2010年3月18日星期四

In virtual world, China consumers best the U.S. - CNN.com

原文：In virtual world, China consumers best the U.S. - CNN.com
译文：CNN：在虚拟世界，中国消费者完胜美国

作者： Pamela Boykoff

发表时间：2010/03/17

Companies that offer free online video games, such as China's popular 'Perfect World' series, earn cash by selling virtual goods such as character outfits, weapons and upgrades.

诸如运营“完美世界”之类的免费线上视频游戏的公司通过出售给人物虚拟装备，武器和技能之类的东西来赚取钞票。

Hong Kong, China (CNN) -- Beijing sales manager Wang Min spends at least 15 hours a week playing online video games. His favorite is a multiplayer adventure game called "Perfect World."

"It is similar to (World of) Warcraft, but the game adds more Chinese elements into it so I feel more connected to it," he said.

一位来自北京的销售经理王民（音）每周至少花15个小时来玩网络游戏。他的最爱是一款叫做“完美世界”的大型冒险游戏。“这游戏跟魔兽（世界）挺像的，但是这款游戏里面加入了更多的中国元素让我更有带入感。”他说。

"Perfect World" is free to play, but Wang spends about $44 every month on virtual extras such as additional points, new equipment and even outfits for his avatars.

“完美世界”是免费玩的，但是王民每个月都要在加点、买装备甚至是打扮他的虚拟人物上花费44刀。

U.S. consumers may still be the world's top shoppers, but in the growing economy of the virtual world Chinese buyers like Wang are leading the way. Research firms estimate the purchase of virtual goods in China reached roughly $5 billion in 2009 -- about five times more than the United States.

尽管美国的客户们仍是世界上购买力最强的买家，但是像王一样在虚拟消费渐增的用户在中国正在变多。调查公司估计在2009年大约有5亿美元的虚拟商品在中国售出——这是美国的五倍之多。

The reasons why reveal something about the state of the Internet in China, the limitations local developers face and the innovative ways companies have capitalized on China's booming online market.

而造成如此现象的原因解释了中国互联网的一些状况，那就是中国本土开发者面临的局限与创新的公司在中国蓬勃增长的线上市场中已经资本化了。

"China needed to do this," said Lucas Englehardt, chief executive officer of research exchange site BloggerInsight. "It didn't have the traditional avenues for monetizing content like in the United States, where there is lots of money to be made off of advertising, text and banner ads. In China, click through rates for advertising are much lower."

“中国需要这么做，”研究交换类的站点BloggerInsight的CEO Lucas Englehard说到。“在中国并没有像美国一样传统的赚取货币的方式，在美国大家通过图画，文字和横条等形式的广告来赚钱。而在中国，这些广告的点击率十分低。”

China has many more developers of online games and services than in the United States, a factor industry watchers say has encouraged competition and innovation. The crowded field, however, have fought to turn profits. Selling virtual goods, so far, has yielded the most success.

中国有着比美国更多的网游开发者，行业观察家们说有一个原因刺激了竞争和创新。那就是这个行业有着众多的参与厂商，然而，这个行业已经开始赚取利润。到目前为止，卖出虚拟物品是最赚钱的方式。

One of the best examples of this is industry leader Tencent, which operates the popular QQ Instant Messenger and social networking site Qzone. Virtual goods have become the company's primary source of profits. In the first half of 2009, Tencent took in over $300 million in revenue from Internet value-added services, a category dominated by virtual goods. By comparison, online advertising only drew $35 million in revenue.

最好的例子就是这个行业的领袖腾讯公司，它运营着流行的IM软件QQ和社交网站QQ空间。虚拟物品已经成了该公司主要的收入来源。仅在2009年上半年，腾讯就通过售出有附加值的虚拟物品攫取了三亿美元的收入。相较之下，在线广告仅获得了三千五百万美元的收入。

Justin Smith, founder of the Inside Social Games, says China's far-sighted developers quickly created an infrastructure for users to pay for online goods. Utilizing mobile phones and prepaid cards to buy virtual currency is common in China, "whereas in the U.S. that is pretty rare and just beginning to grow," Smith said.

Inside Social Games的创始人Justin Smith说中国具有远见的开发者们迅速的为用户在线付款创造了基础平台。通过手机和预付费卡片来购买虚拟物品的行为在中国十分普遍，“美国在这方面才刚上路，”他说。

Virtual goods in social games have the potential to be huge
--Justin Smith, Inside Social Games founder

社交游戏中的虚拟物品有着巨大的增长潜力

——Justin Smith

The business model is built around small individual purchases of around $1 to $2. That is a good fit for China's growing base on Internet users, many of whom still have limited disposable income.

