長城到底有多長?

The Great Wall has fascinated William Lindesay since he first saw it on a map. In 1987, the Liverpool native made his first trek along 2,470 kilometers of the landmark, and he has called China home ever since.
從第一次在地圖上看到長城開始，威廉•林賽（William Lindesay）就被深深吸引。1987年，這位土生土長的利物浦人第一次沿着長城徒步行進2,470公里，之後便把家安在了中國。

He now spends his days hiking, researching, photographing and talking about the Great Wall, as the founder of a conservation group called International Friends of the Great Wall.
如今，作爲長城保護組織國際長城之友（International Friends of the Great Wall）的創始人，林賽每天的工作就是徒步爬長城、做研究、攝影以及談論長城。

Mr. Lindesay, 55 years old, also leads weekend treks of unrestored portions from his guesthouse near Mutianyu, about 60 miles from Beijing, often rousing hikers at 3 a.m. so they're far enough up the mountain to see the wall as the first rays of dawn turn it golden.
55歲的林賽還會組織週末徒步活動，攀爬未經修復的古長城。他在離北京60英里的慕田峪附近有個家庭旅館，他經常夜裏三點就把徒步旅行者們叫醒，爲的是能及時爬上山頭，看到黎明的第一縷陽光把長城染成金色。

He recently sat down with The Wall Street Journal in his map-lined Beijing study, to talk about skirting death in the Gobi, trying to measure the wall's length and his new book, 'The Great Wall Explained.' Below are edited excerpts from the interview.
不久前林賽在他貼滿地圖的北京書齋裏接受了《華爾街日報》的採訪，講述他在戈壁荒漠裏與死神擦肩而過的經歷，講述他如何用雙腳丈量長城，還談到了他的新書《長城圖解》（The Great Wall Explained）。以下是經過編輯的訪談摘錄：

The Wall Street Journal: We'll start with some of the usual questions.
《華爾街日報》：我們先從一些常規問題開始。

Mr. Lindesay: I hope the first one has nothing to do with the length of the Great Wall. That's the biggest headache.
林賽：我希望第一個問題跟長城的長度無關。這是最令人頭疼的。

OK, how long is it?
《華爾街日報》：好吧，它到底有多長？

There are many Great Walls in China. A few years ago, the state announced that they had surveyed the Ming wall, which is the wall most tourists see a segment of on their trips to China. And the figure announced was 8,851 kilometers. That announcement was made in April 2009, and then at the same time the State Administration of Cultural Heritage announced that they were asking archeological teams in each provincial region containing wall to go out and measure it.
林賽：在中國有很多處長城。幾年前，中國宣佈勘測了明長城，就是大部分遊客來中國旅行時會遊覽的一段長城。官方宣佈的數據是8,851公里。這個結果發佈於2009年4月，同時中國國家文物局（State Administration of Cultural Heritage）也宣佈，他們在發動長城沿線各省的考古小組走出去勘測長城。

In June, the survey was complete, and the figure was 21,196 kilometers…I called some of my wall-researching colleagues. They also felt a little bit confused, so we kind of put our heads together. The 21,196 is a measurement of all the visible Great Walls on the land of China as they stand now. That takes into account scant remains, which would be ankle-high, to grand things that you do want to take a photograph of and explore. And then if we subtract 8,851, the length of Ming wall, we get 12,345 as the length of the pre-Ming walls.
當年6月，勘測結束，結果是21,196公里……我打電話給我研究長城的同事，通報了這一結果。他們也感到有些不解，所以我們集思廣益，認爲21,196公里是中國大地上現存所有可見的長城遺蹟的總長度。這包括那些很不起眼的遺蹟，可能只有腳踝那麼高，也包括那些你想拍下來並探索一番的宏偉城 。然後如果減去8,851公里，即明長城的長度，那麼明以前歷代所建長城的長度就是12,345公里。

