D12: 阳防口 → 五寨（双语）

October 2, 2024

Windmills, train, and tricycle 风车、火车和三轮车

With tonight being the third of three nights where checking in as a foreigner goes back to not being the insanely smooth experience it had been every night in Shanxi prior to Dr. M's arrival, I'm unimaginably glad that she's just as firmly stubborn as I am on the topic of "fuck you and your unwritten rules."

As so many cool things happened before we got into our showdown with various iterations of Public Security, my even mentioning that a showdown happened is a case of my getting a bit ahead of myself, but, suffice it to say, our eventful day had an even more eventful ending.

这已经连续三晚了，以外国人登记入住不再像M博士到来之前在山西的每一晚那样顺畅。我无比庆幸，在“去你的，还有你那些不成文的规矩”这个话题上，她和我一样坚决固执。

在我们与不同的公安人员发生对峙之前，发生了许多有趣的事情。我现在提到对峙这件事，其实有点过了，但可以说，我们这充满故事的一天有了一个更加跌宕起伏的结局。

Since our rooms came with free breakfast, we dutifully made the effort to go downstairs and eat. It being a small hotel that was putting out approximately the amount of food as the number of guests made the breakfast more edible than is usually the case for hotel breakfasts; however, it still wasn't half as delicious as a street corner packed with locals would have been. However, given the general furniture situation with Chinese hotel rooms¹, it did, at least, mean that we had someplace better to sit and caffeinate.

由于我们的房间包含免费早餐，我们尽量下楼用餐。这是一家小酒店，提供的食物量大概和客人数量相当，这里的早餐比一般酒店的更能入口；然而，它仍然不及街角满是当地人的小吃摊一半美味。可是鉴于中国酒店房间常见的家具配置情况¹，至少这意味着我们有个更好的地方可以坐下来喝杯咖啡提提神。

"Hotels Even Marian Won't Stay In" Series, "Food, Lodging" and instead of mentioning that they have high speed internet or parking, they want to make sure you know "if you stay here, you can shower!" “连岳玫瑰都不会住的酒店”系列，“饮食、住宿”，而且他们不说酒店有高速网络或停车场，而是想让你知道“如果你住在这里，你可以洗澡！”

"Hotels Even Marian Won't Stay In" Series: Top "Smokes, Booze, Lodging", Bottom "Medicinal Ingredients Hotel" “连岳玫瑰都不会住的酒店”系列：上方“香烟、酒水、住宿”，下方“中药材酒店”

Roll up your sleeves and get things done 又见标语

Proud to take part in the redevelopment of my neighborhood 棚改区

Dr. M found us some incredible fake Oreos while we were looking for a shop that had big bottles of water. Since they were cheap, these—of course—needed to be bought, and tasted, and reviewed for the camera. Just as inedible and gross as expected, we threw them out after one bite each², then proceeded with attempting to see if we could find Yangfangkou's lone online-bookable hotel.

在我们寻找卖大瓶水的商店时，M博士发现了一些难以置信的山寨奥利奥饼干。因为它们很便宜，所以当然得买下来，尝一尝，然后对着镜头做个测评。不出所料，它们难以下咽且令人作呕，我们每人咬了一口后就把它们扔掉了²，然后继续尝试看看能否找到阳方口唯一可在线预订的酒店。

Small as Yangfangkou is, and near as it was, we still managed to get distracted on our way there; but we did eventually find something in the right general location that had probably been part of the same property when they first opened and now seemed to be a closed banquet hall combined with a storage area for electric cable and other construction materials. By this point we were just over there to use their (horrific) toilets and to ask questions about the folk temple on the other side of the street, and we weren't actually looking to rent 38y a night rooms, so we never got around to asking where the rooms were.

