D11: 朔州 → 阳防口（双语）

October 1, 2024

It is really, really cold in the morning. The kind of cold that has people more accustomed to the existence of winter wondering whether or not that sparkle on the pavement is frost.

Despite not being a breakfast person¹ and only ever having any of the oatmeal one evening when our dinner was fairly inadequate, Dr. M immediately volunteers to take my food weight and the coffee bean resupply she brought me.

早晨真的非常非常冷。这种冷，会让习惯了冬天的人也忍不住怀疑，人行道上闪烁的是不是霜花。

M博士平时不吃早餐¹，只有一天晚餐吃得很简单的时候才吃了点我燕麦粥。即便如此，她还是立刻主动帮我分担食物重量，还帮忙载着把给我的咖啡豆。

While we wait for the sun to warm the world, we're starting with a visit to the still walled historic downtown and a temple that's supposed to have some nice Ming frescoes. Despite it being National Day, we are at most expecting a fairly quiet visit that might involved grilling some docents that aren't used to in-depth questions.

在等待太阳温暖大地的时候，我们先去了仍有城墙环绕的历史悠久的市中心，还有一座据说有精美的明代壁画的寺庙。尽管正值国庆节，但我们只期望能安安静静地参观，或许还能向不太习惯被问深入问题的讲解员刨根问底一番。

The Chinese reads "Please don't touch," but it can be literally translated as "Don't move the hand" ... And there's no hand 这也没有手

Not that I remember any of it, but it's so nice going to a temple with someone who knows more than me 虽然我什么都不记得了，但和一个比我懂得多的人一起去寺庙，感觉真好

Speaking of hands you shouldn't move 绝对不该动的手

Eyes made of other materials or gems are added to Buddhas that are active worship objects 正在被供奉的佛像，会用其他材料或宝石来镶嵌眼睛

It's a place that's been recommended by one of her colleagues. So, even though domestic tourism has heated up enough in the post-Covid era that Maijishan and other places that haven't gotten turned into Historically-Themed Disneys are hitting their daily visitor limit, we aren't expecting a random temple in a random county in central Shanxi to have much in the way of people.

But you see.... there's this new computer game about Journey to the West. This new really popular computer game about Journey to the West². And some of those "nice Ming frescoes" that M's colleague mentioned are present in background shots along with a substantial number of 3D renderings of the temple grounds, and it's quite possibly the largest crowd I've experienced since I made the mistake last May of trying to go to the Dragonboat Races on the Haidian Creek³.

这是她一位同事推荐的地方。所以，尽管后疫情时代国内旅游热度飙升，麦积山等还没被改造成历史主题迪士尼乐园的地方都达到了每日游客上限，但我们没料到山西中部某个不知名县里的一座不知名寺庙会有这么多人。

但是你看…… 有一款新的西游记题材电脑游戏。一款非常受欢迎的新西游记题材电脑游戏²。M博士同事提到的那些 “精美的明代壁画”，以及大量寺庙场地的3D渲染图，都出现在了游戏背景画面中。这很可能是自从去年五月我犯了个错，跑去海甸河看龙舟赛后³，见过的最多的人群了。

His expression really captures that "did someone fart" aesthetic 他的表情完美诠释了 “是不是有人放屁了” 这种神态

This much older sign was tucked behind a sign that said "no flash photography" 这块旧得多的牌子藏在一块写着 “请勿使用闪光灯” 的牌子后面

It's been too many decades since I was a medievalist for me to understand why Dr. M says there is something particularly Christian looking about this demon guy hanging out over top the Buddha's halo 我已经几十年不在研究中世纪历史了，所以我实在不明白为什么M博士说，在佛像头光上方的这个恶魔看起来特别像基督教里的形象

No burning. Also, apparently, no regular repainting. “严禁烧坏”。显然，也是“严禁定期刷漆”。

We now know why so damn many people were getting off the train.

Giving up on the possibility of really getting to look at anything of the "indoors variety" at the sort of level that either of us want to look at it, we end up in the Courtyard of Unimportant Things⁴ confusing our entourage of children and security guards while we get legitimately excited by the process of trying to decipher some early 20th century stelae that are half in Chinese, half in Latin, and were most likely the gravestones of prominent missionaries.

