神奇小县浙江桐庐：民营快递帝国的摇篮丨双语阅读
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随着“三通一达”先后上市，四大快递公司创始人的故乡浙江桐庐县所经历的巨变，开始吸引越来越多的关注。
对一个坐落在中国群山深处的小村庄来说，夏塘村的豪宅有些多。挂着价值1.3万美元上海牌照的豪车则提供了更多线索——这并非一个寻常的村子。
人口仅40万的浙江省桐庐县，是四家快递物流公司（express delivery and logistics company）创始人的家乡。过去16个月，这四家快递公司先后在中国或外国的证券交易所挂牌上市，它们的创始人一跃变成亿万富豪。
忙碌的物流中心 Photo Credit：www.ftchinese.com
商业繁盛地——浙江
Zhejiang is famous for its entrepreneurial culture and tight-knit business communities. Its coastal location allowed it to benefit from export-oriented light manufacturing beginning in the 1990s.
浙江以创业文化和关系紧密的商业共同体而闻名。沿海的地理位置也让它受益于上世纪90年代起步的出口型轻工制造业。
By the early 2000s, the city of Wenzhou was the world's leading producer of cigarette lighters and spectacles. Nearby Ningbo’s “limit-up kamikazes” became famous for their daring speculation in the stock market. The provincial capital, Hangzhou, is home to Alibaba and other big internet groups.
到本世纪头几年，温州市成了全球首屈一指的打火机和眼镜制造者。附近的宁波市以“涨停板敢死队”在股市的大胆投机而闻名。浙江省省会杭州则是阿里巴巴（Alibaba）等若干大型互联网集团的总部所在地。
kamikaze [ˌkæmɪˈkɑ:zi]：<日>（第二次世界大战期间日本空军敢死队）神风对队员
Photo Credit：www.ftchinese.com
桐庐快递人——靠“吃苦”走出一片天
Tonglu is scenic — in the spring, its green mountains are daubed with fields of yellow rape flower — but its remote location hampered its economic development. What it did have in the early 1990s was poor villagers with a willingness to “eat bitter” — the Chinese phrase for toughness and an ability to endure hard labour.
桐庐县风景秀丽，春天，青翠的山峦上点缀着一片片黄色的油菜花田。但桐庐县偏远的地理位置阻碍了其经济发展。上世纪90年代初，桐庐县有的只是愿意“吃苦”的贫困村民。
“The people of Tonglu were adept at travelling on foot. Because transport wasn’t developed, you had to rely on your own two legs to gain contact with the outside world,” said Sun Kan, author of the 2014 book China’s Kuaidi Tonglu Gang. “The first cohort of kuaidi people drove tricycles or used other simple transport methods. City people couldn’t have endured this kind of job.”
2014年出版的《中国快递桐庐帮》（China’s Kuaidi Tonglu Gang）的作者孙侃说：“桐庐人擅长走路，因为交通没有发展，想接触外面的世界，你只能依靠自己的两条腿走。第一批快递人或是骑三轮，或是用其他简单的交通方式。城里人忍受不了这种工作的苦。”
cohort：（尤指为了进行统计而被看作一个整体的）一群人
民营快递拓荒者——申通
Photo Credit：STO Express Official Website
The godfather of the Tonglu gang was Nie Tengfei, who founded STO Express in 1993 aged 20 after moving to Hangzhou and later Shanghai. Staffed by friends and relatives from his home country, STO began by delivering cakes, biscuits and alcohol. But Mr Nie’s crucial breakthrough was the realisation that STO could earn more delivering business documents.
桐庐帮的“教父”是聂腾飞。在先后搬到杭州和上海之后，年仅20岁的聂腾飞于1993年创立了申通快递（STO Express）。员工由聂腾飞家乡的亲戚朋友组成的申通，刚开始主要送蛋糕、饼干和酒水。但聂腾飞的关键性突破是，他意识到申通可以投递商业文件来赚更多钱。
Exporters needed customs declaration forms delivered from manufacturing hubs in Zhejiang to the customs office in Shanghai. While China Post took three days to deliver documents from Hangzhou to Shanghai, STO offered an overnight service.
