T-4: 天水 → 伏家（双语）

September 12, 2024

Our self rotating lazy-susan is powered off of a USB power bank 我们的自动转盘是由一个 USB 移动电源供电的。

After a breakfast buffet with more than the usual complement of things that I'm willing to eat this early in the morning, we're off to Maijishan. Both a 5A Tourist Site and a UNESCO World Heritage Site, it's the only place we'll go this trip that is actually an active¹ tourist site.

So active in fact that it's got shuttle buses you have to stand in line for, food stalls in the parking lot, site relevant souvenirs, and one of my superfans approaching during the TV interview at the end. He's not the first superfan I've had the opportunity to meet, but he's my first ever "in the wild" unexpected meeting of someone truly excited to see me and not just in a "wow a foreigner" or "wow an internet influencer" but "wow, it's Marian!"

自助早餐的菜品比我平常一大早想吃的种类要多得多，早餐之后我们就出发前往麦积山。麦积山既是国家5A级旅游景区，也是联合国教科文组织认定的世界文化遗产地，而且它是我们此次行程中唯一一个有许多游客¹的景点。

实际上这儿非常热闹，热闹到你得排队等待景区接驳巴士，停车场有小吃摊，还有纪念品售卖。最后，在接受电视采访的时，我的一位超级粉丝走了过来。他不是我机缘巧合见到的第一位超级粉丝，但他是我第一次在“户外”意外碰到的，见到我特兴奋的粉丝，不只是那种“哇，外国人”或者“哇，网红”的反应，而是“哇，是岳玫瑰！”

My tolerance for taking photos with strangers has skyrocketed since it changed from "because foreigner" to "because specific foreigner" 从因为我是“外国人”变成因为我是“某个特定的外国人”而被要求合影之后，我对于和陌生人合影的容忍度大幅提高了。

Horses or coolies providing you with an option other than your own two feet are the number one marker of a Major Site 有马或苦力可选，让你不用光靠两条腿走路，这可是大型景区的特色。

He knew that I like coffee, that I'm afraid of biking through tunnels, and that I'd been sufficiently affected by Typhoon Yagi that I slept in a hotel on Saturday night.

I've said it before and I'm sure I'll say it again, but being recognized by strangers who know you is simultaneously the coolest thing ever and really, really weird.

他知道我喜欢咖啡，知道我害怕骑车过隧道，还知道我深受台风“摩羯”的影响，以至于周六晚上我住酒店了。

我之前说过，而且以后肯定还会再说，被认识自己的陌生人认出来这件事，既是最酷的体验，同时也是真的很奇怪。

Maijishan is a very whelming place. The art and statues almost have the opportunity to be overwhelming but the number of people, the width of the stairs and walkways hanging off the cliff face, and the need to keep moving else you'll cause a traffic jam demotes it down to merely whelming.

麦积山是个让人震撼的地方。这里的艺术品和雕像几乎有那种让人震撼到不知所措的魅力，可由于游客众多，悬崖峭壁上的楼梯和步道宽度有限，而且还得不停地往前走，不然就会造成拥堵，这就使得它的震撼程度有所降低，只是让人感觉震撼，仅此而已。

Most of the visible to tourists caves at Maijishan are like this 麦积山大多数对游客开放的洞窟都是这样式的。

However, there are some which we can look at without having to make a special effort 不过，也有一些洞窟我们无需费力就能看到。

But only while walking past 但也只是在路过时能看上一眼

On account of a translation² I'd done last year for one of the researchers³ there, I'd specifically requested the opportunity to visit Cave 127, all without knowing it has the best preserved frescoes at the site and is one of the ones that the general public has to both reserve in advance and pay a lot extra to visit⁴. That would have been the icing on the cake that elevated my day all the way up to amazing except that all the other things that happened were So Damn Cool, it faded away to a mere appetizer.

