Chapter1.3 前言|Preface2

After arriving, I was told — and agreed — the panels should instead provide power for the seven tents nearly 80 children called their dorms.

到了玉树之后，我才得知，将近80个孩子都挤在7顶帐篷里，这就是他们的宿舍。我同意老师们的建议，应该把太阳能板产生的电能用于这些帐篷。

Upon seeing the nomadic areas’ dire needs, I resolved to do more.

看到牧民们贫困的生活状况，我决定做更多的事情。

Frankly, in Sichuan, I often didn’t know what I could do aside from publish people’s stories, donate to relief efforts and volunteer to teach English.

老实说，在四川时，除了发表文章讲述故事、给救灾活动捐款，以及志愿教英语，我时常困惑还能做些什么。

In Qinghai, some simple solutions like giving solar panels to schools were not only obvious but also doable, but nobody was doing them — yet.

而在青海，像给学校捐太阳能板这样的简单方案，不仅显而易见而且切实可行，只是当时还没有人做这件事。

I witnessed another miracle in the years to come, when the government rapidly redeveloped the area.

在以后的几年里，我将目睹另一个奇迹——政府迅速地开发了这个地区。

But that not only didn’t seem imminent in 2011. It didn’t even seem possible.

可是在2011年，这一切还遥遥无期，甚至想都不敢想。

What started in 2011 with a single solar panel, for me, and some friends, turned into a mission to bring new light, in every sense, throughout the region.

2011年的那块太阳能板，很快就发展成我和朋友们的一项使命，为整个地区在真正意义上带去光明。

We did it.

我们成功了。

Our small initiative had a big impact.

我们小小的活动产生了巨大的影响。

We first installed panels in nearly all of the schools scattered throughout Yushu’s Qumarleb county, bringing electricity to thousands of kids’ classrooms and dorms.

我们先是为分布在玉树曲麻莱县的几乎所有学校都安装了太阳能板，为数千名孩子的教室和宿舍带去了电力。

Then, we delivered tons — as in metric tons — of clothes, food, medicine, coal, computers and the like to nomads’ schools.

然后，我们给牧民学校送去了数以吨计的衣服、食物、药品、煤炭、电脑等物资。

In 2015, we brought a teen girl from the desolate highlands to Beijing for a cleft-palate surgery. The following summer, we brought a young nomadic boy to Qinghai’s capital, Xining, for ear surgery.

2015年，我们资助一位高原上的女孩到北京做了唇腭裂正畸手术。次年夏天，我们把一个牧民的儿子送到青海省省会西宁做了耳科手术。

And in 2019, we provided a new “off-road” wheelchair suitable for negotiating the often snowy and undulating grasslands for an 11-year-old and a prosthetic hand for his 9-year-old schoolmate.

2019年，我们给一个11岁的男孩送去了一辆“越野”轮椅，这样他就可以在高低不平、常年积雪的草地上通行无阻。我们还帮助他的一位9岁同学装上了义肢。

We also fully fund underprivileged Tibetan nomadic students’ university educations. In exchange, they design their own volunteer projects in isolated herders’ communities.

那些出身贫寒的藏族孩子，只要能考上大学，我们就提供全额资助。作为回报，他们到偏远的游牧社区发起自己的志愿者活动。

Three recipients have graduated and now earn more in one month than their entire households earned in a year on the frigid plateau. Some still run volunteer projects. Another three are starting their junior years.

有三位接受资助的大学生已经毕业，他们一个月的工资就超过了全家人在苦寒的高原上一整年的收入。有一些学生还在坚持进行志愿活动。另外还有三个人刚刚开始大一生活。

We’ve shifted toward surgeries and scholarships as China’s development miracle has finally arrived in Yushu, abundantly satisfying “hardware” needs like electricity.

随着玉树当地的发展，电力这样的“硬件”需求已得到切实满足，我们将重点转向手术和奖学金。

I was surprised and honored when Premier Li Keqiang thanked me for these efforts on the plateau — rather than solely for my journalistic work — when I delivered to him a six-minute speech, advising on China’s media development, during a Spring Festival reception for top foreign experts at the Great Hall of the People in 2017.

2017年外国专家春节招待会在人民大会堂举行，我有幸向李克强总理提出了关于中国媒体发展的建议。令我惊讶的是，听我说了6分钟后，李总理不仅对我的新闻工作表示赞赏，还感谢我在高原上的工作。这令我深感荣幸。

And I was also honored that my mission to help tell China’s story to the world was recognized the year before, when I won the China Friendship Award, the country’s “highest honor for foreign experts who’ve made contributions to China’s social and economic development”.

就在那之前的2016年，我向世界讲述中国故事的努力已经得到了认可。我荣获了“中国政府友谊奖”，这是“为表彰在中国的社会和经济发展中作出突出贡献的外国专家而设立的最高奖项”。

I was especially moved when the premier said, upon meeting the newly minted laureates, that a 33-year-old winner indicated China’s modernization offers opportunities attractive to young overseas professionals and shows “new hope” for international cooperation.

特别令我感动的是，李总理对刚刚获奖的外国专家们说，这样一位33岁的获奖者表明，中国的现代化所带来的机遇吸引了海外的年轻专业人士，显示出国际合作的“新希望”。

Over the years, I have, in turn, discovered new hope for the world inside China, especially while covering the poverty alleviation miracle from the field.

这些年来，我也看到了中国内在的新希望，特别是在第一线报道中国的扶贫奇迹时感触尤深。

Still, I believe most of the world doesn’t yet sufficiently comprehend the enormity of this triumph, let alone fully understand how it has been accomplished.

