China is an education. Learning about the country can seem as difficult as learning Chinese. The business visitor is said to be swiftly engulfed in the soupy embrace of China's cities, with their mushrooming tower blocks, television-illuminated meals in private restaurant rooms and visits to karaoke bars. Those who classify themselves as tourists rather than travellers, meanwhile, will walk a famous wall and meet an army of model warriors, cruise a large river, eat some mystifying meals, go shopping and go home. Either way, the new, open China can sometimes seem as elusive as the old, forbidden one.
中国是一门学问。了解这个国家似乎与学习中文同样困难。据说，商务游客很快被淹没在中国城市的海洋里，他们四周是迅速崛起的高楼大厦，他们会在私家餐馆包间里边看电视边享用晚餐，以及去卡拉OK唱歌。同时，这些将自己定义为观光客而非旅行者的人，会在闻名遐迩的长城上漫步，在宽阔的江河上航行，品尝一些不可思议的食物，逛商场，然后回家。不管怎样，开放的新中国有时候似乎与封闭的旧中国同样令人难以捉摸。

Unlocking its intricacies requires either the courage to sally out in the face of incomprehension (tough but rewarding – problem-solving, good humour and honesty are far more common in China than their opposites) or it requires a special interest – in birds, gardens, railway trains, art – which will lead you to stranger, more educative places than nightclubs and cruiseboats. Tea can do this, too. Grown throughout southern China and loved nationwide, it will not only draw you towards some of the country's most remarkable landscapes but it also provides a glimpse, in the drinking, of a China far sweeter and more gracious than the nation's brash public image.
要解开其中的错综复杂，要么需要面对疑问时施放出勇气（虽然困难但是值得——解决问题、良好的幽默感和诚实比其反义词在中国更为常见），抑或要求你对鸟类、园艺、火车、艺术等具有特别的兴趣——这些事物将你带往比夜总会和游艇更为陌生、也更具有教育意义的地方。茶也能做到这点。茶生长在中国南方，深受全中国人的喜爱，它不仅会将你带到中国一些风景最为迤逦的地区，而且在品茗过程中，它还会带你透过中国不佳的公众形象，领略一个更美好和更高雅的中国。

My own Chinese education was defective in that I had assumed that the vast, sparely rugged landscapes of classical Chinese painting were more spiritual lesson than a faithful rendering of place. Those tiny figures moving, insect-like, between indolent river and abrupt peak were there to teach modesty, instil calm and underline impermanence, surely, rather than reflect reality. No landscape could open like that, could it? It could and it does. Travel in China's tea country, and those same scenes will unfold before you, their pines seemingly placed at the summit of crags by some great artificer and their quiet valleys broken only by the soft race of falling water. Even the lenses of mist, mobile and intermittent, are accurate. Tea bushes thirst for more than twice London's annual rainfall, and cloud cover combined with high humidity is perfect for keeping their vivid green leaves pliant.
我自己的中国学问并不完善，因为我曾以为，中国古典绘画中广袤平坦的风景，比忠实地描绘一个地方的手法更具精神层面的意义。那些如同昆虫般微小的人影在水流缓慢的江河与陡峭的山峰之间移动，教育人们虚怀若谷，灌输平静的心境，强调世事无常，而不是对现实的反映。没有其它哪处风景能够如此开阔，不是吗？游历中国这个茶的国度，那些相同的风景将一一呈现在你的面前，在一些伟大画师的笔下，松树生长在峭壁顶峰，而静谧的山谷中淌过涓涓的流水。就连对飘忽不定的雾霭的刻画都是那么生动。茶树对雨量的要求，是伦敦年降雨量的两倍以上，而多云的天气加上高湿度，构成了茶树盎然生长的完美环境。