"It's an impulse buy," Englehardt said. "You don't have to think much about it, even if you are not wealthy Chinese."

这种商业模式是基于1-2美元的个人购买行为。这十分适于中国广大的初级网民，他们中的很多人收入不高。“这是一种冲动型的购买方式，” Englehardt说，“你不需要想太多就能决定，即使你是一个不富裕的中国人。”

The flexibility of virtual purchases has hit a sweet spot with China's giant online gaming community. There are 70 million Chinese consumers who play at least an hour of online games a month, according to Niko Partners, a research firm that focuses on China's online gaming industry.

这种虚拟购买方式的弹性正好适合于中国巨大的网游社区。根据Niko Partners调查公司对中国网游产业的调查，大约有七千万中国用户每月至少花一个小时来玩网游。

Unlike gamers in the United States or Japan, most Chinese gamers play online in part because of strict government regulations limits access to game consoles and software.

不同于美国或日本的玩家，绝大多数的中国玩家把时间花在网上是因为政府对游戏机和游戏软件的严格管制。（译者注：我们有水货！我们有盗版！）

The free-to-play model, though popular everywhere, has struck a particular chord in China. Instead of full service subscription fees, Chinese online gaming firms offer more a la carte choices such as access to private chat rooms or avatar costume selection. "It gives them a lot more control over what they are buying," said Lisa Cosmas Hanson, Niko Partner's founder.

这种在哪里都很流行的免费玩模式在中国十分成功。与收取版权服务费不同，中国网游公司提供了一个更多选的模式取而代之，比如提供私聊或是人物的外观选择。Niko Partners的创始人 Lisa Cosmas Hanson说：“这给了玩家们一个更多的选择机会。”

The virtual marketplace is far from complete. Most analysts agree the future most likely lies in the space where social networking and online gaming collide. The popularity of social network games, like "Happy Farm" or "House Buying," is growing rapidly in China, but virtual sales from these games still generate only modest revenues.

不过虚拟交易市场远没有完善。大多数分析家认为未来是社交网络和在线游戏的。诸如“开心农场”和“买房”这样的社交网络应用在中国成长十分迅速，但是虚拟物品在此类游戏中没有获得好的销量。

In addition to the promise of a broad, loyal consumer base, social games offer the appeal of interaction with one's friends and family in the real world.

除了广阔的前景，用户的忠诚度之外，社交网络应用给了用户们一个和自己真实世界中亲朋们互动的机会。

"This could mean buying a virtual gift for a potential love interest, buying a power-up to defeat your old classmate in a friendly competition, or buying a nice accessory for your virtual home," Smith said. "Because everyone can relate to one of these situations in which virtual goods meet a real emotional need, virtual goods in social games have the potential to be huge."

“这意味着为钦慕对象买一份虚拟礼物，为在游戏中打败自己的老同学而买一个升级物品，或是为你的虚拟住宅买一套好家具。”Smith说到。“因为人人都会碰到虚拟物品与自己的真实的情感需要契合的时候，而这正显示了社交应用中的虚拟商品有着巨大的潜力。”

2010年3月13日星期六

Heartthrob’s Barbed Blog Challenges China’s Leaders

原文：Saturday Profile - Heartthrob’s Barbed Blog Challenges China’s Leaders - NYTimes.com

译文：纽约时报：周六人物：偶像博主韩寒挑战中国领导

作者：ANDREW JACOBS
发布时间：2010/03/12

Shiho Fukada为 The New York Times摄
韩寒：“当局想要让中国成为一个文化大国，但是我们的领导人却是如此的没文化。”

IT’S not so easy being Han Han, the heartthrob race car driver and pop novelist who just happens to be China’s most widely read blogger.
想成为韩寒那颗绝非易事，他是一个魅力四射的拉力车手还是一个流行的小说作家，他还是中国点击量最大的博客的博主。

Traveling incognito is all but impossible. Local officials frequently vie for his endorsement of their latest architectural boondoggles. (He politely declines.) And love-lorn young women often approach him after races with letters bearing his name. (He says the women have been duped by impostors who have assumed his identity.)
他想要不引人注目的出行几乎不可能。当地官员们时常要为他们最新的蠢事争取他的肯定。（他都礼貌地回绝了。）年轻寂寞的女孩经常在他拉力比赛后拿着有他名字的信接近他。（他说这些女孩是被冒用了他身份的骗子们欺骗了。）

