把一座小城，讲清楚。One small town at a time, told properly.

小城中国是一个个人网站，不是官方网站。

Small Town China is a personal website. It is not an official site.

北京、上海之外，中国还有数不清的县城和小镇。它们各有各的吃食、戏曲、诗句和来历，却很少有人用中英两种语言把它们认真写下来。小城中国想一座一座地做这件事。

Beyond Beijing and Shanghai, China has countless county towns and small cities. Each has its own food, theatre, poetry and history, yet very little of it is written up carefully in both Chinese and English. Small Town China sets out to do that, one town at a time.

第一站是浙江嵊州，原因很简单：我的父亲住在那里。嵊州不大，却有不少故事：越剧在这里诞生，嵊州小吃开遍了全国，李白、杜甫都为流过这里的剡溪写过诗。

Our first stop is Shengzhou, in Zhejiang, for a simple reason: my father lives there. Shengzhou isn’t big, but it has plenty of stories. Yue opera was born here, Shengzhou snack shops have spread all over China, and Li Bai and Du Fu both wrote about the Shan stream that runs through it.

父亲的笔名叫“郑家老二”。他写诗、写随笔，也用手机拍下身边的嵊州。他的文字收在随笔里，原文照登（只改明显的错别字），附英文翻译和词语注释，适合学中文的朋友。

My father writes under the pen name Zheng Lao’er. He writes poems and short essays and photographs Shengzhou on his phone. His writing appears in his Notes, kept as he wrote it (apart from obvious typos), with English translations and word notes for anyone learning Chinese.

指南尽量写得准确：每篇都列出参考资料，优先用政府、权威媒体和研究机构的资料；数字注明年份；每篇都标着首发和更新日期，情况变了就更新。

We try hard to keep the guides accurate. Every guide lists its sources, and we prefer government, major media and research sources; figures come with the year they refer to; and each guide shows when it was first published and last updated, so we can keep it current.

照片有的是郑家老二拍的，有的来自维基共享资源上摄影者以开放许可分享的作品，每张都注明了作者和许可。

Some photos were taken by Zheng Lao’er; others were shared by photographers on Wikimedia Commons under open licenses. Every one is credited.

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发现错误、有建议，或者想推荐一座值得写的小城，请写信到 hello@smalltownchina.com。我们会认真读每一封信，改正的地方会在文章里注明更新日期。

Spotted a mistake, have a suggestion, or know a small town we should write about? Email hello@smalltownchina.com. We read every message, and corrections are noted with an updated date on the guide.

以后，我们希望去更多的小城。

In time, we hope to visit many more small towns.