同行的几位刚到就嫌弃档次太低，全然忘了之前信誓旦旦说"你平时住哪儿我们都无所谓"的承诺。果然，熟悉的轻慢戏码再次上演。

Leaving my bike with the security guards 把自行车给保安看管

Although I would be constantly horrified at the way they treated everyone else³, I think I did things like moving the hotel room furniture back into its original positions after they went to their rooms for the same reason I kept picking up their littered scraps of tape and packaging and putting them in my jersey pockets: not because I wanted other people to think good of me but because I just felt wrong leaving things that weren't mine that much of a mess.

虽然他们对待他人的方式³总让我感到震惊，但我会在他们回房后把酒店家具挪回原位，也会不断捡起他们随地丢弃的胶带和包装纸塞进骑行服口袋——这么做并非为了博人好感，纯粹是觉得把不属于自己的东西弄得一团糟实在过意不去。

Although this would gradually change as things progressed, my being the primary subject of their filming and the person who was going to be reaping the benefit of being on national TV meant that so long as they weren't insisting⁴ on anything dangerous⁵, I didn't initially give them any kind of push back⁶. On the one hand getting confrontational didn't seem likely to end up with any positives for me, while on the other correctly identifying where I was frustrated because of the very necessary repetitive repeating of the same action fifteen times from six different angles for four different lenses and where I was frustrated because they were assholes was kind of hard.

虽然随着拍摄推进，这种情况逐渐改变，但作为他们镜头下的主角和国家级电视台曝光的主要受益者，只要他们没提出⁴什么危险要求⁵，我最初都选择了配合⁶。一方面，冲突对我无益；另一方面，我很难区分：是因同一动作从六个角度用四种镜头重复十五次的必要流程感到烦躁，还是因他们的无礼而不满。

Me taking a photo of him taking a photo of me taking a photo 我拍他正在拍我拍照的瞬间

Furthermore, as the shittiest behavior mostly wasn't directed at me, it took a creeping while for me to go from "I can't believe they just did that" to "I should just tell them hell no" and by that point the filming was over.

此外，由于最恶劣的行为大多不针对我，我花了一段时间才从“不敢相信他们这么做”转变为“我该直接拒绝”，而那时拍摄已接近尾声。

¹ Factors like the not very large number of times I've camped or trying to decide how far one place in Beijing has to be from another place in Beijing before it counts as a second place means that this count is a bit fuzzy.

¹由于确实不多露营次数，且难以界定北京某地与另一地相距多远才算“另一个城镇”，这个计数略有模糊。

² For example, clickyclacks on the wheels, decorative rubber ducks, and three quarters of an inch of dried on mud.

²例如车轮上的响片、装饰橡皮鸭，以及四分之三英寸厚的干泥巴。

³ As well as after the fact discomfort with the idea that the people who were being mistreated by them would mentally blame the Person Being Filmed instead of the Film Crew

³事后还担心被他们苛待的人会误以为责任在“被拍摄者”而非“拍摄团队”

Everything you need to know about them, summed up in one photo⁷ 一张照片道尽他们的为人⁷

⁴ That's enough night time filming in the rain, my teeth won't stop chattering.

⁴够了，别再拍雨夜镜头了，我冻得牙齿打颤。

⁵ I don't care that you want a shot of my bike in the hotel room, this is a safe lobby and I am not carrying my bike up a set of stairs that narrow for love or money.

⁵ 我不管你多想要自行车在酒店房间的镜头，大堂很安全，我绝不会为了任何理由把车搬上那么窄的楼梯。

⁶ There was a C but ought to be D rated fast food restaurant across the street from the hotel which they thought us eating dinner at would make the boss willing to let us use it as a vantage point for a specific shot. I pushed for getting in their rental car and driving somewhere that didn't smell like a case of food poisoning.

⁶ 酒店对面有一家评分堪忧的快餐店，他们认为在那里吃晚餐能让老板同意我们用餐厅作为特定镜头的拍摄点。我坚持坐他们的租车去一个没有“食物中毒气息”的地方。

Combining a GoPro on my rear panniers and a borrowed ebike to take video of me riding at night⁸ 在后驮包装上GoPro，再借来一辆电动自行车，就这样拍下了我夜间骑行的画面。 ⁸

⁷

Furniture he and his spotter have recognized isn't steady enough to be stood on
Wearing outdoor shoes and not so much as a piece of newspaper to stand on.
Headphones dangling in my hair
Their colleague saw nothing wrong in photographing this on my phone

⁷

他和助手明知家具不稳却仍要站上去

穿着户外鞋，甚至不愿铺张报纸垫脚

耳机挂在我头发上晃荡

他们的同事竟觉得用我的手机拍这种画面没

问题

⁸ Notice how warmly they are dressed. Notice that the hotel owner's borrowed† ebike has a big windshield coat already attached for cold weather. Notice that they didn't think it was that chilly and didn't understand why I was so insistent on going indoors already.

⁸ 看看他们穿得多暖和，看看酒店老板借出的†电动车已装上抵御寒风的挡风被，而他们觉得天气不冷，不理解我为何坚持要进屋。

† Of course they didn't pay her

† 当然，他们没付钱给老板。

Today's ride: 22 km (14 miles)
Total: 1,609 km (999 miles)

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