In 2008, the murder of Canadian model Diana O'Brien in her Shanghai stairwell rocked the city's Chinese and expat community. Years later, author Mara Hvistendahl revisited the story, interviewing the family of the victim and accused killer, police investigators and other models working in China.
2008年，加拿大模特戴安娜•奥布赖恩(Diana O'Brien)在上海居民楼内遇害，在上海中外社区引发了震动。几年后，作家马语琴(Mara Hvistendahl)回顾了这一事件，对受害者家庭、被控杀人者、警方调查人员和其他在中国工作的外籍模特进行了采访。
Her new book, 'And The City Swallowed Them,' looks at the world that brought two different kinds of newcomers together--foreigners, including young models fighting for emerging opportunities in high fashion, and China's own migrants, including those traveling from poor villages who were willing to go to desperate measures to scrap together their own living.
她的新书《And The City Swallowed Them》（意为：他们被城市吞没）探究了一个将两类不同的外来者联系起来的世界。其中一类是外国人，包括为获得高端时尚业的机遇而努力的年轻模特，另一类是外地人，包括那些来自贫困农村、不得不在绝望时用极端手段谋生的人。
Ms. Hvistendahl has lived in Shanghai for eight years. Her first book, 'Unnatural Selection,' was a 2012 Pulitzer Prize finalist. China Real Time sat down with the author to talk about her latest story. Edited excerpts:
马语琴在上海生活了八年。她的第一本书《非自然选择》(Unnatural Selection)是2012年普利策奖(Pulitzer Prize)入围作品。中国实时报栏目与马语琴探讨了她的新书。以下是经过编辑的访谈摘录：
You were living in Shanghai at the time of the murder, also a young single woman. What was your reaction at the time?
那起谋杀案发生时你在上海，也是一名年轻单身女士。当时你的反应是什么？
When the crime happened, I lived in a pretty low-end apartment, a six-floor walkup, a gong fang, cement building with no security. It never occurred to me living there and sometimes coming home late at night that Shanghai could be unsafe. I would walk home from the subway carrying keys in my hand. Like a lot of foreigners, I thought it was pretty shocking somebody had been killed in the center of the city, and that there didn't seem to be an immediate reason for it. The victim wasn't involved in crime or anything nefarious.
在罪案发生时，我住在一座非常低端的居民楼中，那是一座六层的楼房，没有电梯，是所谓的公房，没有任何安保。我住在那里，有时会很晚回家，从没想到上海可能是不安全的。我会从地铁站步行回家，手中拿着钥匙。与许多外国人一样，我也认为有人在市中心被害、却似乎无法立即找出原因的情况是非常令人震惊的。受害者并未参与犯罪活动，也没有任何极端恶劣的行为。
Both international and local media jumped to cover the story. What kind of insight did you draw from their coverage?
中国本地媒体和海外媒体均对此事进行了报道。你从他们的报道中获得了什么灵感？
After the murder happened, the Chinese press didn't report on it for a few days. Probably because there wasn't good reporting coming out of China, all kinds of rumors circulated among foreign press. It was reported that Diana was killed on Chongming Island, rather than her building, and that she was a bar dancer, a go-go dancer.
谋杀案发生后的最初几天，中国媒体并未报道此事。或许是因为中国没有好的报道，因此外媒有了各种各样的传言。有外媒报道说，戴安娜是在崇明岛而不是在她居住的楼内遇害，还说她是酒吧的舞女。
In the end, the PSB [Shanghai's Public Security Bureau] issued a notice on its website that allowed Chinese reporters to take up the story. By the time the trial happened, the coverage was pretty detailed. But for a few days, there was a lot of speculation. You saw the local reporters really following the PSB's lead or really waiting for their signal. I don't know if there was a specific censorship directive or not. My guess is there more likely was self-censorship.