A good bit of China is mountainous. Lowland areas are commandeered for the productive agriculture required to feed 1.3bn people, so that any crop that can migrate upwards will do so. Tea is ideal for this task – indeed you can create a small tea garden in many areas by doing no more than clearing the scrub to leave the wild, native bushes to enjoy the light and warmth on their own. “Garden” is exact: the small, shaped bushes grafted on to stone terraces and rock ledges look, at first sight, like effusions of the privet so cherished in suburban horticulture or like some vegetable sculptor's audacious installation. In the Da Hong Pao (Great Red Cloak) valley of Wuyi Mountain in Fujian Province, this is an installation dating back to Tang times. At the same moment as the first Viking raiders were descending on Lindisfarne, in other words, the bamboos were being parted to make way for Camellia sinensis in this almost secret valley where water cuts its way through soaring planes of sandstone and conglomerate as sheerly as gin through ice.
中国大多数地区多山。低地被征用来从事生产性农业耕作，以养活中国13亿人口，因此可被移往高处的农作物都会被移向高处。茶非常适合这种方式——实际上你可以在许多地区开辟一小块茶园，所做的工作无非是清除杂草，让野生天然的茶树自己享受阳光和温暖的气候。“茶园”非常准确：修剪成形的小茶树被移植到阳台和花架上，乍看像是郊外园艺非常青睐的那种垂落的女贞灌木，或是像一些蔬菜雕刻家手下大胆的作品。在福建省武夷山的大红袍峡谷里，这种植物的历史可以追溯至唐朝。在首批维京海盗突袭林迪斯法恩岛(Lindisfarne)的同一时期，在这个流水淌过层层沙岩和砾岩的幽静山谷里，人们砍伐竹子，腾开地方种植茶树。#p#分页标题#e#

In addition to Great Red Cloak, an oolong that is said to taste both of rocks and of sweet apples, Wuyi is also home to the greatest of all Lapsang Souchongs (or Zheng Shan Xiao Zhong, as it is known locally): that of Bohea Farm. This farm, where great smoked tea from wild bushes has been produced continuously since the 15th century, is sited at the village of Tongmu within the Long Chuan (Floating Dragon) gorge, in a protected zone of such environmental value that public access is restricted to the lower parts of the valley.
除了大红袍和据说同样混合着岩石与苹果香气的乌龙茶以外，武夷山还盛产正山小种红茶：产自武夷农场(Bohea Farm)。这里最上等焙制的茶叶取自野生茶树的农场。自15世纪以来，一直在生产茶叶，坐落在龙川大峡谷内的桐木村，这是一处具有环保价值的自然保护区，公众只能进入山谷中的低处。

In springtime, smoke from logs of Taiwan red pine seeps from the wooden kiln roofs like the steam rising from a horse's back after a canter in the rain; under the eaves, the rolled and withered leaves rest on giant bamboo trays while the fragrant, almost peat-like fumes riffle through them. The subtlety of Bohea Lapsang makes cheaper versions taste like burnt toast. Within China, Bohea is considered the origin of black tea. The fact that it was the source of the first tea imported to Britain meant that the name became, in the 17th century, a metonym for tea itself (the two words rhyme), and is thus used by Pope (in “The Rape of the Lock”) and Byron (in “Don Juan”). The great Scottish plant hunter Robert Fortune, who ended China's tea monopoly by planting Darjeeling on behalf of the British East India Company, visited Bohea during a three-year voyage in the mid-19th century. “Never in my life,” he wrote later, “have I seen a view such as this, so grand, so sublime. High ranges of mountains were towering on my right and on my left, while before me as far as the eye could reach, the whole country seemed broken up into mountains and hills of all heights, with peaks of every form.”
春季，台湾红松木燃烧的烟雾从木制窑炉顶缭缭升起，就像马匹在雨中慢跑后背上升起的水汽一样；屋檐下，烘制枯萎卷起的茶叶放置在巨大的竹制托盘上，飘出与泥煤非常相似的炭香。正山小种的精妙，使得便宜的茶叶品尝起来如同烤焦的面包。在中国，武夷山被视为红茶的发源之地。事实上，这里出产了首批出口至英国的茶叶，意味着武夷山在17世纪时成为了茶叶的代名词，蒲柏(Pope)[在《夺发记》(The Rape of the Lock)里]和拜伦(Byron)[在《唐璜》(Don Juan)里]曾经用过这一称谓。伟大的苏格兰植物学家罗伯特?福钦(Robert Fortune)曾代表英国东印度公司(British East India Company)种植大吉岭茶，从而结束了中国茶叶的垄断局面，他在19世纪中叶游历3年，期间拜访了武夷山。他后来写道：“在我一生中，从未看过如此宏伟、如此壮观的景象。我的左右两侧耸立着高山，而我面前是一望无垠的平川，整个中国似乎被山脉分割开来。”