因为去年我曾为那里的一位研究人员³做过翻译工作²，所以我特意请求参观了第127号洞窟，当时我并不知道这个洞窟里有麦积山保存最完好的壁画，而且它还是普通游客必须提前预约并且要额外支付高额费用才能参观的洞窟之一⁴。这本该是锦上添花的事，能让我这一天的经历直接升华到令人惊叹的程度，只可惜当天发生的其他事情都太神奇了，以至于这件事沦为了区区开胃小菜。

Leaving Maijishan for Li County, despite my many efforts to convince them that we really ought to visit Yanguan Town and the Salt Well Temple because, from 2021's Bike Tour, it 1) is really small, 2) doesn't suck, 3) has cool historical associations⁵, and 4) is in a town where I like the police, we drove right past it on the expressway and on to the Li County Government Reception Center for a big, fancy lunch with people like the Director of the County Propaganda Department, Secretary of the County Committee, and the County Commissioner.

离开麦积山前往礼县，尽管我多次努力劝说他们，我们真的应该去盐官镇和盐井寺看看，因为在2021年的骑行之旅中，那里：1) 地方很小；2) 挺不错的；3) 有着很酷的历史渊源⁵；4) 而且我挺喜欢那里的警察的。但我们还是开车从高速公路上经过了那里，然后前往礼县县政府接待中心，与县委宣传部部长、县委书记、县长等人员一起享用了丰盛豪华的午餐。

I had a specific reason for taking her picture and it wasn't just because she's beautiful...I just don't remember what it was. Something the docent said about her posture maybe? 我给她拍照是有特别原因的，并非只是因为她长得漂亮……只是我不记得具体是什么原因了。也许是讲解员提到她的姿势之类的事情？

Maiji Big Buddha, like most of the pieces around here, is straw and clay over a framework of wood on account of the stone being too fragile 麦积大佛和这里的大多数佛像一样，是在木质框架上用稻草和黏土制成的，因为这里的石头易碎。

The County Commissioner is one seat over from me 县长和我就隔了一个座位。

Figuring that the cops from the 2018 Tour episode of "Rescuing My Sorry Ass When I Did Something Stupid" weren't the sort of people to go reporting up to high level officials that they'd impressed me enough that their photo had been one of the ones used in the Washington Post article about cycle touring in China, I made sure to let all the bigwigs know this; and the County Commissioner goes:
"Did this happen in 2018?"
Yes."
"And did you continue onwards to Daqiao Town in Xihe County the next day?"
"Yes."
"I thought so."

回想起2018年旅行中发生的“我干了件蠢事，警察来救我”那档子事，我觉得那些警察不像是会向高级官员汇报说他们给我留下了深刻印象，以至于他们的照片还被用在了《华盛顿邮报》那篇关于在中国骑行的文章里的那种人。所以我特意把这事告诉了所有这些大人物。然后县长问道：

“这事儿是发生在2018年吗？”

“没错。”

“那第二天你接着去西和县的大桥镇了吗？”

“去了。”

“我就说嘛。”

Because he'd been the Mayor of Daqiao at the time and, although he'd never met me, or seen photos of me, he knew who I was.

Later on, in the comments of the video I took in the county's surprisingly amazing Qin Culture Museum⁶, someone who is not one of my followers asked "did you ever once bike from Pingnan in Guangxi to Tonghe Town? Like a really, really long time ago."
"2008 and 2020 from Pingnan to Tonghe, and 2012 for the other direction."
"I was a kid at the time. So, 2008."

因为当时他是大桥镇的镇长，尽管他从未见过我，也没看过我的照片，但他知道我是谁。

后来，在我拍摄的关于礼县那座惊为天人的秦文化博物馆⁶的视频评论里，有位没关注我的人问道：“你有没有曾经从广西平南骑车到同和镇？好像是很久很久以前的事了。”

“2008和2020年都曾经从平南骑行到同和，2012年是从反方向骑的。”

“我当时还是个孩子呢。所以，是2008年那次。”

Original bronzes in the Qin Culture Museum 秦文化博物馆里的青铜器原件

I've previously had randoms online find and send me photos they took with me 10 and 15 years ago, but I'm usually posting from the same general geographic region as our original encounter. So, this, plus meeting the superfan and the county commissioner had me dancing on air.

To end the day, we drove south and east about two hours, to the distillery in Hui County that has no right to be listed as a 4A Tourist Site and where they turned me away from visiting on my 2021 Tour because of "the worsening Covid situation" 2,500km away.

