一次从高跟鞋谈到恋物癖的采访
Times Insider delivers behind-the-scenesinsights into how news, features and opinion come together at The New YorkTimes. In this piece, Didi Kirsten Tatlow, a Beijing-based Times correspondent,recounts a funny thing that happened on the way to her upcoming Sinospherecolumn on high heels.
“时报内情”专栏(Times Insider)为读者呈现《纽约时报》新闻、专题报道及评论的幕后故事。在本篇文章中，时报驻京记者狄雨霏(Didi Kirsten Tatlow)讲述了她在为“时报看中国”专栏(Sinosphere)撰写一篇有关高跟鞋的文章期间，发生的一件趣事。
BEIJING —The name of thewebsite selling high heels was perhaps a little odd, in retrospect:.
北京——事后看来，那个卖高跟鞋的网站名字可能有些奇怪：中国高跟鞋俱乐部，网址。
Then again, not really. English-languagetranslations can be colorful in China. A banner reading “Welcome, foreignfiends!” greeted visitors at Kunming airport in the 1990s. I’ve often seen“fried crap,” instead of carp, on restaurant menus. Of course, the mistakes cutboth ways —what’s a Chinese person to make of the characters for “pease”tattooed onforeign flesh?
再一想，也不尽然。在中国，英文翻译可能会五彩缤纷。在90年代，昆明机场一条欢迎游客的横幅上写着“欢迎，外国鬼子!”（friends误写作fiends［魔鬼］——编注）。在餐厅的菜单上，我经常看到“fried crap”（红烧大粪），而不是“carp”（鲤鱼）。当然，这种错误双方都会出现——中国人怎么看外国人身上文的“pease”（豆）对应的汉字呢？
More important, I was facing a tight filingdeadline for the Sinosphere column I have written from China for six years now,and had no time to waste. I decided to do a piece about high heels.
更重要的是，我在中国写了六年的“时报看中国”专栏的交稿期限马上就要到了，我不能浪费时间。我决定写一篇有关高跟鞋的文章。
For about three years, I had watched asheel height rose in the trendy Sanlitun district where the Times office issituated. Thin women with — usually — long hair tottered on heels about thelength and width of chopsticks on often uneven sidewalks, calf muscles clenchedin an effort to remain upright. Even a teacher at my daughter’skindergarten had worn them to work. Extreme heels —about eightinches high —were in.
在大约三年的时间里，我看着时报办公室所在的潮流地带三里屯的鞋跟高度不断增加。身材苗条的女士——通常——留着长发，穿着鞋跟的高度和粗细都与筷子相当的高跟鞋，别扭地走在常常不甚平整的人行道上。为了保持姿态挺直，她们紧绷着小腿的肌肉。就连我女儿就读的幼儿园里，也有一位老师穿着这种鞋上班。恨天高——高约八英寸（约合20厘米）——正在流行。
There had also been a series of incidentsin Cannes, London and Tokyo over the last year in which women had been publiclyrebuked for wearing flats. Sure, wear high heels if you want, I thought — butwhy tell women we look ugly if we don’t?
过去一年里，戛纳、伦敦和东京出现过一系列公开指责女性穿平跟鞋的事件。我想，当然，想穿就穿吧——但为什么要对女性说，如果不穿高跟鞋，我们看上去就会很丑呢？
I rang the mobile number on the website;1,200 miles away in Guangzhou, in the south of China, a stranger called ChenYan answered. I explained what I wanted.
我拨打了网站上的那个手机号。在2000公里外的华南城市广州，一个名叫陈研的陌生人接起了电话。我解释了自己想了解的情况。
“I’m just the webmaster,”he said, cagily.
“我只是网站管理员，”他出言谨慎。
No problem, I said breezily. In truth, Ihad never been in the position of needing to conceptualize, report and write acolumn in so little time. China is rich pickings, journalistically, but acolumn of any kind needs solid reporting, a strong concept and reflective,writerly depth. In a too-busy week, I had mistimed things. Mild panic had setin.
没事，我轻快地说。但实际上，我以前从未发生过需要在这么短的时间内构思、报道并撰写一篇专栏文章的事情。从记者的角度来说，中国素材丰富，但任何一篇专栏文章都需要可靠的报道、有说服力的概念和引人深思的写作深度。在太过繁忙的一周里，我没能在正确的时间做该做的事。我感到轻微的恐慌袭来。
Did Mr. Chen have a number for the manageror anyone else who worked there? I asked. Or maybe he had some thoughtshimself? I want to write about extreme heels, I said.
陈研有经理或其他任何工作人员的电话吗？我问。或者他自己有没有什么想法？我想写写恨天高，我说。
Mr. Chen took that, well, in stride.
好在陈研对此表现得颇为从容。
“Actually, I also run the site. What exactly do you want to know?”he asked.
“其实我也负责网站运营。你到底想知道什么？”他问道。
It sounded promising. Was urely an online business or also a store? What were the trends in high heelsin China? Was there discussion about whether they were healthy or safe to wear?When did women start wearing high heels again after the puritanical Mao Zedongera?