出口商需要将报关单从浙江的各个制造中心发往上海的海关办公室。中国邮政（China Post）需要三天时间才能将文件从杭州送到上海，而申通提供隔夜送达业务。
In Xiatang village, Mr Nie's hometown of 600 people, a long wall of relief sculpture chronicles the 25-year history of kuaidi. In one panel, a bureaucrat issues a fine to a delivery man. The caption notes that in the industry's early years, regulations forbade private companies from providing kuaidi service, forcing private carriers to “survive in a loophole”.
聂腾飞的家乡夏塘村有600名村民，村子里一道长长的浮雕墙记载了快递业25年的历史。在一面浮雕中，一位官员正向一名快递员开罚金。下面配有文字说明：当时按照国家规定，国内快递只允许中国邮政做，民营快递一直在夹缝中生存。
chronicle [ˈkrɒnɪkl]：按时间顺序记述(或播放)
loophole [ˈlu:phəʊl]：（法律上的）漏洞，空子
Photo Credit：www.ftchinese.com
一脉相承——桐庐快递“帝国”诞生
Others from Tonglu soon followed in the footsteps of Mr Nie, who died in a car accident in 1998. His younger brother, Nie Tengyun, founded Yunda Holding in 1998. Yu Weijiao, a Tonglu native whose wife had worked for STO, founded YTO Express in 2000. STO veteran and Tonglu native Lai Meisong founded ZTO Express in 2002.
1998年，聂腾飞在一次车祸中丧生。其他桐庐人很快接过了他的旗帜。1998年，聂腾飞的弟弟聂腾云创立了韵达（Yunda）。2000年，桐庐人喻渭蛟成立了圆通速递（YTO Express），他的妻子曾在申通快递工作过。2002年，申通老员工、桐庐人赖梅松成立了中通快递（ZTO Express）。
Photo Credit：Yunda Express Official Website
“The change in the village is like heaven and earth,” says Feng Genfu, chairman of the Tonglu-Shanghai Chamber of Commerce. “The ones who left home and became bosses, they’ve all built big houses. When they come home from Spring Festival, it’s an endless line of fancy cars.”
桐庐上海商会（Tonglu-Shanghai Chamber of Commerce）副秘书长封根富表示：“这个村子发生了天翻地覆的变化。离乡的人们当了老板，他们都盖了大房子。春节回家的时候，豪车排成的队伍望不到头。”
By the mid-2000s, the e-commerce boom led by Alibaba had led to extraordinary growth, as delivery men fanned out across the country to deliver clothes, homewares, appliances and even, in recent years, fresh-cooked meals. Logistics companies delivered 31bn parcels in China last year, up 51 per cent from 2015.
到2005年左右，阿里巴巴引领的电子商务热潮导致了非比寻常的增长，快递员的足迹遍及全国各地，运送服装、家居用品、电器，甚至在最近几年里还运送刚刚做好的饭食。去年，中国物流企业运送了310亿件包裹，比2015年增长了51%。
The four kuaidi companies have listed in quick succession. Even their method of flotation shows similarities. While ZTO completed an initial public offering in New York in October, the three others all used backdoor listings in Shanghai or Shenzhen, buying low-quality listed companies and injecting assets into their shells. This method allowed them to avoid the years-long queue for IPO approval on mainland bourses.
这四家快递公司都已在很短的间隔时间内接连上市。甚至他们的上市方法都显示出相似性。除了中通快递是去年10月在纽约完成的首次公开募股（IPO），其他三家快递公司都是在上海或深圳证交所借壳上市，即先收购低品质上市公司作为外壳、再向壳公司注入资产。这种方法能让它们避免中国内地股市长达数年的等待IPO批准的过程。
fan out：四散；散开
list：（使）上市；把（证券）列入上市证券表
IPO（initial public offering）：首次公开募股是指企业透过证券交易所首次公开向投资者增发股票，以期募集用于企业发展资金的过程。（来源：MBA智库百科）
Photo Credit：www.tltour.gov.cn
再说回夏塘村，84岁的吴（音）姓老人正在一栋大房子的门廊晒太阳。他头上戴着时髦的粗花呢帽子，手上戴着金戒指和手镯。他的腿脚不太灵便，不过身边有人帮忙——儿子聘请了两名保姆，帮他做饭和打扫卫生。算上老人的儿子，他有14位亲戚在深圳的快递公司上班。
他说：“我当然记得聂家兄弟。这个村子里大家都是亲戚。聂家的小伙子们过去穷极了，以前就躺地上睡觉的。”
总是忍不住“剁手”的你们才是他们发家的原动力啊~
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