Is that the final answer?
《華爾街日報》：這是最終的答案嗎？

Well, it's actually created more confusion around the world and soured some international relations, because despite talking to several journalists and giving them the insights, most of the headlines in the following week were along the lines of 'Great Wall Found to Be Twice the Length Originally Thought,' which is not at all the case.
林賽：事實上這個答案在世界上引起了困惑，還影響到了國際關係。因爲儘管有關方面在接受一些記者採訪時給出了詳細解釋，之後一週的大部分頭條標題還是類似“長城總長度爲預想的兩倍”，而這根本不是真實情況。

It's simply that the state looked at the Ming wall first, they looked at the pre-Ming wall second, and the two added together gives you the total length of all visible remains of the Great Wall in China today.
事實很簡單，國家先勘測了明長城，然後又勘測了明以前歷代所建的長城，兩次勘測結果加起來得到今天中國所有可見的長城遺蹟的總長度。

The Korean news services seized upon this news and accused China of stretching the length of the Great Wall like a rubber band.
韓國媒體抓住這個消息不放，指責中國的長城和橡皮筋一樣可以隨意延長。

How would you answer it?
《華爾街日報》：你對此如何作答？

I think it's best left at rest. The best way to appreciate the Great Wall of China is: wan li chang cheng. These are four Chinese characters. 'Wan,' if you look it up in the dictionary, means 10,000. 'Li' is a Chinese unit of distance equivalent to about 500 meters. 'Chang' is long; 'cheng' is wall. So the direct translation of wan li chang cheng is the '10,000-li long wall.' But if you ask someone who's literate to translate 'wan' in that context they would say, it actually doesn't mean 10,000, it means endless, immeasurable. So the erudite translation of wan li chang cheng is 'the endless wall,' and in fact that is one of the opening discussions in my book.
林賽：我覺得最好置之不理。讚賞中國長城的最佳方式是：萬里長城。這是四個中國字。如果你查字典，“萬”的意思是10,000。“裏”是中國的距離單位，約等於500米。“長”就是很長；“城”就是城 。因此直譯的話，萬里長城就是“10,000里長的城 ”。但如果你讓有文化的人在這個語境中翻譯“萬”，他們會說，它並不是實指10,000，而是說無窮無盡，不可估量。所以萬里長城更有文化內涵的譯法是“沒有盡頭的城 ”，事實上這是我新書裏的一個開篇討論話題。

Why did you write this book?
《華爾街日報》：你爲什麼寫這本書？

After I made my initial Great Wall adventure in 1987, exactly 25 years ago, I saw a lot of the wall. I saw probably more of the Great Wall of China than another foreigner had for well over half a century, nearly a century. I really wanted to capitalize on that achievement and that knowledge. I wanted to introduce the magnificence and the wonder and the mystery of the Great Wall to people around the world as I discovered it.
林賽：我1987年完成了第一次長城探險，那正好是25年前。我看到了很多城 ，可能比別的外國人在過去半個多世紀、近一個世紀看到的還多。我當時很想充分利用那次成就和了解到的情況。我發現了長城，我就想把它的壯麗、非凡和神祕介紹給全世界的人。

I was telling people the Great Wall story, and they were asking me questions. After a while I began to think, the typical curious, thinking person, they may arrive in China and not know the difference between Mao and Ming. Anyway, I felt that most people's knowledge about the Great Wall was actually very superficial, and a lot of it was completely incorrect.
我給人們講長城的故事，他們會問許多問題。過了不久我開始發現，典型的有好奇心、愛思考的人，他們可能來到中國還不知道“毛”和“明”的區別。總之，我覺得大部分人關於長城的知識其實非常膚淺，並且很多還是完全錯誤的。

So I began to think, how can I really deliver a good engaging Great Wall story to the people I talk to? I wanted them to feel the thrill I felt without getting too bogged down and confused by the difficult-to-pronounce Chinese names and the masses of dates, and the confusion of it all.
因此我開始思考，怎樣才能給那些跟我交談的人傳達一個美好動人的長城故事？我想讓他們在不要太沉溺於那些很難發音的中文名字還有大量數據，在不被這些東西弄得暈頭轉向的情況下感受到我的激動心情。There are reports that you found portions of the Great Wall outside China.
《華爾街日報》：有報道說你在中國境外找到了長城遺址。