But Mr. Han’s most vexing challenge comes from a more formidable nemesis: the unseen censors who delete blog posts they deem objectionable and the publishing police who have held up the release of his new magazine, “A Chorus of Solos,” a provocative collection of essays and photographs. “The government wants China to become a great cultural nation, but our leaders are so uncultured,” he said with a shrug, offering his characteristic Cheshire-cat grin. “If things continue like this, China will only be known for tea and pandas.”
但是韩少最棘手的问题来自更难对付的对手：看不见的审查人员删除了他们认为不合适的内容，而文化警察让他的杂志迟迟不能出版，《独唱团》，这是一本集合了各种争议性的文章和照片的杂志。他耸了耸肩，并带着他标志性的咧嘴坏笑说到：“当局想要让中国成为一个文化大国，但是我们的领导人却是如此的没文化。”“如果事情继续像这样发展，中国将会只因为茶叶和熊猫而为世人所知。”

Since he began blogging in 2006, Mr. Han has been delivering increasingly caustic attacks on China’s leadership and the policies he contends are creating misery for those unlucky enough to lack a powerful government post. With more than 300 million hits to his blog, he may be the most popular living writer in the world.
自从他2006年开博以来，韩少不断发表日益犀利的评论文批评中国的领导层以及那些他认为正在给那些不幸不属于政府内部的民众带来痛苦的政策。他的博客已有3亿的点击量，这可能使他成为了这个世界上活着的最受欢迎的作家。

In a recent interview at his office in Shanghai, he described party officials as “useless” and prone to spouting nonsense, although he used more delicate language to dismiss their relevance. “Their lives are nothing like ours,” he said. “The only thing they have in common with young people is that like us, they too have girlfriends in their 20s, although theirs are on the side.”
近日在他上海的办公室里接受的采访中，他把共产党的官员形容为是“无能的”和经常大放厥词的，但是他用了十分巧妙的语言来解释两者之间的关系， “他们和我们是完全不同的生物，”他说。 “他们和我们唯一的共同点就是都有一个20多岁的女友，当然了，他们是包养小三。”

Mr. Han has enjoyed widespread fame since he published his first novel at 19, but his popularity has ballooned in recent months through blog posts that seem to capture the zeitgeist of his peers, the so-called post-80s generation born after the economic reforms introduced by Deng Xiaoping.
韩少自从他19岁发布第一本小说之后就享有盛名，但是在最近几个月中他的知名度因为他发表的那些引领这代人思潮的博文而像气球般膨胀，他的这代人也就是所谓邓小平施行改革开放后的80后。

Theirs is a generation of only children, the result of China’s one-child policy, and one that has known only uninterrupted growth. Whether true or not, it is also a demographic with a reputation for being spoiled, impatient and less accepting of the storyline fed to them by government-run media.
80后因为中国的计划生育政策而普遍都是独生子女，也都是自己独自成长的。不论真假，这代人都有着被宠坏而且没耐心的名声，还有就是他们对官媒灌输的思想接受的更少。

If Mr. Han’s tongue is sharp, he is careful to deliver his barbs through sarcasm and humorous anecdotes that obliquely take on corruption, censorship and everyday injustice.
每次当韩少想要说点什么尖刻的话语的时候，那他就会小心的通过反讽和幽默来间接的传递他对腐败、审查制度和每天发生的不公之事来表达意见。

In one recent post about redevelopment projects that often end in violence and forced evictions, he suggested that the government build public housing in the form of prisons. The benefits would be twofold, he explained: Tenants could make no claim on the apartments and those who make a fuss could simply be locked up in their homes.
在最近关于拆迁最后都以暴力或是强制迁移而结尾的博文中，他建议政府政府应该建立监狱来作为公共住房。这样才会实现双赢，他进一步解释道：这样租客们就不会发出反对之声，而那些想要提出不同意见的把他们锁在自己的屋子里就好了。

His current gambit is a wryly subversive competition that will award $730 to the person who comes up with new lyrics to a song-and-dance routine that was broadcast last month during the reliably soporific Chinese New Year television gala.
他最近的计划是举办一个挖苦春晚播出的说唱歌曲《党的政策亚克西》的比赛，谁写出来好的歌词就会奖给他/她5000 元人民币。

The performance, staged by China’s national broadcaster and viewed by an estimated 400 million people, featured merry members of the Uighur minority belting out praise for Communist Party policies.
These were not the policies that many Uighurs bemoan as oppressive — and which may or may not have provoked the deadly riots in the western region of Xinjiang last summer — but ones that supposedly reduced taxes, increased health benefits and according to the singing farmer Maimaiti, filled his donkey sack with cash.
这个在中国全国性的广播公司上播放，而且估计有4亿人收看的表演展示了欢乐的少数民族维吾尔族民众对共产党政策的称赞。
这些（歌曲里唱的政策）不是广大维族人民视为压迫，并可能是去年夏天在西部省份新疆引起暴动的政策，而是减少农业税，增加医疗保险，而且根据买买提大叔的说法：（这些政策）让他货巾里塞满了人民币。

