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鬼城新生 | 卫报

2017-03-23 Tom Phillips 英文联播

China goes west: a ghost city in the sand comes to life

It was a scheme as bold and eccentric as any to emerge from China’s 21st-century sprint towards urbanisation: to build and populate a dazzling metropolis of one million inhabitants deep in the country’s barren western hinterlands.

在国家贫穷的内陆腹地兴建一座人口百万、令人炫目的大都市,这是诸多大胆而古怪的中国21世纪城市化进程中的一例。


In their bid to make this Fitzcaraldo-esque dream a reality there is little Chinese authorities have not tried. Hundreds of mountains and village after village have been bulldozed since construction of Gansu province’s Lanzhou New Area began in 2012.

为了实现“陆上行舟”的梦想,中国政府尝试了各种各样的方法。为建设甘肃省兰州新区,从2012年起相关部门累计拆除和搬迁了数千座高山和村庄。

译注:Carlos Fitzcaraldo,秘鲁美裔橡胶大亨,试图让船只越过陡峭的山壁抵达亚马逊河谷的橡胶产地。


A free trade zone has been created, an artificial lake carved into the arid soil, and more than 400 miles of road and scores of high-rise towers built. English-language billboards sing the praises of one of China’s newest cities in a chorus of giant multi-coloured adjectives: “Outstanding! Bustling! New World!”

在这里,政府兴建了自贸区,干旱的土地上挖出了人工湖,而后还陆续修建了640多公里的道路,诸多高楼大厦也是拔地而起。英语的广告牌用大号的彩色字符描绘着这座中国新建城市的美好愿景:“与众不凡!充满活力!全新天地!”


But the Communist party’s urban planners have not stopped there. Desperate to lure outsiders to this far-flung, sparsely populated region, officials have ordered the construction of a replica of the Great Sphinx of Egypt; the  and Forbidden City, and even of a stretch of the Great Wall of China.

然而,城市规划专家们并没有就此停下脚步。为了吸引外来人口来到这个偏远、人口稀少的地区,当地官员下令在这里复制修建了一系列中外名胜古迹,比如埃及的狮身人面像、希腊的帕特农神庙、北京的颐和园和紫禁城,甚至还有一小段的万里长城。



Last but not least, they threw in the Dinosaur Kingdom, a sprawling Triassic theme park where Chinese tourists will soon be able to gaze at super-sized models of flesh-eating theropods.


不仅如此,当地政府还修建了一个恐龙王国。不久的将来,中国游客就可以在这个三叠纪主题公园里看到各种超大规模的肉食恐龙模型了。


“It’s like a mini-Disneyland,” gushed Xu Haike, a local hotelier who recently moved to the city and is among those banking on its success.

不少人都看中了这里的商机,徐海克是其中一员。他刚刚来到兰州新区开了一家宾馆,他认为这个恐龙王国“就像是一个迷你的迪斯尼乐园”。


‘Go west’

Lanzhou New Area was conceived as part of a broader government push to develop China’s west that kicked off near the turn of the century. 

兰州新区被认为是本世纪初中国政府大规模西部大开发的其中一环。


It is located about 40 miles north of Gansu’s gritty capital, Lanzhou – a smog-choked industrial hub carved in two by the meandering Yellow river. The old city has about 3.6 million residents; 160,000 of whom are are members of the Hui Muslim minority. The region has long been known for its contaminated air, water and soil, although recent years have seen , with some success.

兰州是甘肃省的省会,黄河从这个雾霾笼罩的工业城市蜿蜒流过,新建的兰州新区位于兰州市区以北40多公里之外。兰州老城区人口总数约为360万,其中有近16万人是回族。多年以来,兰州的空气、水质和土壤污染都是“远近闻名”。直到近些年来,当地政府才开始采取措施治理污染,并且已经取得了一些成就。


The “Go West” initiative – a bid to bring a touch of China’s prosperous eastern coast to its underdeveloped interior – called for less-developed provinces such as Qinghai, Sichuan and Gansu to be given a dramatic facelift.

“西部大开发”计划号召将中国东部的富裕省份资源向欠发达的内陆地区倾斜,让像青海、四川和甘肃这样的落后省份也能有机会实现翻天覆地的变化。


As well as building tens of thousands of miles of road and railway, plans were also unveiled for a series of new urban hubs scattered across the country’s south and north-west.

