薔薇園裏的華爾茲

The Cultural Revolution engulfed China when Hu was thirteen, and her classes were suspended. As a prominent editor, Hu's mother was criticized at her newspaper and placed under house arrest. Her father was shunted into a backroom job. Like others her age, Hu became a Red Guard and travelled around the country. As the movement descended into violence, she sought refuge in books, trying to maintain a semblance of an education. "It was a very confusing time, because we lost all values," she said. A month before her sixteenth birthday, she was sent to the countryside to experience the rural revolution.

"It was ridiculous," she said of what she found. Farmers had lost any incentive to work. "They just wanted to stay lying in the field, sometimes for two hours. I said, 'Should we start work?' They said, 'How can you think that?' " She went on, "Ten years later, I realized everything was wrong." Hu's sister, Cao Zuyoa, who was in a nearby village, later wrote a book, "Out of the Crucible," about how the rustication campaign forever changed members of their generation. It "buried their Communist utopian dream," she wrote.

After two years, Hu joined the Army--which led, several years later, to membership in the Communist Party--and she was assigned to a remote hospital in a rural northern area of Jiangsu Province, where she spent the next eight years. She worked in the dining room, fed pigs, helped on the wards, and ran a tiny broadcast booth that played music and announcements. When colleges resumed classes, in 1978, Hu secured a coveted seat at People's University in Beijing. The journalism department was not her first choice, but it was the best that the school offered. She was a conspicuous figure on campus: the department's only freshman girl in a military uniform. "There was not a person in our class who didn't know who she was," Miao Di, a history major from a Beijing military family who met Hu in an English class, said. He, too, had been sent to the countryside, and they shared a sense of disaffection. They married in 1982.

After college, Hu joined Workers' Daily, and, in 1985, after some early investigative projects, she was assigned to a bureau in the southeastern coastal city of Xiamen. The area had been designated as a laboratory for the growth of a free market. There she developed her skill for networking, meeting everyone in city hall--including the mayor, with whom she played bridge. Among those she interviewed was a promising young cadre who was the city's vice-mayor: Xi Jinping, the son of a Politburo member. Xi was a Party loyalist with pro-market sensibilities, whose building of a successful theme park had earned him the nickname the God of Wealth. Today, Xi is China's Vice-President and is regarded as the heir apparent to the President.

In 1987, Hu won a fellowship from the Minnesota-based World Press Institute to spend five months in America. The experience was a revelation. "I spent the whole night reading the St. Paul Pioneer Press" and marvelling at the size of it, she said. (Workers' Daily, at the time, was four pages.) She met investigative reporters at the Philadelphia Inquirer and interned at USA Today. She returned to China, and in the spring of 1989 the Tiananmen Square movement energized the Beijing press. For weeks, papers revelled in a holiday from censorship. Many journalists, including Hu, joined the demonstrations. As soldiers cracked down on the night of June 3rd, Hu recalls, "I went to the street, then went back to the office and said, 'We should cover this.' " But the decision had already come down: "The newspaper decided we weren't going to publish a word about it." Her involvement was costly. Many reporters who had spoken out were fired or banished to the provinces. Miao Di thought that Hu might get arrested, but, in the end, she was suspended for eighteen months.

She used the time to write "Behind the Scenes at American Newspapers," the first Chinese book to examine the relationship between the American press and democracy, with descriptions of Watergate and the Pentagon Papers. It was a must-read among Chinese news workers, and in it she posed a challenge: Who among them "could take the initiative and do something akin to what American news organizations have done?"

In 1998, Hu received a phone call from Wang Boming, one of the hotel-room founders of the Stock Exchange Executive Council; he was starting a magazine and he wanted her to run it. She had two conditions: Wang would never interfere in her newsroom, and he would give her a budget of two million yuan--about a quarter of a million dollars--to pay for serious reporting trips and salaries that were high enough to prevent reporters from taking bribes. Wang agreed. It was no charity: he and his reform-minded allies in the government saw the magazine as an extension of their determination to modernize the economy.