To explain my findings of 2011, I coined a new term: 'Great Wall outside China.' Which is a compromise. It's a recognition that the structure being seen is a great wall─it's a fortification built during the conflict between the nomadic people of the north and the sedentary crop-growing people of the south. But it's outside today's China.
林賽：爲解釋我在2011年的發現，我造了一個新短語：“中國以外的長城”（Great Wall outside China）。這是一種折中的說法。我所看到的建築物的確是長城，它是北方遊牧民族和南方農耕民族發生衝突時期修建的堡壘，但它又不在現在的中國境內。

How can they still be finding parts of the Great Wall today?
《華爾街日報》：那怎麼還有人繼續發現新的長城呢？

I would rephrase it. Last year I never claimed to have discovered a section of the Great Wall. I evidenced the existence of a section of Great Wall built by a dynasty not previously known to have built a Great Wall.
林賽：我重新表述一下。去年我從未宣稱自己發現了一段長城。我證明的是某個朝代所修建的一段長城的存在，而我們之前以爲這個朝代沒有修建過長城。

How did you do that?
《華爾街日報》：你是怎麼發現的？

Thumbing through an atlas of Mongolia, I saw a symbol for what looked like the wall, but when I checked it out in the legend, it was not the Great Wall of China. Of course, how could it be─it was in Mongolia. It was the wall of Genghis Khan. And then eventually I looked on Google Earth and found this faint line crossing the south Gobi. So first of all, it's on the map, so obviously I didn't discover it. But I'm the first researcher that went there, and going there is not easy. It's the heart of the Gobi.
林賽：在翻看一本蒙古地圖冊的時候，我發現了一個像長城的符號，但我在圖例中查找時，卻發現它並不是中國長城。當然，怎麼可能是呢，它是在蒙古境內。它是成吉思汗長城。最後我在Google Earth上發現了這條穿越戈壁灘南部的模糊線條。因此它本來就在地圖上，但我沒有發現它。不過我是第一個到達那裏的研究者，而且去那裏很不容易。那是戈壁灘的心臟地帶。

Didn't you risk your life in one expedition?
《華爾街日報》：你這不是爲了一次考察冒生命危險嗎？

It turned out that way. Just a year before, I had made a documentary, and I wanted to take viewers of the documentary to one of the rarest parts of the wall, dating from 110 B.C.
林賽：結果確實是這樣。就在一年前，我做了一部紀錄片，我希望把這部片子的觀衆帶到從公元前110年就開始存在的這段最人跡罕至的長城。

We couldn't get there with vehicles, because there were dried-up watercourses, wadis, very deep, preventing vehicle access. I was going in with a crew of filmmakers carrying equipment, and some of the members of the crew ignored my caution to take 10 bottles. It transpired halfway through this filming sequence that many people only set off with two or three bottles of water, so those with the water had to share it out, and that meant everyone was short of water on the return trek. People started suffering from cramps, collapsing with the heat, and eventually we decided on a rescue plan: Me, my assistant and the cameraman would continue on trying to get to the road and organizing a rescue, while the others waited.
我們沒法開車去，因爲有很多幹涸的河道，旱谷非常深，車沒法通過。我是跟一個帶着設備的拍攝團隊一起進去的，有些隊員不聽我的勸告，沒有帶夠10瓶水。拍到一半的時候，發現很多人出發時只帶了兩三瓶水，所以有水的人就得分一些出去，這就意味着在回來的路上每個人的水都不夠。有人開始抽筋，中暑暈厥，最後我們商量出了一個營救計劃：我和我的助手還有攝影師繼續努力向公路進發並組織營救，其他人原地等待。

The temperature reached 46 degrees Celsius in the late afternoon. I don't want to come that close to death anymore.
當天下午晚些時候氣溫達到了46攝氏度。我再也不想離死神那麼近了。