我们现在知道为什么有这么多人下火车了。

按自己期望的那种程度去仔细观赏 “室内展品” 的可能性几乎没有，最后我们来到了杂物院⁴。我们试图解读一些20世纪早期的石碑，这些石碑一半是中文，一半是拉丁文，很可能是著名传教士的墓碑。我们对此兴致勃勃，这让跟着我们的孩子们和保安都很困惑。

Then, after about 97 million photos with people who mostly all ask⁵ if they can take pictures with us, we are out of the temple and on the road south across the plain in the general direction of the pass at Shenchi.

接着，在和大概无数人合了影，而且大多数人都问⁵能不能和我们拍照之后，我们离开了寺庙，踏上向南的路，穿过平原，朝着神池关的大致方向前进。

Sunflower seeds outside the mall where I bought us gloves 在我给我俩买手套的商场外面还有瓜子

Winnowing? Is that the word... My English isn't good enough to be certain. 扬谷？是这个词吧……

Wind, wind, wind, wind, wind.

Lunch stop on the outskirts of town where I discover, despite not liking tofu or much in the way of peppers, we have relatively similar tastes in food. By which I mean, of the anything I will happily eat, the anythings I am happier to eat line up nicely with the items she doesn't dislike.

风很大很大。

玉米丰收小镇郊外停下吃午饭时，我发现，尽管她不喜欢豆腐和太多辣椒，但我们在食物口味上还挺相似。我的意思是，我虽然什么东西都乐意吃但是那些我更喜欢吃的，也是她不讨厌的。

It's cold. The addition of thermal gloves and the thicker of the two pairs of tights is not really enough, and the road is kind of boring in that "built for more traffic than it has" way that is common with arterial routes whose trucks have been stolen by the expressway⁶.

So, we go wandering.

天气很冷。戴上保暖手套，穿上两条紧身裤中较厚的那条，还是不够暖和。这条路有点无聊，就是那种 “修建时考虑的交通流量比现在使用的多” 的卡车都被高速公路抢走的主干道的感觉⁶。

所以，我们四处闲逛。

Ostensibly, we're looking for a cluster of historic graves that three previous visitors have decried in AMap comments as "unfindable" and possibly nonexistent. Mostly though, it's a useful marker to set our GPSs to as we aren't on the kind of terrain that supports riding side by side and we haven't yet discovered how much we enjoy swapping stories with each other⁷.

表面上，我们在找一片古墓群，之前有三位游客在高德地图评论里抱怨说 “找不到”，甚至可能根本不存在。但主要是，这是个有用的GPS定位标记，因为我们所处的地形不适合并排骑行，而且我们还没意识到我们有多喜欢互相分享故事⁷。

We like similar kinds of roads 我们一样喜欢这样的路

And similar kinds of Rural Art 还有这样的乡村艺术

And we find similar things hilarious 我们的笑点也很相似

Well before it has gotten dark, and without even knowing that the Shenchi Pass still has all the trucks, we have realized that our chances of making it up a long climb before darkness falls and the cold gets colder are nigh on nonexistent, so, even though the only place in Yangfangkou to be marked "bookable online" is 38y, we head there anyways in the hopes that one of the many dots that doesn't have online bookings or a listed phone number will be acceptable to us.

Success is found in the form of what turns out to be the nicest hotel⁸ in town. We are, as is expected, the first foreigners they've ever had but the staff and owner are pretty amenable to letting us behind the Front Desk to register ourselves and the police (who we never see or directly speak to) are vaguely aware⁹ that strict orders from above have been issued about not rejecting foreigners just because you don't want to admit you don't know how to correctly receive us.

很久之后才天黑，那时还不知道神池关仍然堵满了卡车，我们才意识到，在天黑、寒冷加剧之前爬上一段长长的坡路，可能性几乎为零。所以，尽管阳方口唯一标着 “可在线预订” 的酒店要价38元，我们还是去了，希望众多没有在线预订或没有列出电话号码的酒店中，能有一个让我们满意。

我们成功找到了镇上最好的酒店⁸。不出所料，我们是他们接待的第一批外国人，但工作人员和老板都很友善，让我们到前台后面自己登记。警察（我们从未见到，也没有直接交谈过）大概知道⁹，上面有严格命令，不能因为不想承认不知道如何正确接待外国人就拒绝我们。

Birth Control Policy image sets I haven't previously seen templates of 我之前没见过这种计划生育政策宣传画模板

Not sure what this anti dowry picture has to do with the text 不知道这幅反彩礼的图片和旁边的文字有什么关系

Even when it still shows the female presenting person in a subordinate role, I love the amount of conscious effort that went into gender equality imagery 即便画面中女性仍处于从属地位，但我还是很欣赏为性别平等宣传画所付出的努力

Someone was paid to make this drawing ....这画成这样还收钱吗……

Being their first, letting the boss and all his staff take pictures with us, and making a praise-y video about the boss letting us behind the counter earn us a free dish of some savory mutton stew that's substantially better than either of the dishes we specifically order in the first floor restaurant. Then, it's up to rooms where the central heat hasn't been turned on yet, there are no individual heaters, and everything is chilly enough that neither of us are willing to find out if the showers have hot water.