除了展开数万公里的公路铁路交通建设外,西部大开发计划还宣布将在中国南部和西南地区新建一系列城市枢纽。


Wade Shepard, an American writer who has spent more than a decade chronicling the fortunes of these new areas, said the campaign sparked a construction frenzy across inland  that peaked after the 2008 financial crisis, as Beijing hurled vast sums at infrastructure projects in a bid to shore up growth.

韦德·谢帕德是一位美国作家。过去十年,他一直在记录着这些新城区的发展变化。他表示,自2008年危机以来,为提振整体经济发展,中国政府斥巨资进行基础设施建设,由此也掀起了内陆地区的建设狂潮。


“It was kind of a free for all. Government officials were basically told to go out and increase GDP to comply with this national urbanisation movement, and pretty much every level of government had the authority to build new cities. So they went out and they built and they built and they built,” he said.

他表示:“全国各地都是一样的。政府官员被告知要积极走出去,大力提振国内生产总值,以满足中国整体城市化要求。基本上所有层级的政府部门都有权力建设新城,所以他们就开始不断地扩张、建设、再建设。”

There was, however, a catch.

然而,这也存在着一个问题。


In many cases, the masses did not immediately flock to these new cities and so a notorious generation of Chinese “ghost cities” was born: hollow urban shells that were apparently home to more cranes than humans.

多数情况下,民众并不会立即就搬到这些新城去,声名狼藉的中国“鬼城”就此产生;这些空荡荡的城市外壳更像是起重机的库房,而不是居住的场所。


“When they were just being built it was otherworldly. You are walking through these massive new cities – some of them the size of Manhattan or even bigger – and you can’t really believe what you are seeing,” said Shepard, who charts the rise of such cities in his book .

谢帕德在《中国鬼城》一书中记录了这类城市的。他表示:“这些超级新城有的规模甚至比曼哈顿还要大,刚刚建好的时候古怪极了,你简直不敢相信眼前的一切。”


“It’s all these huge, massive buildings and everything that you would attribute to a city: malls, banks and government offices. But there are no people. It’s kind of like you are in a dream or this  episode where you suddenly wake up and everyone else is gone and you are the last man on earth.”

“这些城市里到处都是高大的建筑物,在这里你可以找到包括商场、银行和政府大楼等一切一般城市所应具备的功能。但就是没有人。这让人感觉仿佛置身于阴阳结界,黎明破晓突然醒来,发现周围所有人都不见了,你是这世界上唯一的一个人。”


Lanzhou New Area was one of the last such state-level new areas to be given the green light in late 2012. Apparently alarmed by the soaring levels of local debt, China started to rein in such mega-projects as the country sought a more sustainable urbanisation model.

兰州新区是十八大前最后一个获批建设的国家级新城。鉴于地方债务影响日渐明显,中国叫停了这类超大规模项目建设,转而寻求一种更具可持续性的城市化模式。


By 2020, Lanzhou New Area was to have five hospitals, 75 schools and creches, and a GDP of 100bn yuan (£11.8bn). By 2030 it would be home to one million full-time residents and its GDP would have almost tripled, to 270bn yuan.

到2020年,兰州新区将拥有5座医院、75座学校和幼儿园,国内生产总值要达到1000亿元人民币。到2030年,兰州新区常住居民总数将达到100万人,国内生产总值将增长两倍,最终达到2700亿元人民币。

The project, which involved levelling hundreds of barren hills, was called  and  with a stirring soundtrack offered a dynamic, neon-lit glimpse of the city’s future. It was a place of economic prowess and leisure and hi-tech industry, where happy residents strolled through verdant parks or raced across the city’s lake in speedboats. 

这次的新城建设项目将会移走上百座荒山,被称成为“全球规模最大的移山项目”,一个好莱坞风格的片花,在激动人心的背景音乐下,勾画出霓虹闪烁、生机勃勃的城市未来——经济强盛,娱乐产业和高新技术汇聚,幸福的居民在绿树掩映的公园里散步,或是在城市湖区驾着快艇畅游。


An English-language website promised potential investors that Lanzhou New Area would witness “massive economic build-up”.

兰州新区的英文官方网站向投资者许诺,这里将实现“大规模的经济财富积累”。


Reality took a while to catch up with the dream. When I , as villagers came to terms with the destruction of their once-remote rural homes, an eerie hush gripped the city’s almost completely empty streets. 