"You need the media to play its function to disclose the facts to the public, and, in a sense, help the government detect evils," Wang told me recently, in his large, cluttered office downstairs from Caijing's headquarters. He is a classic type of the generation that received an American education and returned to China--a chain-smoker with a thick brush of gray-flecked black hair, Ferragamo eyeglasses, and a bilingual sense of humor. When he talks about Hu, a weary look crosses his face that suggests he has got more than he bargained for. "We didn't know that this level of risk would come along with it," he said. But Wang also betrays a keen sense of Hu's significance to China. "When I was studying in the States, I needed to make some money to pay my tuition, so I was working for a newspaper in Chinatown--the China Daily News," he said. As a cub reporter, he relished the chance to follow a trail wherever it led. He had felt like "a king without a crown."

Caijing established its tone right away. Its inaugural issue, in April, 1998, featured an explosive cover story detailing the case of Qiong Min Yuan, a real-estate company whose share price had quadrupled before it was charged with overstating profits. Caijing revealed that, while legions of small-time investors lost millions, insiders had been tipped off in advance and unloaded their shares. Regulators were incensed; they accused Caijing of flouting press restrictions, and Wang's executives had to troop to the regulators' office to make self-criticisms.

Each story refined Hu's calculation of how far she could push. In 2001, a twenty-five-year-old Caijing reporter, thumbing through customs records, discovered that Yinguangxia Holdings, one of China's largest listed companies, had posted online a falsified claim of eighty-seven million dollars in profits. The political stakes were high, because a parade of top leaders had already visited the company to praise it. Wang Boming was so worried that Caijing would be shut down if it went with the story that he did something he said he has never done again: he called a high-ranking Communist Party official for approval before publishing. "He said, 'Is that story really true or is there any doubt?' " Wang recalled. "I said, 'The story is definitely true, but there is political implication there.' He said, 'If it's true, then go ahead.' " Hours after the story appeared, the company's stock was suspended from trading; eventually, its executives went to jail.

The defining moment in Caijing's emergence, however, came two years later, when the reporter Cao Haili, arriving in Hong Kong, noticed that every person on the train platform seemed to be wearing a surgical mask. What the hell is that about? she thought, and alerted Hu. The Chinese press had been running reports of a mysterious new virus, but health officials had promised the public that it was contained. Newspaper editors in Guangdong Province had been privately instructed to publish reassuring stories about the virus, and some were even told what typeface to use, one editor at the time recalled. But these restrictions did not extend to editors outside Guangdong. "I bought a lot of books about breathing diseases, infections, and viruses," Hu said, and her staff began to find errors in the government's statements. Meanwhile, Caijing editors tracked the Web site of the World Health Organization, which tallied a steadily growing number of SARS cases in China, even as the government continued to deny it. The tone of the coverge was serious and questioning without actually accusing the government of lying.

Over the course of a month, Caijing produced a series of weekly supplements on SARS in addition to its regular issues. In the end, the magazine brushed up against the limit. "Caijing was planning another issue that was going to look back on the lessons of SARS," David Bandurski, a researcher at the University of Hong Kong's China Media Project, said. "And the government essentially sent the message 'No--this is not going to happen. This stops now.' "

Hu has cultivated her sense for the precise moment when a sensitive subject is safe to publicize. "You can feel her making adjustments," Wang Feng, a former Caijing editor, told me. "For example, at Monday's editorial conference she might aim at something, and the editors and reporters go ahead and do it. And by Wednesday's editorial conference she will say, 'You know what? I've got more information on this and we should not say that. Maybe we should aim lower.' " In political-corruption cases--which are acutely sensitive--Caijing's investigative reporters often collect information for weeks or months while they wait for an opening. In many cases, once Xinhua makes a brief announcement of an official being arrested, Caijing is ready to publish a full story. When, on June 8th, Xinhua issued a one-sentence report saying that the mayor of Shenzhen had been detained in a corruption probe, Caijing posted an in-depth piece twentynine minutes later.