作为他们接待的第一批外国人，我们让老板和所有员工和我们合影，还拍了个夸赞老板让我们到前台后面登记的视频，这为我们赢得了一份免费的美味炖羊肉，比我们在一楼餐厅特意点的任何一道菜都好吃得多。然后，我们上楼到房间，中央暖气还没开，也没有独立取暖器，一切都冷飕飕的，我们俩都不想去看看淋浴有没有热水。

¹ Eating too early in the day gives her an upset stomach

¹ 她早上太早吃东西会胃疼

² Black Myth: Wukong. You can find it on Steam.

² 《黑神话：悟空》。Steam上有这款游戏。

Part of why neither of us were up to taking a shower (or walking barefoot) 这就是我们俩都不想洗澡（或光脚走路）的原因之一

Sufficiently gusty wind that I managed to pee all over both socks (and would decide to throw them out) 风太大了，我都尿到两只袜子上了（然后决定把袜子扔了）

I'm pretty sure the standard image in this template is a refrigerator not a microwave 我很确定这个模板里的图片应该是冰箱，而不是微波炉

³ First time in over 20 years for Haikou to hold Dragonboat Races inside the urban area

³海口20多年来首次在市区举办龙舟赛

⁴ Every moderately large historic site in China has one of these as a sort of dumping ground for Movable Relics† that researchers or conservators at the museum or Antiquities Bureau are currently "doing something with." At the time, I forgot to ask Dr. M where they go after the "something" is done.

⁴中国每个中等规模的历史遗迹都有这样一个地方，算是可移动文物†的堆放处，博物馆或文物局的研究人员或文物保护人员目前正在对这些文物 “进行处理”。当时，我忘了问M博士，处理完之后这些文物会去哪里。

† China divides Historical Relics into "Immovable Cultural Relics" (i.e., buildings, Very Large Statues, and Cave Temples) and "Movable Cultural Relics".

† 中国将历史文物分为 “不可移动文物”（即建筑、大型雕像和石窟寺庙）和 “可移动文物”。

⁵ This will become an important topic multiple times during my ride with her

⁵在和她一起骑行的过程中，这会成为我们谈论的重点话题。

No time to stop and check out the ruins 没时间停下来查看废墟

The road ahead is under construction, please take another route 又是施工

By the Laws of Physics, he gets right of way 根据物理定律，他有优先通行权

⁶ In this case, although we only hear about it rather than experience it, it might be because there is construction going on on one of the passes south of here. Rather than a US Rt. 66 situation where the traffic dried up and never came back, it seems that this construction is also part of why most of the not very many hotels in Yangfangkou are currently shuttered.

⁶在这种情况下，虽然我们只是听说而非亲身经历，但可能是因为这里以南的某个关隘正在施工。不像美国66号公路那样，交通一去不复返，这里的施工似乎也是阳方口不多的酒店大多目前歇业的原因之一。

⁷ Difficult though it may be to believe, Dr. M is even more skilled than I am at putting herself in unnecessarily uncomfortable and/or dangerous situations on account of a certainty that Everything Will Be Fine

⁷尽管可能很难相信，但M博士比我更擅长把自己置于不必要的不舒服和或危险境地，因为她坚信一切都会好的

⁸ 80y apiece, 88 if we'd wanted tax receipts

⁸每人80元，如果要发票就是88元

⁹ Bearing in mind, Yangfangkou is rural enough that the normal pre-Notice behavior by the police would be to ignore our existence

⁹要知道，阳方口足够偏僻，在今年的中央通知发布了之前，警察正常的做法是无视我们的存在

Scrabble is so much more enjoyable when you okay open hands and try to help the other person get their best possible score 当可以亮牌又能帮助对方得高分时，拼字游戏会超有意思

Today's ride: 39 km (24 miles)
Total: 700 km (435 miles)

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D11: 朔州 → 阳防口 （双语）

D11: 朔州 → 阳防口（双语）