ALTHOUGH his posts are sometimes “harmonized” — a popular euphemism for censorship —his blog, published by one of China’s most popular Web portals, has so far been allowed to continue. Ran Yunfei, a writer and blogger in Sichuan Province, says that Mr. Han is partly insulated by his celebrity, but also by his avoidance of the most politically charged topics.
尽管游戏时候他的文章会被“和谐掉”—— 一种流行的指代审查制度的说法—— 但是他的博客还在中国几个最大的门户网站之一上继续得以生存。冉云飞，一位四川省的作家、博客撰写者说因为韩少是名人所以避免了这种（被和谐）情况，还有就是他不写最敏感的政治话题。

“He uses humor and wit to laugh at the injustices he sees,” said Mr. Ran, whose own blog is blocked in China and available only to those with the technical means to hop over the Great Firewall. “Perhaps the reason he’s tolerated is because he does not name names directly and he doesn’t go after the heart of the problem, which is China’s one-party dictatorship.”
“他用幽默和智慧来嘲笑他看到的不公平”，冉匪说，他自己的博客已经被大陆屏蔽了，只能翻墙浏览。“也许韩寒被允许发声是因为他不直接点出姓名，而且也不会直击中国最敏感的话题——共党的一党专制。”

His other trump card is his financial independence. With 14 books to his name and a successful career as a race car driver, he is not susceptible to pressures that constrain other critics, many of them academics or journalists whose jobs tend to evaporate when their public musings cross an invisible line.
韩寒另一张王牌就是他在经济上独立自主。因为他出了14本书还是一位成功的拉力车手，他就不会害怕其他很多学者或记者所面临的压力——一旦言论越过看不见的红线，就会丢掉工作。

But the government has lately found a way to pique him by holding up the release of his magazine. Mr. Han said the main objection appears to be an article that details the blacklisting of actors who have angered the authorities. Asked what he will do if his endeavor is thwarted, or if one day his blog is banned entirely, Mr. Han smiles and offers trademark sarcasm, delivered deadpan. “I’ll just become a better driver,” he said.
但是政府最近找到一种让韩寒愤怒的方法——不让他的杂志出版。韩少说不让出版最主要的原因来自一篇有详细的惹怒了当局的作家黑名单。当被问到如果他的努力白费了或是博客被完全关闭了他怎么办的时候，韩少笑了笑然后面无表情的给出了标志性的讽刺。“我会成为一个更好的车手。”他说。

MR. Han has been reinventing himself since he dropped out of high school and promptly went on to become one of China’s best known writers. His first novel, “Triple Door,” plumbed the adolescent angst of those withering under the pressures of family and school. With two million copies in print, it is the best-selling book of the last 20 years.
韩寒从他高中辍学之后已经改变了很多，还成了中国最知名的作家之一。他的第一部小说《三重门》写出青春期少年在家庭与学校的压力下枯萎的故事。这本书获得了两百万的销量，它是过去二十年最畅销的书。

The protagonists in that novel and several that followed were young men like himself, raised in small rural townships and disdaining authority, especially teachers, who Mr. Han sometimes likens to prostitutes.
小说中的男主人公和接下来几部作品中的男主角就像韩寒自己一样，成长在小市民家庭中，还都藐视权威，特别是老师，他们被韩少比喻成娼妓。

Growing up, Mr. Han says he was given wide latitude by his parents. His father was the front-page editor of a local party newspaper and his mother worked for a social service bureau helping the needy. “My mom gave me an appreciation for the underdog,” he said.
韩寒说他的父母在他成长中给了他一个广阔的维度。他的父亲是一位当地党报的头版编辑，他的妈妈在社会服务中心工作。“我的妈妈给了一颗让我欣赏失败者的心，”他说。

His family’s home was packed with literature, he said, and his father made sure to put the good stuff — books published before the Communist revolution — low enough for an 8-year-old to reach. “He put all the poorly written books published after the founding of the People’s Republic of China high enough so I couldn’t reach it,” Mr. Han said.
他家的屋子里满是书籍，他说，而且他的爸爸确保那些真正的好书——在共产革命之前出版的书籍——放在能够让8岁的他拿到的低处。“他把所有的中华人民共和国成立之后出版的粗制滥造的书籍都放的很高让我够不到，”韩少如是说。