最后，上海公安局在其网站上发布了一则公告，允许中国记者采访报道此事。到案件开庭时，媒体报道已经相当详尽。但是在案件刚刚发生的那几天，流言满天飞。当时，本地记者真的很相信公安局，等待公安局的消息。我不知道是不是上头有专门的审查命令。我猜，可能更多地是媒体的自我审查。
In China, the police often write their own news. A story that comes out with a lot of detail on a case or investigation often originates from the police. In this case, a lot of the detail that I had of the investigation came from a lengthy feature article published by a publication that was affiliated with the police.
在中国，警方通常会自己发布消息。关于某起案件或调查、有着大量细节的报道通常都来自警方的消息。在这起案件中，我了解到的关于调查的许多细节都来自一篇长篇特写，发表特写的媒体与警方有联系。
What's changed about the modeling industry in Shanghai since this case?
这起谋杀案发生后，上海的模特业有了哪些变化？
If anything, the conditions for models here have gotten worse. There are more and more small, fly-by-night modeling agencies. It's harder to keep track of how many there are and their names. As models flood the market, wages have gone down as well. One model I talked to who worked on and off in China, used the phrase 'bottom of the barrel.'
如果说有什么改变的话，那就是模特们的生存状况变得更糟糕了。不可靠的小型模特机构如雨后春笋般冒了出来，想要追踪有多少家、各叫什么名字也越发困难。随着大量模特涌入市场，其薪资也跟着下降。我与一位在中国时断时续工作的模特交谈时，她说自己的状况已经跌至谷底。
When Diana was here, Shanghai was a pretty lucrative place to work. It was grueling--the hours were long and conditions on the job weren't great--but you could still make good money. Now, there are agencies here that can get models good jobs, but it's not Paris or Milan.
戴安娜在的时候，上海还是一个非常有利可图的市场。模特一行确实很累人，需要一连工作数个小时，条件也不怎么好，但收入颇丰。而现在，上海确实也有一些机构能给模特找到不错的工作，但比不上巴黎、米兰。
Diana and her killer came from different backgrounds, traveling to Shanghai from two completely different corners of the world. The victim was from idyllic Salt Spring, one of Canada's Gulf Islands, and the killer was an 18-year old migrant worker from a remote village in Anhui province. But your book suggests parallels between the two characters. What are they?
戴安娜和杀死她的凶手有着完全不同的背景，从两个天差地别的世界角落来到上海。戴安娜来自加拿大海湾群岛(Gulf Islands)中具有田园风情的小岛盐泉岛(Salt Spring)，凶手则是一个来自安徽省偏僻山村、年仅18岁的农民工。但你的书中写了这样的两个人物之间也有平行线，是什么？
In 2008, Shanghai was in transition, in the lead up to the Olympics and the Expo. The city was being remade overnight. You had two populations flooding in--the expats and immigrants.
2008年，上海还处在过渡时期，为了迎接北京奥运会(Olympics)和世博会(Expo)，几乎在一夜之间，上海的面貌就发生了天翻地覆的变化。有两种人大批涌入：外国移居者和中国农民工。
People often think of expats as foreigners on packages for two to three years, who have drivers and lots of expendable income. In this case, I was interested in foreigners with temporary visas who work short-term jobs, often for very low wages, the people who end up as waiters, models, DJs or promoters. The migrant workers who come here face some of the same employment issues. They often don't have real papers, or a hukou [household registration], that would qualify them for social services. They also work without contracts.
人们通常将外国移居者视作暂且在中国居住两到三年的“老外”，拥有专职司机和大把大把的钞票。在我所指的是那些打短期零工、持临时签证的外国人，他们拿的薪水通常极低，干的是侍应生、模特、DJ或促销员这样的工作。而来到上海的中国农民工也面临着一些相同的问题。好多人都没有户口，无法享受社会福利。他们的工作也没签合同。
The migrants have it much worse off than the foreigners, but I could see parallels between their two experiences. The city is pretty oblivious to both groups, yet relies on a constant flow of Chinese migrants and foreigners coming in to revitalize. Models were especially important to the image that Shanghai was trying to represent--an international city and of place where foreign faces graced whatever products were on billboards.
