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我在好几篇小说中都提到过一座废弃的古园，实际就是地坛。许多年前旅游业还没有开展，园子荒芜冷落得如同一片野地，很少被人记起。 In a number of my stories, I’ve referred to an antiquated park: in fact, this is the Temple of Earth Park. Some years ago, before tourism had developed much, it was as desolate and neglected as a wasteland. People seldom gave it a thought. 地坛离我家很近。或者说我家离地坛很近。总之，只好认为这是缘分。 The Temple of Earth wasn’t far from my home, or perhaps it’s better to say my home wasn’t far from it. All in all, I felt I was related to it by fate. 地坛在我出生前四百多年就坐落在那儿了，而自从我的祖母年轻时带着我父亲来到北京，就一直住在离它不远的地方——五十多年间搬过几次家，可搬来搬去总是在它周围，而且是越搬离它越近了。我常觉得这中间有着宿命的味道：仿佛这古园就是为了等我，而历尽沧桑在那儿等待了四百多年。 It had reposed there for four hundred years before my birth, and ever since, when my grandmother was a young woman, she had taken my father to live in Beijing, my family had lived near it: in more than fifty years, my family had moved several times, but always to a place in its vicinity. Each time, we moved closer to it. I often felt this was something foreordained—as if this old park were waiting especially for me: it seemed it had been waiting for four hundred years—through all the tumultuous changes of those centuries. | 