When his anti-establishment writings began to affect his parents’ state-run jobs, Mr. Han encouraged them to retire early, offering to support them financially.
当他反当局的写作开始影响他父母在国营机构的工作的时候，韩少鼓励他们早点退休，然后他来养活他们。

Once viewed by critics as petulant and self-consciously rebellious, Mr. Han has moved beyond ad hominem attacks on poets, pop stars and fellow bloggers. These days his attention is largely drawn to society’s deeper problems: a surge in nationalism; the lackluster quality of contemporary culture; and the albatross of sky-high real-estate prices that keep China’s nascent middle-class in a constant state of anxiety.
曾经韩寒被评论家们认为是易怒和难以控制的，现今他超越了感性层面来抨击诗人、明星和友邻博主们。这些日子他的注意力主要放在了社会的深层问题上：民族主义的波涛汹涌；当代文化的暗淡无光；以及高不可攀的房价让新生的中国中产阶级终日处在焦虑之中。

He blames the high prices on local officials, who sell off land to the highest bidder in an effort to finance public works and pump up the double-digit economic growth figures that keep Beijing happy. High property values, he adds, also pay for all those dinners and fancy gifts that seem to be the birthright of officialdom.
他把高房价问题归罪于当地政府，他们把土地卖给出价最高的竞标者以努力保持两位数的经济增长率来取悦中央政府。这带来的高财产价值，他补充到，用来给似乎是与生俱来的官僚们买晚餐和那些奢侈的礼物了。

The grim result is a country of young professionals so overworked and distracted by mortgage payments that they have no time to care about what ails China. “The government is happy to see prices go up, people are forced to buy property they can’t afford and they end up living in fear.” Then he smiles and adds, “It’s a perfect situation, right?”
冷冰冰的后果便是年轻的职员日以继夜的工作，还被偿还房贷搞的心烦意乱，这样他们就没有时间去关心是什么使中国的处境如此不堪。“政府乐于看到房价上涨，人们被逼去买他们买不起的房产，最后在恐惧中结束一生。”然后他微笑着补充道，“这是个完美的局面，对吧？”

Despite the sarcasm and griping, Mr. Han is an optimist at heart. The Internet, he says, will eventually prod China toward greater openness. No army of censors can completely constrain free expression. “I think the government really regrets the Internet,” he said, pausing for effect. “Originally, they thought it would be like the newspaper or the television — just another way to get their view out to the people. What they didn’t realize is that people can type and talk back. This is giving them a really big headache.”
除去这些讽刺和抱怨，韩少内心还是很乐观的。因特网，他说，会最终推动中国更加开放。没有任何审查大军能完全限制自由的言论表达。“我认为政府对引入互联网十分后悔，”他顿了一下，说。 “最早的时候，他们认为互联网像报纸或是电视一样——只是另一种传达他们思想的方式。他们没意识到人们会写出和说出自己的想法。这让他们大为头疼。”

2010年3月10日星期三

10 Wonders of the World You Don’t Know

原文：10 Wonders of the World You Don’t Know

译文：你所不知的世界十大美景

While most of these wonders will be known to a few people, they are, on the whole, not as well known as the famous “seven wonders”. Despite that, each has a reason for being considered wonderful and deserves its spot on this list. Enjoy the list and be sure to share other lesser-known wonders in the comments.

以下这些美景只为少数人所知，总的来说他们不能与著名的“七大奇迹”其名。除去这一点之外，他们每一个都是非常美丽而且值得上榜的。享受榜单上的美景，还有就是在评论中与我们分享其他鲜为人知的美景。

Banaue Rice Terraces

Philippines

巴纳韦梯田菲律宾

The Banaue Rice Terraces are 2000-year old terraces that were carved into the mountains of Ifugao in the Philippines by ancestors of the indigenous people. The Rice Terraces are commonly referred to by Filipinos as the “Eighth Wonder of the World”. It is commonly thought that the terraces were built with minimal equipment, largely by hand. The terraces are located approximately 1500 meters (5000 ft) above sea level and cover 10,360 square kilometers (about 4000 square miles) of mountainside. They are fed by an ancient irrigation system from the rainforests above the terraces. It is said that if the steps are put end to end it would encircle half the globe. Locals to this day still plant rice and vegetables on the terraces. The result is the gradual erosion of the characteristic “steps”, which need constant reconstruction and care.

