HUE, Vietnam — This is a city of edifices and their ghosts.
越南顺化——这座城市关乎建筑，以及与这些建筑有关的魂灵。
Straddling the Perfume River in central Vietnam, Hue was the seat of the last imperial dynasty, and it has long been known for what the Nguyen emperors left behind: the imposing walled Citadel with its former palaces and pleasure gardens; the ornate royal tombs scattered across the verdant hills; and the wooden villas of their mandarins.
顺化是最后一个王朝的都城所在之地，位于越南中部的香江从这里横穿而过。长期以来，它一直因为阮氏王朝的遗迹而闻名：围墙环绕的皇城庄严肃穆，里面是旧时的宫殿和宜人的花园；装饰华丽的皇家陵墓散落在翠绿的山坡各处；还有不少阮朝官员的木质别墅。

These buildings have endured the infamous Hue weather — dank and misty and gray much of the year — and the brutality of modern armies. Some of the bloodiest urban combat the United States Marines have ever faced took place in the Citadel during the 1968 Tet offensive, a battle depicted in Stanley Kubrick’s “Full Metal Jacket.”
这些建筑经受住了顺化臭名昭著的天气——在这里，一年中的大部分时间都潮湿、雾气萦绕、灰蒙蒙的。它们也经受了现代军队的暴行，美国海军陆战队所面临的一些最血腥的城市战斗，就在1968年的春节攻势期间发生在皇城。斯坦利·库布里克(Stanley Kubrick)在《全金属外壳》(Full Metal Jacket)中呈现了这场战斗。
The monuments have also withstood decades of rule by the Communist Party, despite being symbols of the feudal traditions the party was trying to exorcise from Vietnam.
这些具有历史意义的建筑物还经受住了共产党数十年的统治，尽管它们代表着共产党试图从越南消除的封建传统。
But what weather, war and ideology had not yet undone, a newer threat may: the economic boom that has been transforming the character of this central Vietnamese city of 340,000 people in recent years. Preservationists are struggling to ensure that officials, businesspeople and residents here properly protect Hue’s heritage.
但那些并未被天气、战争和意识形态破坏的东西，可能会被一种新的威胁破坏。在这个位于越南中部，拥有34万人口的城市，近些年来经济的繁荣一直在改变城市的面貌。保育人士正艰难地确保当地官员、商人，以及居民保护顺化的文化遗产。
A freeway now runs through hills facing the baroque tomb of Khai Dinh, a Nguyen emperor, compromising the tomb’s feng shui, or geomantic qualities. A tourist resort has been built along the Perfume, a languid, tree-lined waterway, and there is talk of apartment towers being erected within sight of the Citadel’s ramparts.
如今，一条高速公路贯穿阮朝皇帝启定(Khai Dinh)巴洛克式皇陵对面的山丘，破坏了这座皇陵的风水。水流缓慢的香江沿岸绿树成荫，这里出现了一座度假村，有人在谈论要在离皇城城墙不远的地方建造公寓大楼。
All the while, the city’s climate remains as persistent a threat as time.
这个城市的气候也像时间一样，一直是一个持久的威胁。
“The humidity makes it hard to restore,” said Truong Dinh Luat, 47, a Hue native, as he guided visitors around the Citadel on a recent morning. Bullet holes from 1968 still scarred some walls, and the rubble of fallen stonework lay in small piles in a few areas. “The workers have a tough job,” he said.
“潮湿的空气使修复工作变得很困难，”47岁的当地居民张营律(Truong Dinh Luat)最近一天上午带着游客在皇城周围参观时说。他说，“工人们的工作很艰难。”一些墙壁上仍然能看到1968年留下的弹孔，一些地方还有倒塌石雕留下的成堆碎石。
William Logan, a scholar of heritage and conservation at Deakin University in Australia, sounded an alarm over the challenges to preservation last October at a conference on wooden architecture here. He said that Hue’s monuments were at risk of losing the World Heritage Site status bestowed by Unesco, the United Nations cultural agency.
澳大利亚迪肯大学(Deakin University)遗产及保护学者威廉·洛根(William Logan)去年10月在顺化参加一场有关木质建筑的会议时对保护工作面临的挑战提出了警告。他表示，顺化的历史遗迹可能会失去联合国教科文组织(Unesco)授予的世界文化遗产的称号。
“If the province fails to monitor and better manage its preservation of the monuments, the entire complex’s overall value will certainly be hugely undermined,” Professor Logan said, according to a report by Tuoi Tre News, a Vietnamese state-run newspaper.