After SARS, Caijing never entirely retreated to the confines of business journalism, though today it benefits from the perception that it is simply policing the economy. As Caijing's scoops mounted, banking regulators began calling reporters, looking for tips, instead of the other way around. Even more satisfying, Western media had no choice but to follow and credit Caijing's leads. At a certain point, the magazine's success and bravado had become self-reinforcing: it had gone so far already that conservative branches of the government could no longer be sure which other officials supported it.

And then Caijing had its first lesson in what happens when it goes too far. In January, 2007, its cover story "Whose Luneng?" described how a group of investors had paid a pittance for control of a giant conglomerate, with assets ranging from power plants to a sports club. The conglomerate, Luneng, was valued at more than ten billion dollars, but a pair of little-known private companies had paid just under five hundred and fifty million dollars for ninety-two per cent of the company, Caijing reported. State regulators had received no notification of the sale--which was ordinarily a legal requirement--and a tangle of overlapping boards and shareholders seemed designed to obscure the identity of the new owners and where their money originated. Nearly half of the purchasing capital came from an untraceable source, Caijing discovered.

After Caijing attempted to publish a brief follow-up, authorities ordered the story removed from the Web site and the newsstands. The staff in Caijing's Shanghai office are said to have torn up issues by hand. "Everybody felt humiliated," a former editor said.

Since then, Caijing has referred occasionally to its Luneng investigation, but Hu is not eager to discuss the case; she considers that run-in with the government the magazine's "largest disaster." A person who is involved with Caijing and is familiar with the story said that revealing the attempt to profit wildly from the privatization deal had come too close to implicating the children of senior Party leaders--a taboo that trumps even reformists' desire for a more open press.

In 2007, the Nieman Foundation, at Harvard, gave Hu an award for "conscience and integrity." The award was well deserved, but it placed her in slightly awkward company: previous winners included a publisher in Iran who was repeatedly summoned to court for her magazine's reporting and an editor in Zimbabwe who had been arrested and tortured by the military.

Hu does not live the marginalized life of a samizdat editor or sign dissidents' communiques. For all her skepticism and intensity, her writing is notably short on outrage. When she criticizes, either in her column or in her editing choices, she uses the language of loyal opposition. Following the conviction of a high-level official in a pension-fund scandal that erupted in 2006, she didn't challenge the moral peril of one-party government but argued that China's weak asset-disclosure laws let officials' relatives and colleagues profit. In a column from 2007 entitled "Yearning for Reform," she declared that "the public's top concern is the rampant corruption and an imbalanced power system." She went on, "Some argue that pushing forward with political reform will be destabilizing. Yet, in fact, maintaining the status quo without any reform creates a hotbed for social turbulence." In other words, political reform is the way to consolidate power, not lose it.

In her office one afternoon in June, shortly after the anniversary of the Sichuan earthquake, I asked Hu why she thought that other publications had been punished for covering the collapsed schools, while Caijing had not. "We never say a word in a very emotional or casual way, like 'You lied,' " she said. "We try to analyze the system and say why a good idea or a good wish cannot become reality."

If a Chinese paper dwells on the names of specific officials who allowed the construction of unsafe schools, it might be scoring a point for accountability, but the investigative coup also leaves the paper vulnerable to petty political retribution. Hu said, "We try not to give any excuses to the cadres who don't want to get criticized." Ultimately, she said, the important question is not "which person didn't use good-quality bricks fifteen years ago" but something deeper. "We need further reform," she said. "We need checks and balances. We need transparency. We say it this way. No simple words. No slogans."

That approach appeals to reformers in the government who might genuinely want to solve problems but don't want to give up power to do so. Some Chinese journalists say that Hu's greatest skill is playing interest groups against one another, whether by amplifying the central government's effort to round up corrupt mayors or by letting one wing of the government thwart a rival wing's agenda. Allow the most powerful group to endure, the theory goes, and you can do real--even profitable--journalism. The danger, however, is that, as Caijing's profile and financial stakes grow, the magazine can afford to take fewer risks. A reader recently posted a comment on the Web site saying, "Caijing has become increasingly mainstream. . . . The flavor of critical thinking is gone, replaced by things designed to appeal to the interests of readers and subscribers, but lacking soul."