Great Red Cloak valley and the Floating Dragon gorge are just two of the scenic attractions of Wuyi Mountain but there are at least a dozen more in the 1,000-square kilometre World Heritage site (China's largest), many of them best seen from a seat on one of the languid raft trips that the Chinese describe in English, rather winningly, as “drifting”. Connoisseurs of geology may enjoy contrasting its red-rock danxia landforms with the better-known limestone karst outcrops of Guilin in Guangxi Province, home of the fishermen who prefer cormorants to rods or nets. Either landscape, though, will confirm the scroll painters' accuracy.
大红袍峡谷和龙川大峡谷只是武夷山的两大风景区，而在这片占地1000平方公里的世界遗址（中国最大风景区）内，至少还有数十个景区，如果坐在一条缓缓行驶的竹筏上，你可以从最好的角度欣赏这些风景——中国人使用“漂流”这个相当迷人的词来形容这种体验。地质专家可能喜欢将这里的红岩丹霞地貌与名气更大的广西省桂林石灰岩地形进行对比。而这两种景致都会淋漓尽致地展现在山水画家的笔下。广西是渔民之乡，渔民们喜欢用鸬鹚而非鱼杆或鱼网来捕鱼。

Perhaps the easiest of all tea locations to visit is the city of Hangzhou in China's largest tea-producing province, Zhejiang.
或许在所有茶乡中，中国浙江省的杭州市是交通最为便利的。

This is the source of the irresistible Long Jing (Dragon Well) green tea, the best of which smells and tastes like an essence of chlorophyll and creamed hazelnuts. Hangzhou is within easy reach of Shanghai. Indeed, in many ways, it would make a more attractive base for a Chinese initiation than Shanghai, thanks to its long history (it is one of China's seven ancient capitals) and its watery attractions.
杭州是魅力无法抗拒的龙井绿茶的故乡。极品龙井茶闻香和品味像是叶绿素香精与奶油榛子的混合。杭州与上海颇近。实际上，由于杭州拥有悠久的历史（中国七大古都之一）和水资源名胜，因此对于初到中国的游客来说，杭州比上海的吸引力更大。

China's Grand Canal flows through Hangzhou, snaking north all the way to Beijing, and two hours down the largely empty Hang-Quian Expressway is the 580 sq km Quindao (Thousand Island) Lake, surely the world's prettiest reservoir and a Chinese centre for eco-tourism. Above all, though, it is Hangzhou's own 6 sq km West Lake that lures visitors with its pavilions, temples, bamboo forest paths, tea plantations and ten signposted “scenes”, such as Lingering Snow on the Broken Bridge, Orioles Singing In The Willows or Evening Bell Ringing at Nanpinghill.#p#分页标题#e#
中国的大运河流经杭州，向北一直蜿蜒至北京，沿着空旷的杭千高速公路行驶两个小时，就可以抵达占地580平方公里的千岛湖。千岛湖的确可谓是世界上最美丽的水库，也是中国生态旅游中心。不过，杭州市内面积6平方公里的西湖，以其亭台寺院、竹林幽径、茶园以及断桥残雪、柳浪闻莺和南屏晚钟等西湖十大美景，吸引着慕名前来的游客们。

The quality of the tea served at the Dragon Well itself (called “Tea Enquiry at Dragon Well” on tourist maps) is outstanding and local tea mania is such that even the water used to make it is prized, fetched from a source two miles away called “To Dream of the Tiger-Pawing Spring”. Tea, as you see, draws out the poetry in the pragmatic Chinese. An evening in a Hangzhou tea house such as Charenchun or one of the three He Cha Guan (“Peace Houses”) proves, to any European who had previously considered moderate alcohol intake essential to a good night out, not merely educative but positively enlightening. The kettle stands nearby, bubbling gently; the glasses are constantly refilled; the table is kept supplied with watermelon and lychees, with pumpkin seeds, with dried fish strips, with lotus-paste cake, with sesame wafers.
龙井供应的茶叶（旅游地图上称“龙井问茶”）雷竞技百科 上乘，当地茶迷对泡茶所用的水颇为讲究，要从两里以外的“虎跑梦泉”汲水。正如大家所见，茶能带出务实中国人性格中诗意的那一面。对于那些曾经认为适度饮酒能让人在外度过一个美好夜晚的欧洲人来说，在杭州的茶坊消磨一个晚上，例如“茶人居”或“和茶馆”三家店中的一家，不仅能学到许多茶的知识，还可以让人得到积极的启发。身边茶壶中的水缓缓地烧开；有人不时为你斟上水；桌上不停供应着西瓜和荔枝等水果，以及南瓜子、干鱼条、莲蓉蛋糕和芝麻饼干等小点。