现实与梦想并不同步。2013年,我第一次来到兰州新区。村民们与开放商就征地拆迁达成了一致,新建的城区空空荡荡的,散发着诡异的静谧。


The relentless din of car horns – a trademark of urban China – was completely absent. Dozens of tower blocks were under construction but, aside from builders, there was hardly a soul to be seen. Both Chinese and foreign journalists who flocked to the city came away convinced it was a flop.

这里完全见不到一般中国城市车水马龙的样子,不少高楼还处于建设之中,可除了工地工人, 街上似乎很难再看到其他人。来到这里的中外记者都认为,兰州新区建设是失败的。


Returning four years later, however, I found this sleeping western giant appears to be slowly awakening as housing projects begin to fill up and pioneers start to move in.

四年后我再次回到这里,随着商品楼中的住户不断增加,外来人口不断涌入,我发现这座沉睡的“西部巨人”似乎正慢慢苏醒。


“People are buying property and moving in,” insists Shepard, who has visited the city twice. “As improbable as it sounds, it’s kind of coming to life. The place is almost like a mirage out in the middle of the desert. You see it glimmer on the horizon. You see it but you don’t really believe it is there – and then all of a sudden you are in the middle of it.”

谢帕德曾先后两次来到兰州新城,他坚持说:“现在人们开始不断在新区购房置业,陆续搬了进来。这听起来似乎有些不可能,但是兰州新区的确是在逐渐苏醒。它就好像沙漠中的幻影一般,在遥远的地平线边闪闪发光。你看到了它,但还不大确定它是不是真实的存在——突然之间,你就发现自己已经置身于新城之中了。”


City officials declined to be interviewed by the Guardian about their progress in luring humans to the region’s lunar landscape. But during , Xu Dawu, Lanzhou New Area’s deputy Communist party secretary, claimed it had already attracted 150,000 permanent residents as well as 40,000 construction workers who were temporarily living there.

当地官员没有接受《卫报》关于吸引居住人口进程的相关采访。但是兰州新区党委书记徐大武在一次宣讲中表示,目前兰州新区已经成功吸引了15万常住居民,临时居住在这里的还有近4万建筑工人。


Those numbers seem wildly inflated with huge swaths of the city still completely vacant.

这些数据有被夸大的成分,兰州新区的街道和楼盘依旧空荡荡。

“The project is ongoing,” Li Zhenjiang, an estate agent, explained sheepishly as he took a break inside an otherwise completely derelict, dust-covered shopping mall that appeared to have been abandoned for months, if not years. 

李振江是当地的房产中介,他略为不好意思地跟我们说:“这个开发项目还在继续”。说话的工夫,他走进这个基本被荒废的商场——四周满是灰尘,看起来荒废有一阵子了,说不上几年,至少也有几个月了。


A report by state broadcaster CCTV last year claimed the actual number of residents was closer to 40,000, many of them local farmers who were relocated to tower blocks in the city after their homes were razed, or the employees of state-owned companies who had been ordered to relocate there. A more modest figure of 80,000 permanents can now be found on the city’s website.

中央电视台去年的一次专题报道指出,这里实际的居民总数大约为4万人,其中很大一部分是回迁的当地农民,还有一些是被强制迁入的国企员工。目前官网的最新数字显示,兰州新区现有8万常住居民。


Whatever the real figure, pockets of life are now springing up across town as people trickle into the city in search of a better future.

不管真实的数字到底是多少,随着越来越多的人来到打拼,兰州新区已经开始有了小范围的生活气息。


“I came here last August,” said Zhang Yongshuai, a shopkeeper who moved here from the provincial capital, Lanzhou, with his two young boys. Zhang said he had been drawn to this urbanisation frontier by the lower rents and the prospect of a new life. He rented a ground-floor shop in a sprawling but still virtually empty residential complex of high-rises and luxury villas called the Greenland Intelligent Financial Town.

小店店主张永帅去年8月带着两个年幼的儿子从兰州市区来到了这里。他表示,低廉的租金和对新生活的期望是吸引他来到这个城市化前沿地区的主要原因。他在名为绿地智慧金融城的小区租了一个门面。这个小区里既有高层住宅,也有豪华别墅,占地面积虽广,但是入住的居民却寥寥无几。


“The best thing is the infrastructure, the roads, the squares. The living environment is better than Lanzhou,” said the 23-year-old.

这位23岁的店主告诉我们:“这里的基础设施都是最好的,比如道路和广场。这里的居住环境要比兰州市区好。”


Zhang admitted the city had not lived up to all of his expectations. “The biggest problem is there aren’t any people,” he said with a chuckle. “But I think they will come. If there were no people here then it would all have been a big waste, wouldn’t it?”