而从中国其他地方来到上海生活的外地人境遇远不如这些外国人。但我还是可以看到他们之间的相似之处。上海对这两个群体都很冷漠，尽管这个城市需要外地人和外国人源源不断地流入才能保持活力。模特对于上海的城市形象特别重要，上海希望以国际城市的形象示人，希望这个城市的商品广告牌上处处有外国人的面孔。
What was most surprising in writing the book?
在写这本书的过程中最让你感到意外的是什么？
I went into it with assumptions about how China's criminal justice system worked, thinking like many people who were in Shanghai at the time, that the police had just found and arrested someone who was not the murderer.
在我写这本书的时候，我曾经对中国刑事司法系统如何运行有过种种猜想，当时我和很多在上海生活的人一样，认为警察可能抓错了人。
By the end, the situation became a lot more complex. I didn't expect the degree to which the police involved Diana's parents in the investigation. The parents were consulted on the sentence for their daughter's killer. They didn't want the death sentence and that opinion had an impact on the outcome.
但最终的情况要复杂得多。我没有料到警察会让戴安娜的父母参与到调查中来。在对杀害女儿的凶手的量刑问题上，警方曾征询过戴安娜父母的意见。他们并不希望判处凶手死刑，这个意见影响了最终结果。
Did that give you hope for China's justice system?
这件事是否让你看到了中国司法系统的希望？
I'm not sure. I also learned a lot of discouraging things about the Chinese justice system--the confession rate is really high, suspects can be detained up to 37 days without being formally arrested. Allegations they are tortured and wrongful convictions are common. In one recent case, a man who had been convicted of murder was released after the victim turned up alive.
这我不太确定。我也了解到有关中国司法系统的不少负面的东西，例如认罪率相当的高、嫌疑人可以在没有正式被逮捕的情况下被扣押最多37天。也经常听到有关嫌疑人遭到刑讯逼供以及误判的事情。近期就有一宗案例，一个人被判犯有杀人罪，但之后被杀的人却活着回来了，在这种情况下此人才被释放。
There is hope that the system is changing. Voices that are calling for reform and the number of executions has declined. Still, the system is not not changing as fast as some people would like.
中国司法制度有改变的希望。司法改革的呼声很大，死刑执行的数量也有所下降。但司法改革的推进速度仍没有达到一些人的期望值。
The book is the first story published by a digital platform that you helped start called Deca. Why choose an e-book format?
这本书是你帮助发起的称作“Deca”的数字平台出版的第一本书。为什么选择以电子书的形式出版？
No one's really figured out a good word for these sort of pieces. They're short books, long-form pieces, or singles. They are somewhere in between a magazine article and full-length book, that seem to work well on an e-reader, Kindle or iPad.
还没有人真正为这类作品想出一个好名字。可以叫短书，也可以叫长文章，或者叫单行本，介于杂志文章与足本书籍之间，似乎用Kindle或iPad等电子阅读设备看最合适。
Initially, one of the big surprises of digital publishing was that people were reading long stories. There was a fear that people would just stop reading. Instead, pieces that were driven by narrative took off.
最初，电子出版领域一个出人意料的现象是，人们都在读长篇文章。有人担心过段时间大家就不会再读了。而实际上，叙述体的作品获得了飞跃式发展。
The writers that started Deca are all experienced magazine writers. We've seen the feature world shrinking. The number of pages devoted to full length features has declined over the past few years, as have the number of outlets that we can publish in. Meanwhile, digital publishing has emerged. The margins are actually better for writers as well. I'm pretty hopeful about it.
发起Deca的作者都是富有经验的杂志写手。我们发现，特写创作正出现萎缩。过去几年，标准长度的特写所占页面数量出现下降，刊发这类特写的出版物的数量也在减少。而与此同时，数字出版业务则应运而生。实际上，数字出版给作者带来的利润率也更高。我对此还是抱着很大希望的。