译者 jiangyh
It was fitting that I sat down to tally the myths of the year on a day when Beijing was having a bruising debate about truth—a matter as clear as the air outside.
就在北京还弥漫着激烈辩论的火药味之际，我开始审视一番这场年度奇迹，也实属应景之举。在这里，人们所探寻的真相，正如外边的空气一般清晰如许。
For nearly a week, a choking brown blanket has strangled Beijing, inspiring a chorus of new whither-China metaphors, shuttering highways, and causing three hundred flights to be canceled or delayed.
近一周以来，北京城一度覆盖在一片令人窒息的褐色之下。这层阴云激起了新一轮“中国将何去何从”的齐声诘问，还导致众多高速公路临时封闭，三百余航班延误甚至取消。
Air-quality monitors at the U.S. Embassy spat out hourly Twitter readings of “hazardous”—levels that have never been measured in the U.S., even during forest fires. And on Sunday night, the needle hit its limit—500—a point beyond which it could render only the muted plea, “beyond index.” (As Beijingers recall, a programmer on the night shift initially set it to report ultra-high readings as “crazy bad” before diplomats intervened.)
美国驻华大使馆的空气质量监测数据在推特（Twitter）上每小时定期发布，结果指出空气质量已达到“高危”级别，这一数据已经刷新了历史新高度，即使是森林火灾也要甘拜下风。上周日夜晚，监测器指针爆表，数据超出了最高污染指数500，这一结果也只能用“指数超标”四个字来表达无声的抗诉。（北京人民曾记否，美使馆的夜班工作人员曾经对这一超高的超标结果悍然抛出“令人发疯的糟糕”这样的说辞，直到后来外交官对此加以纠正。）
Through it all, the Beijing environmental bureau described the air as “light pollution.” Or, poetically, “fog.”
不过一切的一切，在北京市环保局看来，这种空气质量状况应该定位成“轻度污染”，或者更加诗意地描述成是“大雾”。
It is an old issue that returns each winter as the cities’ furnaces roar back into use to deliver central heating, and temperature inversions settle over the North. But more than ever this year, Chinese citizens have taken note of the absurdity. Online, people are debating the best model numbers of 3M masks to buy, and pooling orders for air purifiers. (“Sometimes, I suspect that what we’re breathing isn’t air, but politics,” one person wrote.)
这是一个每年都会重逢的老问题。一到冬天，城里的锅炉就再度轰鸣着投入使用，为北方的持续低温天气提供集中供暖。但是，今年的中国人比以往任何时候都要关注这一荒谬的困境。人们在网上辩论最好该买哪种型号的3M防尘口罩，还在网上纷纷下单购买空气净化器。（有人就如是说：“有时候，我怀疑我们呼吸着的不是空气，而是政治。”）
Year by year, it is getting harder to drum up the fog, even though an article in the Global Times quoted the city’s air-pollution chief, Yu Jianhua, in a tour de force of myth-making: “If you compare the air quality on an annual basis, it is actually improving.”
年复一年，想要用“迷雾”来迷住公众恐怕已非易事。就像近日《环球时报》发表的一篇文章，北京市环保局的一位主管于建华再度创造奇迹，他说：“如果你逐年比较空气质量的话，其实还是在改善的。”
With that, here are the top ten myths about China and Japan from 2011.
嗯，也许你会想接着读读这篇文章，中日2011年度的十大奇迹。
from 译言-每日精品译文推荐 http://article.yeeyan.org/view/16342/238199