Caijing has proved to be attentive to the Chinese government's views on what is unmistakably off-limits. As ethnic violence erupted in the Xinjiang capital of Urumqi last week, the magazine sent two reporters, whose spot-news coverage described the violence and damage but, in their early reporting, did not venture into examining underlying causes of the unrest. Likewise, in the fifteen months since an uprising in Tibet had exposed a well of explosive discontent facing Chinese authorities in some of the nation's ethnic regions, Caijing had largely steered clear of the story.

I had lunch not long ago with Cheng Yizhong, a former editor-in-chief of the Southern Metropolis Daily, one of China's liveliest papers. He became famous in China for publishing an investigation into the death, in 2003, of Sun Zhigang, a young graphic designer who died in police custody after a beating. Sun, reporters discovered, had been transferred to a shourong, or "custody and repatriation" station. Ostensibly designed to process vagrants and runaways, the shourong system was widely resented; it gave police the right to ask people on the street for identification and residency papers and to detain them, with little cause. Those who were unable to pay fees could earn their release by working at prison-run farms and factories. Sun, it was later discovered, had been stopped on the street by police who detained him even though he insisted that his papers were in order. The newspaper's report had triggered a wave of public outrage over the shourong system. Followup articles that ran in the Southern Metropolis Daily and other newspapers revealed that the system was profitable for local police and had spawned a nationwide network of seven hundred detention camps; in at least one area, it was reported, stations bought inmates in order to maximize revenues. In August, 2003, the scandal prompted the central government to abolish the system, an astonishing case of the Chinese press influencing national policy. But within a year Cheng had been detained, and two of his colleagues arrested on charges of illegally distributing bonuses awarded by the editorial board. The charges were widely considered as retribution for the newspaper's reporting on the Sun case and also for its previous coverage of the SARS virus. Cheng spent five months in a detention center and now works in a low-profile media job. His two colleagues were sentenced to long jail terms.

I asked Cheng why he and Hu had fared so differently. Caijing, he said, had achieved a stature that put it out of reach of lower-ranking bureaucrats. But he also drew a distinction between his campaign for radically curtailing police powers and Caijing's focus on raising government performance. "Caijing's topics haven't affected the fundamental ruling system, so it is relatively safe," he said, adding, "I am not criticizing Hu Shuli, but in some ways Caijing is just serving a more powerful or relatively better interest group."

Unsurprisingly, Hu sees it slightly differently: "We don't think about one group or another--we think about the whole system and whatever can achieve reform."

The strategy of acknowledging the authority of the system and then fighting prudently to improve it defines Caijing's brilliance and its limitations. Qian Gang, the former editor, told me, "A flood is ferocious, but it solves no problems. In Chinese, we say that you can bore a hole in a stone by the steady dripping of water."

Hu prefers a noisier metaphor. Caijing is a woodpecker, she says, forever hammering at a tree, trying not to knock it down but to make it grow straighter.

How far can a provocative editor go?

[Illustration]   Caption: Hu Shuli, the muckraking founder of the magazine Caijing, has continued to flourish long after other Chinese journalists have been/bei silenced.

http://englishpku06.blogbus.com/logs/44025960.html

我真的是被这篇文章煞到了，所以，这上下五篇仅供与我一样对此有兴趣的同志们分享：）

• Hu Shuli: "The Forbidden Zone"

Evan Osnos, Letter from China, “The Forbidden Zone”

The New Yorker, July 20, 2009, p. 55

Hu Shuli, the founding editor of the biweekly magazine Caijing, has made her name divining the boundaries of free expression in China. In the decade since she had founded Caijing, she sharply defied the image of China’s somnambulant press. Hu had endured as editor long after other tenacious Chinese journalists had been imprisoned or silenced. Describes an investigative report Caijing published on an earthquake in Sichuan that leveled several schools.