越南官方报纸《青年报》(Tuoi Tre News)报道称，洛根表示，“如果该省没能监督或更好地开展历史遗迹保护，整个遗迹的总价值肯定会遭到极大程度的损害。”
Professor Logan expanded on his remarks in a telephone interview. “If the problems aren’t addressed, the World Heritage Committee can consider putting the property on the World Heritage Endangered List,” he said. “No country likes that. It’s a loss of face. It can impact negatively on tourism.”
洛根教授在一次电话采访中进一步阐述了他的观点，“如果问题得不到处理，世界遗产委员会将考虑把当地的古迹列进濒危世界遗产名录”，他说，“那是任何一个国家都不想看到的。因为这是丢面子的事情，会对旅游业产生负面影响。”
“Heritage is fairly low down on the list for governments — they all want development,” he added. “It’s hard to convince governments they can have heritage and development at the same time.”
“文化遗产的问题对政府而言不是特别重要——他们都希望经济得到发展，”他还说，“很难让政府相信文物保护与经济发展两者之间并不相互冲突。”
Tourism in Hue got a boost in 1993 when the city’s major sites were given World Heritage status. No other city in Vietnam is as boastful of this honor as Hue is. Signs outside the Citadel and the Nguyen royal tombs declare that last December, officials recognized the 30 millionth person to visit the city since the designation.
1993年，这个城市的主要景点被授予了世界遗产称号，当地的旅游业得到了飞速的发展。与越南其他城市相比，没有哪一个城市比顺化更加强调这一荣誉的。皇城和阮朝皇家陵墓外的告示牌上写着，官方在去年12月宣布，这座城市迎来了自获得世界遗产称号以来的第30亿位游客。
The Nguyen Dynasty made Hue its capital from 1802 to 1945. The Citadel was begun by one emperor, Gia Long, and completed 29 years later by his successor, Minh Mang, who was known in part for having had 142 children with scores of women. (Numbers vary, but some accounts say he had a total of 500 wives and concubines, kept in the Purple Forbidden City deep inside the Citadel.)
阮朝从1802年至1945年间将顺化设立为都城。皇城的建造始于嘉隆皇帝，在其继任者明命皇帝在位时完工，历时29年。明命帝的一个出名事迹是和数十个女人（具体数字各方说法不一，也有说他在皇城深处的紫禁城内养着500名妻妾）生了142个子女。
In lanes near the Citadel are nha ruong — wooden garden homes that once housed mandarins and other personalities of note — and more modern villas built late in the imperial period. Though not recognized as World Heritage Sites, those houses have their proud residents.
皇城附近的街巷里有nha ruong——一种木结构花园住宅，曾经是官吏和其他显耀人士的宅邸——以及建造于帝国时代晚期的现代别墅。这些建筑虽然没有被确认为世界遗产，但是住在里面的居民以此为傲。
“I still believe in the heritage of Hue,” said Hoang Xuan Bat, 83, as he sat in the dark living room of a European-style manor dating to 1910. “I respect its history, and want to tell foreigners about it when they visit, but I can’t speak English.”
“我对顺化的文化遗产仍然有信心”，83岁的晃轩巴特(Hoang Xuan Bat)坐在一座建造于1910年的欧式庄园建筑的黑暗客厅里说。“我尊重它的历史，并且把它介绍给来此参观的外国人，但我不会说英语。”
When it rains in Hue, which is often, some of the challenges to conservation become obvious. One wet morning in a throne room of the Citadel, pools of water collected on the floor in front of the gold-painted throne. More pools could be seen along a wood-planked hallway.
雨水经常光顾顺化，一些文物保护的难题开始凸显。在一个下雨的早晨，皇城的一座大殿里，刷着金漆的宝座前的地面上有几处积水。铺着木板的走廊上还有更多积水。
“Every time it rains, water comes down from the roof,” said Mr. Truong, the tour guide, whose father was a soldier for South Vietnam and was on home leave in Hue when the Tet offensive began. Mr. Truong said his father threw his uniform into the Perfume River to avoid repercussions as the North Vietnamese and Vietcong forces advanced, and then attached himself to the United States Marines as an interpreter when they arrived to retake the city.
