有些东西是绕着走过去的,不是直着穿过去的。
Some things travel around, not straight across.
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01我去拉合尔,是去见同事。I went to Lahore to meet the team.
九月二十号从纽约出发,经阿布扎比转机,先到拉合尔,再到卡拉奇。一周里大部分时间,是和平时只在视频里见到的人坐在同一个房间里。
I left New York on September 20th, connected through Abu Dhabi, landed in Lahore, then went on to Karachi. Most of the week was spent in the same room as people I usually only see on a call.
这篇不写工作。写的是工作之外,两件我一直记着的小事。
This isn't about the work. It's about two small things from around the edges of it that I keep thinking about.
02一座 1674 年的清真寺,听得见悄悄话。A mosque from 1674 that can hear a whisper.
巴德夏希清真寺(Badshahi Mosque)建于 1674 年。外面全是红砂岩,里面是白色大理石。它曾经是世界上最大的清真寺,能容纳十万人。
Badshahi Mosque was built in 1674 — red sandstone outside, white marble inside. It was once the largest mosque in the world, with room for a hundred thousand people.
导游讲了两个细节。第一,八座宣礼塔都微微向外倾斜,这样地震的时候,它们会倒向外面,而不是砸向清真寺。第二,穹顶是双层的,中间隔着大约六米。声音会沿着这层空隙走,在一个角落轻声说话,对角的人能听见。据说莫卧儿时期的守卫就是靠它来听可疑的对话。
The guide pointed out two details. First: all eight minarets lean very slightly outward, so that in an earthquake they'd fall away from the mosque instead of onto it. Second: the dome is two layers with roughly six meters of air between them. Sound travels along that gap — speak quietly in one corner and someone in the opposite corner can hear you. Mughal-era guards supposedly used it to listen in on suspicious conversations.
我们当场试了。几个人分站在对角,真的听得见。
We tried it on the spot. A few of us split up into opposite corners. It works.
声音没有穿过中间的人群,是绕着穹顶过去的。The sound didn't cross the crowd in the middle. It went around the dome.
03晚饭桌上,有人问我名字是什么意思。At dinner, someone asked what my name means.
在卡拉奇的一个晚上,聊到学语言,有人问我中文名字怎么拆。我说:陈,左边是"耳",右边是"东",意思是旧、老;焕,左边是"火",意思是亮。
One evening in Karachi, the conversation drifted to learning languages, and someone asked how my Chinese name breaks down. I said: 陈 (Chen) — an "ear" on the left, "east" on the right, and it means old, aged. 焕 (Huan) — "fire" on the left, and it means bright.
然后一位同事讲,他们那边很多家庭会请信得过的长辈或伊玛目帮孩子起名,相信名字的意思会慢慢长进孩子的性格里。我说,我们也有类似的传统。隔着两种语言,这件事几乎是一样的。
Then a colleague said that in Pakistan, a lot of families ask someone they trust — an elder, or the local imam — to help choose a child's name, because the meaning is supposed to grow into who the child becomes. I said we have something similar. Two languages apart, it was almost the same idea.
04焕。Huan.
焕的意思是亮。我一直觉得这个字是暖的。我的狗叫暖暖,我的英文名是 Kelvin —— 一个温度单位。三个名字,好像都在同一条线上。
焕 means bright. I've always felt it's a warm character, too. My dog is called 暖暖 — "warmth." My English name is Kelvin — a unit of temperature. Three names, and they seem to sit on the same line.
那天晚上我没想到会把这件事讲给一桌在卡拉奇的人听。但讲出来的那一刻,有点像在穹顶的一角说话 —— 对面真的听见了。
I didn't expect to be explaining this to a table of people in Karachi. But saying it out loud felt a little like speaking into one corner of that dome — and someone across the room actually heard it.
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回程第一次去了迪拜。没做什么,就在城里随便走了走。
On the way home, my first time in Dubai. I didn't do much — just walked around the city.
我真的很高兴去了这一趟。遇到的每一个人,我都很喜欢。
I'm really glad I went. I was really happy with all the people I met.
旅行 / travel拉合尔 / Lahore · 卡拉奇 / Karachi · 名字 / names · 焕