巴纳韦梯田有着2000年的历史，它被原住民的祖先们雕刻到了伊富高山上。巴纳韦梯田一般被菲律宾人称作世界“世界第八大奇迹”。一般认为，这个梯田主要是徒手修建的。它位于海拔1500米（5000英尺）上，而且覆盖了10360平方公里（4000平方英里）的土地。它由来自上层雨林的古代浇灌系统提供供水。据说如果每一层首尾相连的话会有半个地球周长那么长。当地人今日仍用这块梯田来进行水稻和蔬菜的种植。结果就是那些阶梯在逐渐的消失，这需要经常对其进行维护。

Sigiriya

Sri Lanka

锡吉里耶斯里兰卡

Sigiriya (Lion’s rock) is an ancient rock fortress and palace ruin situated in the central Matale District of Sri Lanka, surrounded by the remains of an extensive network of gardens, reservoirs, and other structures. A popular tourist destination, Sigiriya is also renowned for its ancient paintings (frescos), which are reminiscent of the Ajanta Caves of India. The Sigiriya was built during the reign of King Kassapa I (AD 477 – 495), and it is one of the seven World Heritage Sites of Sri Lanka. Sigiriya may have been inhabited through prehistoric times. It was used as a rock-shelter mountain monastery from about the 5th century BC, with caves prepared and donated by devotees to the Buddhist Sangha.

锡吉里耶（狮子的石头）是位于斯里兰卡中心的Matale区早先被毁的石堡和宫殿，它被残存的花园、蓄水池和其他建筑包围着。它是一个理性的旅游目的地，锡吉里耶也为它早期的绘画所知名，这些绘画是对印度阿旃陀石窟的回忆。锡吉里耶是在迦叶王一世主政期间（公元477——495年）修建的，它也是斯里兰卡的七个世界文化遗产之一。锡吉里耶也许在史前就有人居住了。它在公元五世纪的时候曾作为一个石头做的有着洞穴的寺庙来给僧侣使用。

Tower of Hercules

Spain

赫拉克勒斯灯塔（译者注：也有译作海格力斯的，我用了wiki的译名）西班牙

The Tower of Hercules is an ancient Roman lighthouse on a peninsula about 2.4 kilometers (1.5 miles) from the centre of A Coruña, Galicia, in north-western Spain. The name Corunna is said to be derived from the ancient column. The structure is 55 meters (180 ft) tall and overlooks the North Atlantic coast of Spain. It is almost 1900 years old, was rehabilitated in 1791, and is the oldest Roman lighthouse still used as a lighthouse.

赫拉克勒斯灯塔是早先罗马在西班牙西北省份加利西亚克鲁那2.4公里（1.5英里）处修建的灯塔。克鲁那这个名字据说是衍生自以前的圆柱。这个建筑有55米（180英尺）高，还可以俯瞰西班牙的北大西洋海岸。这个灯塔有1900岁了，它在1791年的时候被修缮，而且这是最老的还在被当作灯塔使用的罗马灯塔。

Toruń

Poland

托伦波兰

Toruń is a city in northern Poland, on the Vistula River. The medieval old town of Toruń is the birthplace of Nicolaus Copernicus. The first settlement in the vicinity is dated by archaeologists to 1100 BC. During medieval times, in the 7th-13th centuries, it was the location of an old Polish settlement, at a ford in the river. The Teutonic Knights built a castle in the vicinity of the Polish settlement in the years 1230-31. In 1263 Franciscan monks settled in the city, followed in 1239 by Dominicans. In 1264 the nearby New Town was founded. In 1280, the city (or as it was then, both cities) joined the mercantile Hanseatic League and was soon turned into an important medieval trade centre. As you can see from the photograph above, it is a beautiful medieval city and well worth visiting.

托伦市位于波兰的北部，毗邻维斯瓦河。这座中世纪古城是哥白尼的出生地。根据考古学家的追溯，最早的定居者在公元前1100年就来到了这里。在7世纪至13世纪的中世纪期间，在这里的河岸上是旧的波兰人的定居点。条顿军团于1230至31年间在波兰人的定居点附近修建了一个城堡。在1263年，圣方济各会的僧侣们在这个城市定居，接下来是1239多明尼会的成员。在1264年，附近的新城区建立了。在1280年，这个城市加入了汉萨商业同盟，这使得它成为了一个重要的贸易中心。正如你在照片中所见的一样，这是一个美丽而富有中世纪韵味的城市，而且值得你前去旅游。

Ajanta Caves

India

阿旃陀石窟印度

The Ajanta Caves in Maharashtra, India are rock-cut cave monuments dating from the second century BC, containing paintings and sculpture considered to be masterpieces of both Buddhist religious art and universal pictorial art. By AD 480 the caves at Ajanta were abandoned. During the next 1300 years the jungle grew back and the caves were hidden, unvisited and undisturbed until the Spring of 1819 when a British officer in the Madras army entered the steep gorge on the trail of a tiger. Somehow, deep within the tangled undergrowth, he came across the almost hidden entrance to one of the caves. Exploring that first cave, long since a home to nothing more than birds and bats and a lair for other, larger, animals, Captain Smith wrote his name in pencil on one of the walls. Still faintly visible, it records his name and the date, April 1819.