“每次下雨时，都会有雨水从屋顶漏下来，”导游张庭选说。他的父亲曾是一名南越士兵，春节攻势开始时正回到顺化的家中休假，眼看北越和越共部队节节推进，父亲为避免麻烦把军服扔进香江，当美国海军陆战队到达并夺回这座城市时，他做了一名随军翻译。
Much of the Citadel was destroyed in the fighting, he said, but the former imperial library was not, so it was possible to restore it. Its interior has been given new wooden beams and doors, and construction workers were there during a recent visit, wearing masks and walking on a layer of sawdust.
他说皇城有相当一部分毁于战火，但是前帝国图书馆却得以幸免，因此这是有可能被恢复的。在他最近的一次游览中看到，建筑内部已经重新安装了新的木梁和门，一群戴着口罩建筑工人走在一层木头碎屑上。
Professor Logan said he was concerned that property developers might gain permission to build high-rise towers around the Citadel and other sensitive sites. He said nothing should be built there that extends above the treetop canopy.
洛根教授说，他担心的是房地产开发商有可能取得环绕皇宫和其他敏感位置建造高楼的许可。他说在那里的建筑不应该高于树冠。
At the request of the World Heritage Committee, the Hue Monuments Conservation Center, a government organization, is drafting a plan to improve conservation of the sites. Phan Thanh Hai, director of the conservation center, said that “Hue history may be the most impressive” in all of Vietnam because Hue was once the home of “many skillful craftsmen, famous poets and intellectuals.”
在世界遗产委员会的要求之下，一家名为顺化古迹保护中心(Hue Monuments Conservation Center)的政府机构正在起草一项计划，旨在更好地保护古迹。中心主任潘清海(Phan Thanh Hai)说，由于曾经生活着“许许多多的能工巧匠，著名诗人和知识分子”，顺化也许是越南“最有历史底蕴的城市”。
But he acknowledged that Hue’s monuments had suffered from “inappropriate management” around the historic sites, as well as “impacts from natural disaster, and from harmful insects, microorganisms as well as fungi on wooden components.”
但他也承认，顺化历史遗迹周边的古迹遭受了“不恰当的管理”，此外还有“来自自然灾害、有害昆虫、微生物以及木构件上的真菌的不利影响”。
Professor Logan has suggested that Vietnam try to nominate Hue for Unesco designation as a Cultural Landscape that would make a whole stretch of the city a protected site. Ideally, he said, the area would include a green wedge of land running southwest from the Citadel as well as the Perfume and the mausoleums in the south.
洛根教授曾建议越南向联合国教科文组织提名顺化为文化景观(Cultural Landscape)，这将使受保护的范围延伸至整个城市。在理想的情况下，他说，受保护的地区将会包括一块西南走向的绿色楔形区域，从皇城开始，沿着香江达到位于南部的陵墓群。
“It’s the river that binds all the serial sites together,” he said. “Bodies were taken up and down the river to be buried.”
“河流将这一系列古迹联系在了一起，”他说，“皇帝的遗体葬在河的沿岸各处。”
Traditionally, an emperor who died would lie in state at the Citadel, and then would be carried by boat to a tomb that he would have had built during his lifetime. Some emperors even spent leisure time at the tombs they built, drinking wine and composing poetry. That was the case with Tu Duc, the fourth Nguyen emperor, whose tomb has a small lake with a wooden pavilion.
传统上，逝世的皇帝将会先安置在皇城中供人瞻仰，然后用船运送至花费其一生时间所建造的陵墓。有的皇帝甚至会在为自己建造的陵园里度过其闲暇时间，在那里饮酒作诗。阮朝第四位皇帝嗣德就是这样，他的陵园里有一个小湖和一座木亭。
Officials allowed a two-lane highway to be built toward Tu Duc’s tomb years ago, but construction was halted before it reached the mausoleum. The tomb remains intact, with a symbol made of glazed blue tiles on one wall that means “long life.”
几年前官方批准了一条通往嗣德陵的双车道高速公路，但是路还没修到陵墓就停工了。陵园保存完好，其中一面墙上有用蓝色瓷砖拼成的符号，寓意“长寿”。