尽管阳方口很小，而且酒店也离得不远，但我们在去的路上还是停下来了；不过我们最终在大致正确的位置找到了一个地方，这个地方在刚开业时可能跟酒店联合在一起，现在看起来像是一个关闭的宴会厅，还兼作电缆和其他建筑材料的储存区。此时我们到那里只是为了使用他们（糟糕透顶的）厕所，并询问一下街对面的民俗寺庙的情况，实际上我们并不打算租每晚38元的房间，所以我们也一直没问房间在哪里。

In terms of location and architecture, Mystic Spring Hotel³—the banquet hall / construction materials yard—certainly seemed to have some sort of relationship to Holy Spring Temple. But, even with everything pointing to this building being at least a decade older than anything we had seen at the Temple, the one and only staff member we eventually managed to find by wandering around shouting "hallooo" didn't know much of anything

就位置和建筑风格而言，神泉酒店³——也就是那个宴会厅/建筑材料场——似乎与圣泉寺有某种联系。但是，即使所有迹象都表明这座建筑至少比我们在寺庙里看到的任何建筑都要早十年，我们最终在四处呼喊“有人吗”后找到的唯一的工作人员，她几乎什么都不知道。

Furthermore, her thick local accent is a different thick local accent than the ones which Dr. M usually encounters during fieldwork, and we were faced with the all too common problem of "they understand me" but "I don't understand them."

When I say "thick local accent" I need you to realize that we're talking a level of accent where—comparing notes after we left—I thought Holy Spring Temple had been built by a local deaf man (long ren) and Dr. M thought it was built by a monk from Longmen.

此外，她浓重的当地口音和M博士在实地考察中通常遇到的口音不同，我们面临着一个非常常见的问题：“他们能听懂我说话”，但“我听不懂他们的话”。

当我说“浓重的当地口音”时，你得明白，我们说的是那种口音程度——在我们离开后交流情况时，我以为圣泉寺是由当地一个聋人建造的，而M博士则认为是由龙门的一个和尚建造的。

The dipper at the spring is made from a hardhat 泉水处的水瓢是用安全帽做的

Religious art doesn't require a lot of skill 宗教艺术不需要很高的技艺

Before our little Q & no A Session at Mystic Spring, we easily spent an hour climbing up and down the mountainside, poking our noses into all the shrines, trying the spring water, pondering the meaning behind the decorative(?) concrete statue of mushrooms, reading all the inscriptions, and failing to find ways up to the nearby Ming Dynasty fort⁴.

Showcasing why field research into folk religion is a bitch, we left the Temple with more unanswered questions than answered ones.

在神泉进行那不太成功的问答环节之前，我们轻松地花了一个小时在山坡上爬上爬下，探头探脑地查看所有的神龛，品尝泉水，思考那个装饰性（？）的蘑菇混凝土雕像背后的意义，阅读所有的碑文，并且没能找到通往附近明代堡垒⁴的路。

这表明了为什么实地研究民间宗教是那么难，我们离开寺庙时，心里的未解之谜比得到解答的问题还要多。

From here, we didn't have much farther to go to the turn off we'd picked that went most of the way over the mountain to Shenchi (with practically no distance at all on the truck road) Pass. Found and confirmed over morning coffee, our route was worked out with a combination of AMap and Open Topo (my phone) and BaiduMaps and Tubulu (her phone) and—even though none of our resources⁵ bothered to inform us of the I-want-to-say 17th century pagoda that we'd have spotted even if the guy on the motorcycle hadn't told us about it when he saw us pushing our bikes up the hill—was most likely the original Shenchi Pass Road.