Hu, who is fifty-six years old, was once suspended from a reporting job in 1989 because of her sympathy for the Tian'anmen Square demonstrations, yet she has cultivated first-name familiarity with some of China’s most powerful Party leaders.

Since 1998, when she established Caijing, she has guided the magazine with near-perfect pitch for how much candor and provocation the regime will tolerate. Caijing has the glossy feel and design of Fortune. In recent years, it’s begun to expand its reach, through a pair of Web sites, in Chinese and English.

In 1992, as the international editor at China Business Times, Hu began covering the work of a small number of Chinese who had trained in Western finance. Many of them were the children of powerful Chinese leaders, and the group called itself the Stock Exchange Executive Council (SEEC). Mentions Gao Xiqing, Wang Boming, Wang Qishan, and Zhou Xiaochuan. Of China’s two thousand newspapers and eight thousand magazines, only Caijing and several business newspapers have independent voices and private funding. The Chinese leadership has been especially wary of press reform ever since Tian'anmen Square. The Central Publicity Department issues directives to editors and publishers that outline the latest recommendations of dos and don’ts.

On her mother’s side, Hu comes from a line of Communist Party journalists and intellectuals. In 1978, she secured a coveted seat at Renmin University of China in Beijing. After college, she joined Workers’ Daily, and, in 1987, she won a fellowship to spend five months in America. After her return, she wrote “Behind the Scenes at American Newspapers.” She founded Caijing in 1998, with Wang Boming.

The defining moment in Caijing’s emergence, however, came in 2003, when the magazine produced a series on the SARS virus in China. In 2007, the Nieman Foundation, at Harvard, gave Hu an award for “conscience and integrity.” Mentions Cheng Yizhong. The strategy of acknowledging the authority of the system and then fighting prudently to improve it defines Caijing’s brilliance and its limitations. 

On May 12, 2008, Hu Shuli, the founding editor of the biweekly magazine Caijing, was hosting a ceremony for scholarship recipients at a hotel in the mountains west of Beijing. When a text message informed her that a powerful earthquake had struck the province of Sichuan, she leaned over to the man next to her, a veteran editor named Qian Gang, who had covered previous quakes, and asked him for a rough prediction of the damage. At least it hadn't struck while everyone was asleep, he figured. He soon realized, however, that school was in session and "the casualties among students would be enormous."

Hu set off for downtown Beijing, working the phone and e-mailing from the back seat of a car, directing her staff to rent a satellite phone and get a crew to Sichuan. Petite, voluble, and pugnacious--"a female Godfather," one of her reporters thought upon first meeting her--Hu was determined to cover the story even though in China reporting on a disaster of this scale could be politically hazardous. When the country suffered its previous huge quake, in 1976, the government suppressed news of the death toll for three years.

But Hu had made her name divining the boundaries of free expression in China. In the decade since she founded Caijing--the name means "finance and economics"--she had sharply defied the image of China's somnambulant press, and become, as David Ignatius, of the Washington Post, put it to me, the country's "avenging angel." Hu had endured as editor long after other tenacious Chinese journalists had been imprisoned or silenced. She was often described in the Chinese and foreign press as "the most dangerous woman in China," and she was still in business.

Within the hour, the first Caijing journalist was on a flight to Sichuan, followed by nine more. While Xinhua, the state-run news service, was emphasizing that the earthquake "tugged at the heartstrings of the Chinese Communist Party," Caijing was ferreting out estimates of the numbers of the dead and wounded and noting that "many disaster victims have yet to receive any relief supplies."

Schools lay in heaps of concrete and rebar, and the Central Propaganda Department, a government agency with the power to remove editors and shut down publications, banned coverage of rescue efforts at the schools. Several Chinese newspapers questioned why so many schools had collapsed anyway, producing poignant stories of construction errors and the human toll. (At least fifty-three hundred schoolchildren are believed to have died.) Hu had heard that local authorities were criticizing papers that continued to report on the schools' collapse, but she believed that Caijing could find a way to write about it. She thought that a story could be published if it carried the right tone and facts. "If it's not absolutely forbidden," she said, "we do it."

