funny stuff: 166 and all that

有趣的材料：公元166年以及诸如此类

the earliest recorded official contact between china and rome did not occur until 166ad, when, according to a chinese account, a roman envoy arrived in china, possibly sent by emperor marcus aurelius. remarkably, that was the only contact between the two great powers of which a record survives. the romans referred to the people of the remote east as the seres—the silk people. but that term could have referred to the central asian tribes whose trade with the chinese no doubt included silk—which the romans long thought grew on trees. the secret of silk production reached the west only in the sixth century, from the byzantines.

中国与罗马之间有记载的最早官方接触发生于公元166年。根据中国史书记载，当时有一个罗马使团抵达中国，或许是奉马可•奥里利乌斯（marcus aurelius）之命来访的。令人瞩目的是，这是这两个大国间载入史册的唯一接触。罗马人称遥远的东方人民为赛里斯（seres），意为丝绸之民。但这一字眼也可能指的是中亚大陆的部落，他们与中国之间的贸易物无疑包括丝绸，而罗马人长期以来认为丝绸是在树上长出来的。西方人直到公元6 世纪才从拜占廷人（byzantines）那里得知了丝绸生产的秘密。

an ambitious and relatively liberal-minded official, jia xiaotian, who took over as local party chief in 1993, was one of the first to see the potential of establishing a roman connection—tourism. few tourists reached yongchang. if they came at all, they usually stopped there only briefly on trips tracing the historic silk road, the trading route along which, by the first century ad, chinese silk made its way to rome. yongchang was several hours' drive from the nearest tourist attraction and a world away from the booming coast.

一位有雄心而又头脑相对开明的官员贾笑天于1993年调任永昌县党委书记，他是第一批看到建立当地与罗马的联系具有发展旅游业潜力的人之一。没有几个旅游者来过永昌。那些来的人通常是在探访历史上的丝绸之路，只是在旅途中在永昌稍作逗留。公元1世纪，中国的丝绸就是通过这条路运往罗马的。永昌县距离最近的旅游点也有几小时的车程，与沸腾的旅游业完全是两个世界。

mr jia committed what some officials must have considered a heresy: at the top of the main street of the county town he erected statues of three towering figures. they stand there still: in the middle is a chinese of the ethnic-han majority. to his right is a woman of the muslim hui minority, the second-biggest group in the area. and to his left is a roman. a plaque notes the romans' contribution to “social progress and economic prosperity” in yongchang. 

贾笑天全力采取了一些措施，有些其他官员一定曾视之为异端。他在县城主要街道的制高点上修建了三座高高耸立的人物塑像，它们至今依旧存在：中间的是中国主要民族汉族人。他的右首是一个信奉伊斯兰教的回族妇女，该族是当地第二大民族。而在他的左首则是一个罗马人。还有一块饰板，上面书写着罗马人对永昌的“社会进步与经济繁荣”的贡献。