从这里出发，我们离所选的那个岔路口已经不远了，沿着那条路走大部分路程可以翻过山到达神池（在卡车行驶的道路上几乎也没多远）关隘。我们在早上喝咖啡时就发现并确认了路线，我们用高德地图和Open Topo（我的手机）以及百度地图和2步路（她的手机）共同规划了路线——而且，即使任何一个信息来源⁵都没有告诉我们，有一座我想说大概是17世纪的宝塔，即使骑摩托车的人没有在看到我们推着自行车上山时告诉我们，我们也会注意到它——但这条路很可能就是原来的神池关隘路。

Beacon Tower and Heritage Site Boundary Marker 烽火台和遗址边界标志

I don't know if this Great Wall marker is from 2018 or if it's the 2,018th marker. Both are equally likely. 我不知道这个长城标志是2018年设立的，还是说它是第2018个标志。两种可能性都一样大。

It was a good morning and a good road. Perfect blue skies with the barest hint of fluffy white clouds to threaten that the night will be cold, bushes full of ripe orange seabuckthorn for us to try to snag without cutting our fingers open on the spikes, an overgrown brush layer with a lot of wild chamomile that somehow made the world smell purple, and a great big group of locals who had come up to granny's village to dig potatoes and roast them by the side of the path, the pagoda and crumbling⁶ original temple take another ninety minutes out of our available daylight, and then we had to have freshly roasted taters straight from the fire pit.

那是一个美好的早晨，也是一条不错的路。湛蓝的天空中飘着几缕最淡的蓬松白云，这预示着夜晚会很冷；灌木丛里长满了成熟的橙色沙棘，我们试图在不被刺扎破手指的情况下采摘；茂盛的灌木丛中长满了野生洋甘菊，不知为何让整个世界都弥漫着紫色的香气；一大群当地人来到老奶奶的村子里挖土豆，然后在路边烤土豆吃。那座探究宝塔和破败的⁶原始寺庙又花了我们九十分钟的白天时间，然后我们不得不尝一尝刚从火坑里烤出来的土豆。

It's probably a really good thing they insisted on feeding us, cause there wasn't any food between the pagoda and Shenchi County and, if we hadn't had the potatoes, we'd have been hungry and grumpy as well as spooked and discombobulated by the fast moving trucks along a road where—drivers' good behavior notwithstanding—I was seriously considering riding in the drainage ditch and Dr. M was thinking of going off road.

他们坚持要给我们吃的，这可能真的是件好事，因为从宝塔到神池县之间找不到任何食物，如果我们没吃那些土豆，我们不仅会又饿又烦躁，而且还会因为路上疾驰的卡车而感到害怕和不知所措——尽管司机们表现良好，但我当时认真考虑过骑到排水沟里，而M博士则想着走小路。

Boil 'em, mash 'em, stick 'em in a stew, and always make sure the fire is completely out before you leave even if the people whose fire it was didn't.煮了它们，捣碎它们，把它们放进炖菜里，而且即使生火的人没有把火完全扑灭，你离开之前也要确保火已经完全熄灭。

I'll show off my ability to balance for as long as possible but will eventually join her walking 我会尽可能长时间地展示我的平衡能力，但最终还是会和她一起走路推车。

Making the executive decision at Shenchi to continue on to Wuzhai in order to grind out the kilometers as fast as possible on a road that wasn't as truck-y and which was taking us away from the arterial road, we should have stayed in Shenchi, should have gone to visit the Mao Was Here Site, and should have found out why Shenchi has approximately 73 million shops selling mooncakes.

With the exception of exhaustion caused by an imaginary downhill (it existed only on the topo map), and being really cold cause both of us were too stubborn/dumb to stop and pull out additional layers beyond gloves, the riding was fine.

在神池时，我们做出了一个重要决定，继续前往五寨，以便在一条卡车不那么多的路上尽快骑多些公里数，而且这条路会带我们远离主干道。我们本应该留在神池，本应该去参观“毛主席到此一游”景点，本应该弄清楚为什么神池有大约7300万家卖月饼的商店。

除了因为骑不存在的下坡路（它只存在于地形图上）而产生的疲惫感，以及因为我们俩都太固执/愚蠢，不愿意停下来多穿点衣服，除了手套之外没有再拿出其他保暖品而感到非常寒冷之外，骑行过程还算顺利。

There's no shame in short days. But it feels wrong when your Touring Days get less kilometers than your Commuting Days and the insistence that we keep going combined with a road that, even when it was officially a town or a township, didn't seem to have much of anything at all between county seats, meant that—no matter what—our arrival in Wuzhai would have been a hungry, hangry, unpleasant end to a wonderful morning.