阿旃陀石窟位于印度的马哈拉施特拉邦，它是建造可以追溯到公元前二世纪，在此石窟中有着绘画与雕刻反应佛教和世俗社会的杰作。到了480年，阿旃陀石窟被荒废了。在接下来的1300年中，这个洞穴被茂密的森林所隐藏，知道1819年一位英国军官在追寻老虎的踪迹的时候找到了这里。不知怎么，他在矮树丛的深处穿过了其中一个隐藏的洞口。他发现了已经作为鸟和蝙蝠居所的一号洞穴。史密斯上校在其中一面墙上用铅笔写下了他的名字。模糊的记录着他的名字和发现日期——1819年四月。

Valley of Flowers

India

花之谷印度

The Valley of Flowers is an outstandingly beautiful high-altitude Himalayan valley that has been acknowledged as such by renowned mountaineers and botanists in literature for over a century and in Hindu mythology for much longer. Its ‘gentle’ landscape, breathtakingly beautiful meadows of alpine flowers and ease of access complement the rugged, mountain wilderness for which the inner basin of Nanda Devi National Park is renowned. Valley of flower is splashed with colour as it bloomed with hundreds different beautiful flowers, taking on various shades of colours as time progressed. Valley was declared a national park in 1982, and now it is a World Heritage Site. The locals, of course, always knew of the existence of the valley, and believed that it was inhabited by fairies.

花之谷是一个十分美丽的高海拔喜马拉雅山谷，它因在过去一个世纪中登山者和植物学家的作品中出现，而在印度教经典中它早就出现了。它“温和”的景色、令人窒息的美丽草甸上的花海和让人心旷神怡崎岖的山地入口都位于南达戴维国家公园盆地的腹地。花之谷因为上百种不同的花而显得多姿多彩。这个山谷在1982年成为了国家公园，现在它是世界文化遗产。当然了，当地人一直知道花之谷的存在，而且相信这是神话发生之地。

Metéora

曼代奥拉

The Metéora (“suspended rocks”) is one of the largest and most important complexes of Eastern Orthodox monasteries in Greece, second only to Mount Athos. The six monasteries are built on natural sandstone rock pillars, at the northwestern edge of the Plain of Thessaly near the Pineios river and Pindus Mountains, in central Greece. Access to the monasteries was originally (and deliberately) difficult, requiring either long ladders lashed together or large nets used to haul up both goods and people. This required quite a leap of faith – the ropes were replaced, so the story goes, only “when the Lord let them break”.

曼代奥拉（雄伟的岩石）是希腊最大也是最重要的东正教修道院群，它也在阿索斯山上。六个修道院在自然形成的岩石上建造而成，它位于希腊中部的塞萨利平原东北角，在Pineios河与品都斯山的附近。通往修道院的路十分难走，需要走长长的阶梯或是用大网把人和货物吊上来。这确实需要坚定的信仰——绳索已经没了，所以（爬上修道院）这个故事也就成了只有“当主让他们休息的时候”。

Bagan

Myanmar

Bagan is an ancient city in the Mandalay Division of Burma. Formally titled Arimaddanapura or Arimaddana (the City of the Enemy Crusher) and also known as Tambadipa (the Land of Copper) or Tassadessa (the Parched Land), it was the ancient capital of several ancient kingdoms in Burma. Bagan was submitted to become a UNESCO heritage site[1] but many speculate of politics as partly the reason for the exclusion. UNESCO does not designate Bagan as a World Heritage Site. The main reason given is that the military junta (SPDC) has haphazardly restored ancient stupas, temples and buildings, ignoring original architectural styles and using modern materials which bear little or no resemblance to the original designs. Nevertheless, this is still a must-see wonder of the world.