听上去有希望。只是一家网店，还是说也有实体店？中国高跟鞋的流行趋势是什么？是否有过关于穿高跟鞋的健康或安全问题的讨论？省吃俭用的毛泽东时代结束后，中国的女性是从什么时候又开始穿高跟鞋的？
“I remember my mother —I must have been about 6 —when she started towear heels,”he said. “I was born in 1980.”
“我记得我母亲——大概是在我6岁的时候——开始穿高跟鞋，”他说。“我是1980年出生的。”
He was helpful but seemed distracted. I hadto ask some questions twice.
他想帮忙，但似乎不太专心。有些问题我不得不说两遍。
Suddenly he said, “Actually,your questions are a bit stupid.”
突然他说，“其实你的问题有点傻。”
That was startling, but journalists areoften obliged to ask seemingly naïve questions to elicit explanations or pointsof view, so I, too, took the conversation in stride. Why, I asked?
这话令我吃惊，但记者通常不得不问一些看上去很幼稚的问题，以便引出相关解释或观点。于是，我对这场交谈的态度也变得从容起来。为什么，我问他。
“Don’t worry!” he continued. “That doesn’tmean you won’t do a good job with your story. We have a saying in Chinese:‘Stupid birds fly high.’ It means that people who know they are stupid often dobetter than clever people because they try harder,”heexplained.
“不要担心！”他接着说。“这不代表你做不好这篇报道。中国有句老话叫‘笨鸟先飞’，意思是说知道自己不够聪明的人往往比聪明人做得更好，因为他们更努力，”他解释说。
He was getting a bit ... personal, l, always keen to learn a new phrase, I asked him how it was written andmade a note of it. (In Chinese: 笨鸟飞高, benniao feigao.)
不知为何，他的话有点……针对个人。不过，总是热衷学习新词汇的我继续问他这个词怎么写，并记了下来。
I asked for facts. Did he have any figuresfor how much high heels sold on his website, and what proportion of that waskitten, high and extreme high heels?
我还问了一些事实性的东西。比如，他是否有关于网站高跟鞋销量的数据，其中低跟、高跟和超高跟的比例是怎样？
“Look,” he said, “I feel I ought to tellyou, we’re actually a fetish club. We set up in 2002 and we’re the first one inChina. Because of Chinese law we can’t openly advocate fetishism. We depend onselling high heels to fund our activities.”
“哎呀，”他说。“我得跟你说，这其实是一家恋物癖俱乐部。它成立于2002年，是中国第一家。因为中国的法规限制，我们不能公开倡导恋物癖。我们靠卖高跟鞋为活动提供资金。”
“Actually our members are mostly male,”he added. “We have veryfew female members, but we do sell high heels as well. You’re, ah,welcome to stay in touch.”
“实际上我们的会员大多是男性，”他还说。“女性会员非常少，不过我们的确卖高跟鞋。啊，欢迎你跟我们保持联系。”
We parted on the best of terms. I wroteabout something else that week: a smart idea to give subsidies for outdoor workin hot weather, as the world warms up. Not so much #highheelgate as#globalwarming. But I persisted with the heels topic, and that column is due torun on Aug. 11.
我们在友好的气氛下告别。那一周我写了别的内容：在全球气温升高的情况下，有一个给在炎热天气里做户外工作的人提供补贴的聪明点子。离#高跟鞋门#有点远，更接近#全球变暖#之类的话题。不过，我还在继续做高跟鞋这个选题，相应的专栏文章会在8月11日发表。
As for Mr. Chen, he says he thinks heelsare a reflection of materialism, first and foremost, and wasn’t much interestedin the semiotics of it all, delightfully explored by Elizabeth Semmelhack, thesenior curator at the Bata Shoe Museum (and, interestingly, the author of abook about the history of men wearing high heels), in a piece published in TheTimes in May 2015 titled “Shoes That Put Women in Their Place.”
陈研表示，他认为高跟鞋首先是物质主义的一种表现，不过他对其中的符号学意义没有太大兴趣。那是巴塔鞋履博物馆(Bata Shoe Museum)资深策展人伊丽莎白·塞梅尔哈克(Elizabeth Semmelhack)感兴趣的话题，曾在她于2015年5月发表在《纽约时报》上的一篇名为《高跟鞋为何成了女性专属？》(Shoes That Put Women in Their Place)的文章中兴致勃勃地进行了探讨（有意思的是，她还写了一本有关男性穿高跟鞋历史的书）。
“Chinese people’s incomes are rising, and their requirements for heels are risingalong with a materialistic spirit,”Mr. Chen said.
“中国人收入在增加，对高跟鞋的需求也随物质精神的增强在增长，”陈研说。
“When you wear high heels, you can’t go for a stroll,”hecontinued, using the Chinese term “sanbu,”consideredan essential part of healthy living here. “You need a car. Whenyou don’t have a car, you can’t wear high heels.”
“穿着高跟鞋，你是没法散步的，”他继续说。这种活动在中国被认为是健康生活的一个重要部分。“你需要有辆车。如果没有车，就没法穿高跟鞋。”
That doesn’t stop the womentottering on Sanlitun’s sidewalks, but I’m not going to judge them for that.#thethingsyougetintoasajournalist.
这并不妨碍三里屯人行道上的女人们穿着高跟鞋别扭地走路，不过我不会以此指摘别人。#当记者会陷入的事#。