短距离的骑行日没什么可羞愧的。但当你的骑行旅行日的骑行公里数比通勤日还少的时候，感觉就不太对了。而且坚持继续前行，即使在官方认定的城镇区域，在县城之间似乎也没什么东西的路，这意味着——无论如何——我们到达五寨时，将会以饥饿、暴躁和不愉快的状态结束这美好的上午。

The only power pole on this stretch to have an advertisement⁷ is right next to the pagoda 这段路上唯一有广告的电线杆⁷就在宝塔旁边

Dr. M tells me that leaving an "I was here" is pretty normal behavior in this part of China. This brick was defaced by someone from the People's Liberation Army. ：M博士告诉我，在中国的这个地区，留下“我曾到此一游”的标记是很常见的行为。这块砖被一名解放军的涂画破坏了。

This one by someone from Hainan 这一块是被一个海南人涂画了

It may have already been dark by the time we crossed into Wuzhai. I don't think it was. Heading towards dark, for sure. But not actually dark. Not that darkness or lack of darkness should be an issue but, if it was dark and Wuzhai is a Closed County, then they might have an excuse for failing to see us enter the County.

Of course, until I make a complaint to the national government and get a response, I'm still not entirely sure that the County is closed.

当我们进入五寨时，可能天已经黑了。我觉得应该还没黑。肯定是快黑了，但实际上还没黑。其实天黑不黑本不应该是个问题，但是，如果天已经黑了，而且五寨是一个封闭的县，那么他们可能就有借口说没看到我们进入这个县。

当然，在我向国家政府提出投诉并得到回复之前，我仍然不完全确定这个县是否是封闭的。

I've been in Closed Areas before. Both with and without permission. Obviously the times that were without permission weren't intentional ... but shit happens, the GPS sends you the wrong way, you get lost mountain biking, you're on a road that wasn't signposted "no admittance," you don't notice a "military area" sign⁸ until it's too late, or the road you are taking was built on land that's officially owned by the military and no one cares⁹.

我以前也去过封闭区域。有经过允许的，也有未经允许的。显然，未经允许的那些情况并不是故意的……但意外总会发生，GPS给你指错路，你在山地骑行时迷路了，你走在一条没有标明“禁止进入”的路上，等你注意到“军事区域”的标志⁸时已经太晚了，或者你走的路建在官方属于军队的土地上，而根本没人在意⁹。

Not my first¹⁰ yurt of the year, but my first easily photographable one 这不是我今年看到的第一个¹⁰蒙古包，但却是第一个好拍照的蒙古包

My fingers think it's a good time to put on the other gloves 我的手指觉得现在是戴上另一双手套的好时机

In the emptiness between Death Machines, the road doesn't look so bad 在“致命卡车”之间的空隙处，这条路看起来还不算太糟

In addition to discovering that I've spent the last however long inside a Closed Area only as I'm on my way out¹¹, I've also had a couple experiences getting kicked out of Closed Areas.

The first time accidentally discovering that you've wandered into a Secure Area and—instead of them being the kind of shouty asshole security guards who are Keeping Bicycles Out of a mall parking lot—they surprise you by doing something like feeding you watermelon while they organize a vehicle to take you to the other side is kind of an inevitable rite of passage among people (including Chinese citizens) who like to travel off the beaten path.

除了在即将离开时才发现自己在过去的一段时间里一直处于一个封闭区域内¹¹，我还有过几次被赶出封闭区域的经历。

第一次意外发现自己误入了一个关闭区域，而且——他们不是那种会大喊大叫、像不让自行车进入商场停车场的那种混蛋保安——他们做了一些让你惊讶的事情，比如在他们安排车辆送你到另一边的时候给你吃西瓜，这对于喜欢走不寻常路线旅行的人（包括中国公民）来说，有点像是一种不可避免的成长经历。

The more serious the intentional or unintentional transgression is, the better trained the authorities are in handling it without emotion.