不过他也承认,新区的发展并不是完全符合他的预想。他笑着说:“最大的问题就是没什么人。但是我认为总有一天大家都会来到这儿的。要是没人来,那这么大的地方不就浪费了嘛,对吧?”

A few blocks away, one of Zhang’s few neighbours, Zhou Fei, said he also felt good about the city’s future. “It’s getting busier,” said Zhou, who was born and raised in Dongshuitang, one of the rural communities that was destroyed to make way for the new city, and bought a flat here with the compensation handed to his family by the government.

周飞一家就住在附近,他们是张家为数不多的邻居。周飞也很看好新区的发展,他认为这里会越来越繁华的。周飞来自东水塘,那里的农村土地因为新区开发都被征用了。他用政府给的拆迁补偿款在这里买了一套房子。


Zhou’s wife, Bao Shan, said she was still unimpressed with the sluggish pace of life and of change. Only about 20 families were currently living in the community of high-rises they now called home. “I don’t like the quietness,” she said. “Business isn’t great.”

但周飞的妻子包珊却对这里一成不变的萧条生活没什么好印象。在这个被他们称作“家”的高层小区里仅仅住了20户人家。她说:“我不喜欢这种清静,而且生意也不好做。”


But Zhou was convinced a less ghostly future lay ahead – and in any case there was now no turning back. “There’s nothing left [of our village]. It’s all demolished,” he explained.

但是周飞还是对这个正在有所起色的“鬼城”充满了希望,毕竟他们也没有什么退路了,原来的村子不剩下什么了,所有的东西都被拆了。


Another immigrant hoping the city will take off is Xu Haike, who moved to Lanzhou New Area last May to help manage the city’s only luxury guesthouse, the Binhu International Garden hotel.

徐海科是另一个对兰州新区的腾飞充满希望的外来移民 。他去年5月来到这里,帮助管理新区唯一的一家豪华酒店——滨湖国际花园酒店。


Xu said the city’s portrayal as a ghost town was still half accurate, but insisted business at his 76-room hotel was steadily improving. The average occupancy rate was now about 70%, Xu said during an interview in the hotel’s deathly quiet lobby, although on the day of the Guardian’s visit he said only 30% of rooms were occupied.

徐海科表示,兰州新区是鬼城的说法到目前为止还有一半的准确性。但是他坚称,他所在的这家拥有76间客房的酒店正在稳步向前发展。他在空荡荡的大堂里接受了《卫报》的采访时表示,酒店日常的入住率可以达到70%,而事实上采访当天的入住率仅有3成。

The city, too, was gradually filling up, although at night the dearth of switched-on lights suggested it still had a way to go. “It’s like we have built the house but the furniture hasn’t arrived yet,” Xu joked.

这座新城正在逐渐被填满。不过夜幕降临时街道两边零星的灯光告诉我们,实现真正的宜居,兰州新城还有很长的路要走。徐海科笑着说:“就好像我们已经把房子建好了,但是家具还没运到。”


One of the city’s liveliest corners is the 20,000-strong Rainbow Town estate, a concrete jungle of high-rise flats thrown up for displaced villagers whose homes were bulldozed, and migrant workers helping to build the rest of the city around them.

兰州新区里最具人气的是有着2万住户的彩虹城,这所高层林立的住宅小区是专门为回迁的村民和新区建设移民民工而建的。


On a recent afternoon dozens of children could be seen racing past a multicoloured government creche towards a bustling main square.

几天前的一个下午,一群孩子从粉刷得色彩斑斓的幼儿园里跑向一个热闹的中心广场。


Liu Yufeng, a 32-year-old mother of one who moved to the community after her home was levelled, said the new city’s creation had transformed her family’s life. “It’s been half good, half bad. The living conditions have improved but the bad part is that there aren’t job opportunities for us here.”

32岁的刘玉凤是一个孩子的母亲,家里因为拆迁搬到了新区,她认为新区建设改变了他们的生活轨迹。“应该说是好坏参半吧。居住条件是改善了不少,但是我们在这里找不到谋生的机会。”


Liu said she was relieved her daughter was no longer forced to use an outdoor toilet as she had done in their village. “During the winter it was terrible for the kids. The key thing now is: how can we earn our bread? That’s very important for us.”