但我认为这一成就的深远影响还远未得到全世界的充分认识，更不用说真正了解取得这一成就的艰难过程。

I also more than suspect that relatively few people, perhaps especially in the West, realize how much geology sculpts the contours of poverty nearly anywhere, let alone what extremes China specifically has had to overcome as a particularly volatile hunk of our planet’s crust.

我更怀疑没有多少人，特别是西方人，意识到地理条件是世界各地的贫困版图中一个至关重要的成因，尤其是对于中国这样一个处于我们地球上格外脆弱地带的国家，要取得这样的扶贫成效需要克服怎样的极端不利因素。

I’ve seen with my own eyes the scope and scale of China’s challenges as well as of its solutions. And I’ve spent countless hours speaking with myriad individuals about how these solutions have transformed their lives, personally.

我亲眼看到中国面临的挑战的范围、程度和解决方案。我花了数不清的时间面对面与各种各样的人交谈，了解这些解决方案是如何改变了他们的生活。

China had hoisted 740 million people out of poverty in the 40 years between the start of the reform and opening-up and the start of 2018. That’s roughly equivalent to the population of Europe.

从改革开放以来到2017年年底，中国贫困人口一共减少了7.4亿。这大致相当于整个欧洲的人口总和。

And it lifted over 12 million people in the countryside out of poverty each year between 2013 and 2018 alone.

从2013年到2018年，中国农村每年减贫人数都保持在1200万以上。

The country’s unprecedented achievements enabled the realization of the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals’ target of halving global poverty before the deadline.

正是由于这个国家所取得的前所未有的成就，联合国得以提前实现其“千年发展目标”中将全球贫困人口减半的目标。

No society in human history has lifted so many people out of poverty so fast. Not even close.

人类历史上没有哪一个社会能以如此快的速度，让如此众多的人脱贫成功。在这方面，中国遥遥领先。

I believe the word “miracle” is appropriate.

“奇迹”一词，我认为极为贴切。

It has been incredible to not only be present at the Great Hall of the People when poverty-alleviation measures and other policies are announced but also to see how these have manifested as reality, even in far-flung corners of the country.

对我来说，在人民大会堂目睹扶贫措施和其他政策的颁布之后，又在中国最边远的各个角落亲眼看到这些政策成为现实，这本身就不可思议。

That’s especially as China declared it would totally eliminate extreme poverty by 2020 and achieve the first of two centenary goals — that is, becoming a “moderately prosperous society in all respects”.

特别是中国宣布2020年将全面消除绝对贫困，实现第一个百年奋斗目标——“全面建成小康社会”。

This book is an attempt to chronicle the story of this miracle as I’ve personally witnessed it progress during my travels — and how, along the way, I’ve come to ultimately reconsider what it means to be human.

本书尝试记录这一奇迹的故事。在旅途中我亲眼见证了它的发展——这一路上，我也开始重新审视生而为人的意义。

As such, I start this account in Wenchuan, where poverty and geology conspired to conjure tragedy that was overcome through rescue and recovery, where life was lost and hope was found.

由此，我的记录就从汶川开始。贫困和地理环境所导致的悲剧终将在救援和重建中被克服，在这片无数生命逝去的地方，人们也将重拾希望。

I then continue on to the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau — the planet’s “third pole” — where China has overcome extraordinary altitudes and isolation to bring prosperity that was unthinkable only several years ago.

然后我将去往青藏高原，地球的“第三极”——中国克服了极端的海拔高度和地理上的偏远等不利因素，给这里带来了短短几年前还不可想象的富裕。

I next investigate from the field diverse poverty-alleviation projects in every corner of the country over the past decade, from rural virtual-reality amusement parks to emu farms run by ethnic Mongolian nomads.

随后我还将回顾过去十多年里我采访过的全国各地的扶贫项目，从乡村里的虚拟现实娱乐公园到内蒙古牧民开办的鸸鹋农场。

And, finally, I examine the reform and opening-up that has propelled the development necessary to drive China’s povertyalleviation miracle — through extreme immersion. For instance, I join the “bangbang army”, ride hogs with an elderly motorcycle club and steer a pill-sized gut drone camera with a joystick while traveling thousands of kilometers to 11 cities along the Yangtze River Economic Belt over five weeks.

最后，我将以极限沉浸的形式来分析改革开放如何驱动了中国的扶贫奇迹。我花了5个星期采访长江经济带沿线数千公里的11座城市，其间我跟“棒棒军”一起挑担，和一个老年摩托车俱乐部的成员们一起飙车，还测试了一台胶囊胃镜机器人。

I never imagined I’d end up doing any of these things when I first arrived in China in 2005.

2005年，我第一次踏上中国的大地时，根本想不到我会做任何一件这样的事情。

I certainly never imagined I’d end up buying yaks.

我肯定不会想到有朝一日我会筹款去买牦牛。

Somehow, along the way, I’ve not only documented what I’ve seen but also became involved in the story.

也不知在旅途中的何时何地，我从单纯的记录者变成了参与者。

Somehow, I ended up not only buying but also riding, milking and getting kicked by yaks.

而我不但买了，还骑过牦牛，给它们挤过奶，而且也被它们踢过。

Sometimes, I take my kids, who were born and raised in Beijing, on my lap and tell them about the adventures I’ve had.

有时，我把在北京出生长大的孩子们抱在膝上，给他们讲述我经历过的各种冒险。

Perhaps someday, I’ll do the same with their children.

也许有一天，我还能为他们的孩子再讲这些故事。

Some stories will have to wait until they’re older.

有一些故事可能得留到他们长大一些再讲。

Grandpa will have many more by then.

那时，爷爷肯定会有更多的好故事可讲。

There are, indeed, many stories left to tell — and to live.

的确，还有很多很多故事要讲——要去亲身经历。