之前，曾有网友偶然发现并给我发了他们在10年前、15年前和我的合影，不过我发动态时，通常都是在和我们初次相遇时大致相同的地理区域。所以，这件事再加上见到了那位超级粉丝以及县长，让我高兴得飘飘然了。

最后，我们向东南方向行驶大约两个小时后，来到了徽县的一家酒厂。这家酒厂不应该被列为4A级旅游景区，而且在我2021年骑行之旅时，就因为远在2500公里之外的“新冠疫情形势加剧”而拒绝让我进去参观。

The guest dining room in the distillery may be the gaudiest building I've been in this decade 这家酒厂的宴客厅可能是我这十年来见过的最艳俗的建筑。

Bearing in mind, this is how they bottle their $200 28-year-old baijiu 要知道，他们就是这样包装售价200美元有28年之久的白酒。

We won't actually visit the distillery until the next morning, but we will get checked in to the "hotel" rooms in one of the two staff dormitory buildings and get taken to a very expensive banquet in their astonishingly gaudy reception hall. I will then worry lots of people by insisting on my ability to walk back on my own without getting lost⁷ and, furthermore, appearing confident enough in my Knowing Where I'm Going that I make it almost all the way there before a very worried security guard who was extremely certain that Something Might Happen to Me insisted on joining me with a flashlight.

实际上，我们要到第二天早上才去参观那家酒厂，但我们会先在两栋员工宿舍楼其中一栋的“酒店”客房办理入住手续，然后被带到他们那俗丽得令人咋舌的接待大厅去参加一场极为昂贵的宴会。之后，我坚持说自己能够独自走回去且不会迷路，这可把好多人给担心坏了。而且，我表现出对自己认路的能力十分有信心⁷。在快走到的时候，一位非常担心我、坚信我可能会出什么事的保安拿着手电筒非要陪我一起走。

¹ I think there were a dozen or twenty visitors to the Li Family Ancestor Temple who were unaffiliated with us and visiting while we were there, but all the other sites probably couldn't even reach 200 combined.

¹ 在我们参观李家祠堂的时候，我觉得有大概十几二十个普通游客也在那儿，但其他所有景点加起来可能连两百人都不到。

² An Analysis of the Plant Imagery in the Nirvana Sutra on the North Wall of Maijishan Cave 127

² 《麦积山第127窟北壁〈涅槃经变图〉中的植物意象分析》

Why are they so obsessed with negative oxygen ions? 中国底层景点为什么对负氧离子如此痴迷呢？

For one thing, the pair of 14 storey hotel/dormitory buildings were the only two buildings on campus that were more than 3 stories tall, and they were both next to each other. 一方面，那两栋14层的酒店/宿舍楼是园区内仅有的两栋超过3层的建筑，而且它们还紧挨着彼此。

³ Who I didn't get to meet because, in response to yesterday's visit from the man himself, her department head decided to have a morning meeting on Implementing the Spirit of Xi Jinping Thought

³ 我没能见到那位研究员，是因为昨天习主席到访之后，她所在部门的领导决定召开一个关于贯彻习近平新时代中国特色社会主义思想的早会。

⁴ Each of the special caves is around USD 30 per person.

⁵ Du Fu wrote a poem about it

⁴ 每个特窟收费大概30美元每人。

⁵ 杜甫为此作诗一首。

⁶ To be perfectly fair, while it was from the perspective of praise that I think the translation is better than the Palace Museum, it's also a serious criticism of the translation at the Palace Museum†.

† Something which I'm willing to do not because I've been there recently but because I have a friend who, upon seeing what a Worker Who Thinks They Speak English did to her translation, asked them not to tell anyone she worked on that exhibit.

⁶ 说句公道话，从夸赞的角度来讲，我觉得这个地方的翻译比故宫博物院的要好，但这同时也是对故宫博物院的翻译†提出严肃批评。

† 我之所以这样说，并不是因为我最近去过故宫博物院，而是因为我有位朋友，她看到一个自认为会说英语的工作人员对她的翻译做出的改动后，就要求他们不告诉别人她为那个展览翻译过的事。

⁷ Two turns over maybe 1.5km

⁷ 大概走了1.5公里，拐了两个弯。

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T-4: 天水 → 伏家 （双语）

T-4: 天水 → 伏家（双语）