On June 9th, Caijing published a twelve-page investigative report that was cool and definitive. According to the report, heedless economic growth, squandered public funds, and rampant neglect of construction standards had led to the disaster. The story detailed how local cadres cut corners, but it stopped short of assigning responsibility by name. When I asked Hu about the government's reaction, she said, "They got angry. Very, very angry." But she and Caijing were never punished.

In the world of Chinese journalists, or "news workers," as they are known in Party-speak, Hu, who is fifty-six years old, has a singular profile. She is an incurable muckraker, and in 1989 was suspended from a reporting job because of her sympathy for the Tiananmen Square demonstrations, yet she has gone on to cultivate first-name familiarity with some of China's most powerful Party leaders.

Five feet two and slim, with a pixie haircut and a wardrobe of color-coordinated outfits, she is usually heard before she is seen. In the newsroom of Caijing, a sleek and open gray brick space on the nineteenth floor of the Prime Tower, in downtown Beijing, her arrival is heralded by the urgent click-clack of heels down the hallway. She sweeps through the newsroom, spouting decrees and ideas, and then heads out the door again--"as sudden and rash as a gust of wind," said Qian, who is now a researcher at the University of Hong Kong.

More than one person I know likens the experience of chatting with Hu to being on the receiving end of machine-gun fire. Some have less appetite for her intensity. Wang Lang, an old friend of Hu's and an editor at Economic Daily, a state-run newspaper, has repeatedly declined her offers to work together, because, he said, "Keeping some distance is better for our friendship." Depending on the point of view, being with her is either thrilling or unnerving. Her boss, Wang Boming, the chairman of Caijing's parent company, the SEEC Media Group, told me, half jokingly, "I'm afraid of her!"

Since 1998, when Hu established Caijing, with two computers and a borrowed conference room, she has guided the magazine with near-perfect pitch for how much candor and provocation the regime will tolerate. That has meant deciding what to cover--rampant corporate fraud, the government cover-up of the SARS virus, case after case of political corruption--but also what not to cover (Falun Gong, the Tiananmen Square anniversary). At a time when the American print media is in decline, the Chinese press is growing, and Caijing is the first Chinese publication with the prospect of becoming a world-class news organization. "It's different from everything you see in China," Andy Xie, a former Morgan Stanley economist who writes a column for Caijing, said. "Its existence, in a way, is a miracle."

Caijing has the glossy feel and design of Fortune. It is heavy with advertising, for Cartier watches, Chinese credit cards, Mercedes S.U.V.s. The writing can be purposefully dense, and even elitist, but China's propaganda officials are more likely to clamp down on television and mass-market newspapers, which have audiences in the millions, than they are on a magazine that sells only two hundred thousand copies. But those copies go to many of China's most important offices in government, finance, and academia, giving the magazine extraordinary influence. In recent years, it has begun to expand that reach, through a pair of Web sites, in Chinese and English, that are loosely modelled on nytimes.com. Together, the sites attract some 3.2 million unique visitors every month. Hu writes a widely quoted column for the print edition and the Web. She also oversees a conference series that attracts the economic leadership of the Communist Party. Caijing's newest project, yet to be unveiled, will take direct aim at the likes of Bloomberg and Dow Jones: an English-language wire service, in partnership with the Hong Kong tycoon Richard Li Tzar-kai, that will distribute stories by Caijing reporters.

The first time that Sam Popkin, a political scientist at the University of California at San Diego, who, along with his wife, the China scholar Susan Shirk, has known Hu for many years, watched Hu report a story, it reminded him of the portrait of the Times reporter R. W. Apple in "The Boys on the Bus," when "Apple used to make something like a hundred calls a day," Popkin said. "She is always figuring out who in the system really has the power to know what's going on." Popkin added, "She is a human USB drive. You fill her drive, and she goes on to someone else." Inevitably, her competitors' memories are the clearest. Nearly two decades ago, Lin Libo, then a reporter for a leading business newspaper, struggled to match her coverage of a round of closed-door negotiations. He recalled, "She even had the menu!"