刘玉凤说,她庆幸女儿再也不用像以前在村里那样去户外上厕所了。“冬天去那样的厕所对孩子来说太危险了。但是现在的关键问题在于:我们到哪儿去赚钱?这对我们来说才是最重要的。”


Many remain skeptical that China’s ghost cities will ever truly come to life. Last year, one government thinktank  that the new areas would eventually have enough space to house about 3.4 billion residents, more than double the population of the whole of China.

许多人仍对中国鬼城出现生机的说法表示怀疑。去年,一家政府智库机构指出,目前中国新区建设速度过快,累计可容纳居民总数大约为34亿,是中国全国人口总数的两倍之多。


But Shepard said he was convinced about the incipient awakening of places such as Lanzhou New Area and suggested the world had been too quick to write off China’s new cities, preferring to embrace .

但谢帕德表示,兰州新区等地的初步发展证明,外界对中国新城的定论还为时过早, 只关注了轰动一时的鬼城效应,而非全面的评估。

“That’s a ‘crazy’ China story of unprecedented proportions!” he joked of the ghost city description.

谢帕德在对鬼城的描述中开玩笑说:“这是一次前所未有的‘疯狂的’中国故事。”


“But the thing is these new cities are built on roughly 20-year timelines. So they say, ‘Oh, it’s 2003. By 2023 we will have 300,000 people living here or we’ll have one million people living here.’

“新城都是按照20年的时间线来规划建设的。所以他们会说,‘现在是2003年。到2030年,这里就会有30万甚至是100万居民了’。”


“Even now we are looking at projects that are kind of in the halfway point and nobody should reasonably expect any country in the world to be able to build a completely new city in six years and populate it, right? It’s ridiculous.

“现在许多项目还处于建设中,我们不能指望哪个国家在短短6年时间里就建好一个新城,并且让里面住满人,对吧? 那太荒谬了。”


“The Chinese government doesn’t care what the west thinks of their new cities, because they know the plan and they know how these places develop and they know that there is really no such thing as a ghost city. It’s pretty much just a phase of development, between the time the initial downtown core of a city is built and 15 years later when they are completely connected to the urban and national transport network.”

“中国政府并不在乎西方世界如何看待他们的新城建设,因为他们了解自己的规划,他们知道这些地方未来应该怎么开发,他们明白压根就没有鬼城这种东西。这充其量就是一个发展阶段——从城市核心区域建好,到15年后新城与旧城、城市与国家连接起来,这就是一个必经阶段。”


Lanzhou New Area’s pioneers are banking on that evaluation proving correct.

兰州新区的开拓者们寄希望于这样的预测在未来能够实现。


The city’s inclusion in a major economic development drive unveiled –the so-called  – has raised hopes that the local economy will, eventually, lift off.

中国过去几年提出了丝绸之路经济带,兰州恰好在这个主要经济发展推动计划之中。这也让当地政府和民众相信,兰州的经济一定会实现腾飞。


“Now it is a national-level project so that means it will be successful,” said Shepard. “There is no other option. It’s too big to fail.”

谢帕德表示:“这是一个国家级的项目,这意味着肯定会取得成功。没有别的可能,这么大的项目是承受不起失败的。”


Zhou, the shopkeeper, said he believed his new home might even one day rival the provincial capital after which it is named. “In five to eight years the New Area will be more developed. It will feel just like Lanzhou,” he predicted. 

小店店主周飞相信兰州新区总有一天能与兰州旧城匹敌。他预计“再过个5到8年,兰州新区会变得更发达。到时候就会跟兰州市区一样了。”


Xu, the hotel owner, scoffed at that idea. “It is not the political centre of [Gansu province], nor is it the economic centre.” But he said he had faith that things were on the up. “I’m optimistic about the future.” 

酒店经理徐海科对此戏谑地说道:“这里既不是甘肃的政治中心,也不是经济中心。”但他还是看好这里的发展,他表示自己对这里的未来保持乐观。


And as cities such as Lanzhou New Area slowly find their feet, Shepard said the world would need to find a new way of referring to China’s increasingly lively ghost cities. “I guess now you would just call them cities.”

谢帕德表示,随着像兰州新区这样的城区逐渐站稳脚跟,外界应该换个角度看待这些正在焕发活力的中国鬼城。他说:“我认为你现在应该称这些地方为‘城市’。”



译文选自Guardian Cities

https://www.theguardian.com/cities/series/the-other-china


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