蒲甘是以前缅甸曼德勒地区的城市。它正是的名字是Arimaddanapura或Arimaddana（粉碎敌人之城），也被叫做Tambadipa（富铜之地）或是Tassadessa（焦土），它是缅甸以前几个王国的首都。蒲甘原本要成为联合国教科文组织的物质遗产，但很多政治的投机成为了它不能入选的理由之一。联合国教科文组织并没有指定这里为世界文化遗产主要是因为这里的军政府（SPDC）不顾原本的建筑风格而随意的修复早先的舍利塔、寺庙和其他建筑，而且在这个过程中还用了现代的材料对原本的风格造成了极大的破坏。不管怎么说，这仍是世上几个必须要去的胜地之一。

Leptis Magna

Libya

大莱普提斯利比亚

Leptis Magna was a prominent city of the Roman Empire. Its ruins are located in Al Khums, Libya, 130 km east of Tripoli, on the coast where the Wadi Lebda meets the sea. The site is one of the most spectacular and unspoiled Roman ruins in the Mediterranean. The city appears to have been founded by Phoenician colonists sometime around 1100 BC, although it did not achieve prominence until Carthage became a major power in the Mediterranean Sea in the 4th century BC. It nominally remained part of Carthage’s dominions until the end of the Third Punic War in 146 BC and then became part of the Roman Republic, although from about 200 BC onward, it was for all intents and purposes an independent city.

大莱普提斯是罗马帝国一个知名的城市。它的遗址位于利比亚胡姆斯，的黎波里往东130公里的地方，那里是Wadi Lebda 的海滩。这里是地中海地区最壮观还没被破坏的罗马遗址。这个城市是在公元前1100年左右被腓尼基殖民者所建立的，不过直到迦太基人在公元前四世纪在地中海地区崛起的时候它才成为一个重要的城市。直到公元前146年第三次布匿战争之前，这里名义上都是迦太基的领地，后来罗马共和国就取而代之了。不过在公园200年之后从任何意义上说它都是一座独立的城市。

Library of Celsus

Turkey

塞尔瑟斯图书馆土耳其

This is number one for strictly personal reasons. I love books, I love libraries, and this site is dedicated to knowledge (as are libraries). The library of Celsus (in Turkey) was built to store 12,000 scrolls and to serve as a monumental tomb for Celsus (who had been consul in 92 AD, governor of Asia in 115 AD, and a wealthy and popular local citizen). The building is important as one of few remaining examples of an ancient Roman-influenced library. It also shows that public libraries were built not only in Rome itself but throughout the Roman Empire. In a massive restoration which is considered to be very true to the historic building, the front façade was rebuilt and now serves as a prime example of Roman public architecture.

这里成为第一名完全是因为我个人的理由。我爱书，我爱图书馆，而且这里全是知识。这个图书馆存有12000个卷轴还是作为塞尔瑟斯的坟墓出现。这个建筑物之所以重要还是因为它是早期受罗马影响的图书馆的样本。它也展示了公共图书馆并不仅仅在罗马城出现，而也在整个罗马帝国出现，它巨大的藏书量被认为是一个有历史意义的建筑，它的前部被重建了，现在它是作为罗马公共建筑的样本出现。

2010年3月6日星期六

NYC and Las Vegas from above, at night

大苹果城和赌城的夜景俯瞰

Photographer Jason Hawkes, a frequent contributor to the Big Picture blog, returns today, sharing with us some of his latest images of American cities seen from above at night - New York City and Las Vegas, both cities that undergo significant transformations after the sun goes down. From Hawkes: "The images of New York were shot on Nikons latest camera, the D3S, using three gyro stabilizing mounts and flown using twin star helicopters. (Eurocopter AS355). We flew from heights of just over 500 ft up to 2,500-ft with no doors on, it was very very cold. The images of Las Vegas were shot for a separate project, using a range of helicopters from a Robinson 44 to Eurocopter AS355".

摄影师Jason Hawkes是我们大图blog的长期供稿者，说说今天这个吧，他与我们分享一些他最新的美国城市夜景航拍的照片——纽约和拉斯维加斯，这个两个城市在太阳落山之后都有着非同寻常的景色。引用Hawkes的话来说：“纽约的照片我使用尼康最新的相机——D3S拍摄的，并且用了3个回转仪来稳固相机还用了双子星直升机来做飞行器。我们在500至2500英尺的高空开着舱门飞行，那太冷了。拉斯维加斯的照片是为了另一个项目所拍摄的，使用了罗宾逊44照相机和欧洲直升机AS355。”

One Worldwide Plaza, Eighth Avenue. (© Jason Hawkes)

世界的购物广场，第八大道。

The Williamsburg suspension bridge crossing the East River. (© Jason Hawkes)

横跨东河的威廉斯堡吊桥。

View from the Financial District across to the Governors Island and Upper Bay. Verrazano-Narrows Bridge can be seen lit up in the far distance. (© Jason Hawkes)

在总督岛和上湾之间看金融区。在远处我们还可以看到维拉扎诺海湾大桥。