Or, to put it in simpler terms, the lower the actual stakes are, the more likely it is that any demands you are getting to "respect my authority" are coming from someone who is making shit up.

无论是故意还是无意的违规行为，只要是很严重的，当局在处理时就越训练有素，不会带有个人情绪。

或者，用更简单的话来说，实际风险越低，那些要求你“尊重我的权威”的人就越有可能是在瞎编乱造。

The drainage ditch I was considering riding in 我当时考虑在排水沟里骑行

It is honorable to protect the Great Wall and shameful to damage it. 荒郊野外的标语

Closed Areas have specific, expected behaviors that follow specific, expected patterns; furthermore, these patterns are consistent across a multi-decade time period that—limiting myself only to friends and acquaintances who are foreign nationals—easily includes over a hundred incidents in over a dozen provinces.

Not one of the procedures I've either experienced or heard about for dealing with foreigners who are accidentally or intentionally inside a Closed District without permission involves: "we're like really really certain that we have rules, but we aren't allowed to show them to you because they're secret rules."

封闭区域有特定的、可预期的行为模式，而且这些模式是符合特定的、可预期的规律的；此外，这些规律在几十年的时间跨度内都是一致的——仅就我那些身为外国公民的朋友和熟人而言，很容易就涵盖了十几个省份的一百多起事件。

在我亲身经历或听说过的处理那些无意或有意未经许可进入封闭区域的外国人的程序中，没有一个涉及：“我们确定我们有规定，但我们不能给你看，因为这些是秘密规定。”

Not one of the procedures I've either experienced or heard about for dealing with foreigners who are accidentally or intentionally inside a Closed District without permission involves the police only knowing that the foreigners exist because a municipal code enforcement officer driving by happened to see us talking to someone¹³ on a street corner 20km inside what they are claiming is the Closed Area.

在我亲身经历或听说过的处理那些无意或有意未经许可进入封闭区域的外国人的程序中，没有一个涉及到给外国人登记的在线酒店客人登记系统¹²。

在我亲身经历或听说过的处理那些无意或有意未经许可进入封闭区域的外国人的程序中，没有一个涉及到警察只是因为一名市政执法人员开车经过时，碰巧看到我们在他们声称是封闭区域内20公里处的街角和某人交谈¹³才知道有外国人存在。

Temple building inside the core conservation area 核心保护区内的寺庙建筑

Yaodong inside the core conservation area 核心保护区内的窑洞

The inside of this half collapsed abandoned cave house is totally a safe place to explore 这个半倒塌的废弃窑洞内部绝对是一个值得探索的安全地方

And, glossing entirely over the part where they quite simply had no tools available to deal with not one but two Chinese-speaking foreigners yelling back at an ever growing number of them, "no, you," not one of the procedures I've previously experienced or heard about for dealing with foreigners who are accidentally or intentionally inside a Closed District without permission involves the officials who are claiming National Security as a reason for why "[we] aren't allowed to be here" eventually deciding that arguing with us is harder than just giving up and letting us stay the night.

而且，完全忽略他们根本没有任何办法来应对不是一个而是两个会说中文的外国人对着越来越多的他们大喊“不，是你们错了”的情况，在我之前经历或听说过的处理那些无意或有意未经许可进入封闭区域的外国人的程序中，没有一个涉及到那些以“国家安全”为由声称“[外国人]不许在这里”的官员，最终却认为和我们争论比放弃并让我们在这里过夜更难。

Footnotes on the next page...

Today's ride: 59 km (37 miles)
Total: 759 km (471 miles)

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D12: 阳防口 → 五寨 （双语）

D12: 阳防口 → 五寨（双语）