Sipping great green tea is like sipping springtime itself – it brings an entirely sober elation, and the sense of cultured elegance is heightened further by the traditional furniture, decorations and costumes of those serving and (if you're lucky) by the music, too. If you're not and it's gone schmaltzy, return to the lake, where traditional musicians play together on the warm evenings, for nothing but the fun of it, as the moon rises.
品尝上等的绿茶，如同品味春天的感觉——它带给你完全放松的心情，而茶室里古典的家具、传统的装饰和服务员的服装，以及缭绕室内的音乐，使这种文雅精致的感觉更为强烈。如果你找不到这种感觉，可以回到西湖边，在怡人的夜晚，月亮升起的时候，传统音乐家们会聚在一起演奏，享受音乐。

The greatest wall of China hides inside the human mouth: nothing is more insurmountable to travellers and residents alike than the hurdles of two vastly dissimilar languages. Dozens will call a cheery “Hello” to you as you walk past but any attempt at conversation in English swiftly dissolves into laughing incomprehension and even those who might be expected to have some English (such as hotel desk staff) are often still monoglot.
中国最大的障碍在于语言：对游客和本地人来说，再没有比两种截然不同的语言更加难以逾越的障碍了。当你在路上走过时，许多人会欢快地以“Hello”向你打招呼，但你要想以英语与他们交谈时，他们很快会笑笑表示语言不通，即便是那些应该掌握一点英语的人（例如酒店柜台职员）通常也只会说中文。

Guide books in English are rare and the heroic calamities of Chinglish will amuse even where they fail to inform. (Among my treasures is the airline towelette called Hygiene Wet Turban Needless Wash.)
英文的导游书非常罕见，四处泛滥的中式英语表达令人发笑，让人摸不着头脑。（我记得最清楚的事之一是，飞机上的湿纸巾被翻译成“Hygiene Wet Turban Needless Wash”。）

Those Chinese who do have some English often find comprehension easier if words are written out carefully. Phrase books are very helpful on the same basis, in that the relevant Chinese characters can be shown. Not everything is difficult, though: dual language road signs are ubiquitous and China's airports and internal flight network is hugely impressive, as are its free-flowing toll roads. City travel is easiest via China's cheap taxis (whose drivers happily do not require tipping), though driving styles are cavalier.
那些懂得一点英语的中国人通常会发现，如果把英语单词仔细写出来的话，沟通会更容易一些。因此，英语习惯用语书籍非常有用，因为书上会相应地标明中文。不过，并非事事都是那么困难：双语路标比比皆是，中国的机场和国内航线令人印象深刻，其通畅的收费公路亦是如此。在中国的城市，便宜的出租车是最便利的交通工具（令人高兴的是，中国的出租车司机不会向你索取小费），他们开车也很有风度。

Eating out in restaurants is low stress, too, since many of the largest work on the principle of a vast bank of fish tanks full of live fish and shellfish (as well as sea snakes), glass boxes full of doom-laden chickens and, on occasion, cages of miserable, jaw-clamped alligators, as well as simpler dishes whose raw ingredients are already assembled and then cling-filmed, or cold dim sum piled high ready for steaming. Menus are entirely unnecessary. You point; they kill; you eat.
外出去餐馆就餐也不用担心，因为许多大餐馆的经营之道是，在店里陈列装满新鲜鱼和贝类（以及海蛇）的巨大鱼缸，以及装着鸡的玻璃箱子，偶尔还有可怜的、嘴巴被夹住的鳄鱼的笼子，以及放着原材料、然后覆上食品薄膜的简单菜品样盘，或是堆得高高的、等待上笼蒸熟的冷糕点。因此点菜完全不需要菜单。你指向哪道菜，他们就为你做什么。#p#分页标题#e#