In 1992, as the international editor at China Business Times, one of the country's first national business papers, Hu began covering the work of a small number of Chinese who had trained in Western finance and, returning from overseas, were promoting the Chinese stock markets. Many of them were her age and were the children of powerful Chinese leaders. The group called itself the Stock Exchange Executive Council, and rented a cluster of rooms at Beijing's Chongwenmen Hotel. The members pulled out the beds and set up an office. At one desk was Gao Xiqing, who had earned a law degree at Duke and worked at Richard Nixon's law firm in New York before returning to China. At another was Wang Boming, the son of a former ambassador and vice-foreign minister; Wang had studied finance at Columbia and worked as an economist in the research department of the New York Stock Exchange. They enlisted the support of rising stars in the Party, such as Wang Qishan, who was the son-in-law of a vice-premier, and Zhou Xiaochuan, a reform-minded political scion.

"I decided to interview all the top financiers in China," Hu recalled. She called it her "homework," and James McGregor, then a Wall Street Journal reporter in Beijing, began noticing Hu "working all these people, pumping them for information like a graduate student talking to esteemed professors." Hu ended up with a string of scoops and, eventually, an incomparable Rolodex of names destined for China's highest offices: today, Gao Xiqing is the head of China's two-hundred-billion-dollar sovereign-wealth fund; Wang Qishan is a vice-premier and a top economic policymaker; Zhou Xiaochuan runs China's central bank.

Many people in Beijing wonder how much those early connections have protected Hu. But she insists that people overestimate her proximity to power. "I don't know their birthdays," she said, of high-ranking officials. "I'm a journalist, and they treat me as a journalist."

Hu's connections seem to serve a more subtle function. By positioning herself on the border between insider and outsider, between Communist history and the capitalist present, between protecting China's interests and embracing the world, she has become an invaluable interpreter. When, in the weeks before the 2008 Olympics, the Chinese government was wound so tightly that it had begun to look thuggish, she used an editorial to condemn clashes between the police and reporters. She preached "self-confidence, open-mindedness, friendliness." "To use an English expression," she added, referring to Chinese organizers, "they should take it easy." It is a delicate role. Once, Hu had to choose the cover photograph for a high-profile year-end edition. Editors had narrowed the choices: a staid collage of newsy images or an edgy shot of a woman shouldering into a sandstorm, her face shrouded in a scarf. Hu favored the provocative picture, but at the last moment she hesitated. "Could it get us into trouble?" she asked, according to someone who was present. "Is it too negative about China?" Others argued that it showed China's best side--its determination--and Hu smiled. "I can explain that," she said.

The Chinese press is no longer cowed into complete compliance, but it is also not yet as free as other parts of a raucous economy. Caijing and its news values are a minority. Last September, Xinhua published a story on its Web site detailing how China's Shenzhou VII rocket made its thirtieth orbit of the earth. The story had plenty of gripping detail--"The dispatcher's firm voice broke the silence on the ship." Unfortunately, the rocket had yet to be launched. (The news service later apologized for posting a "draft.") Of China's two thousand newspapers and eight thousand magazines, Caijing and several business newspapers are among the few publications with independent voices and private funding. (All Chinese media are required to have a government-affiliated sponsor, though the level of interference varies. The SEEC Media Group, which is traded on the Hong Kong stock exchange, is controlled by fifteen individual investors.)

The Chinese leadership has been especially wary of press reform ever since Tiananmen Square. "Never again would China's newspapers, radio, and television be permitted to become a battle front for bourgeois liberalism," President Jiang Zemin vowed, according to internal Party documents collected by Anne-Marie Brady, a specialist on Chinese media at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand. Chinese journalists do not face the kind of gangland killings that beset reporters in Russia, but Reporters Without Borders, in its most recent global index of press freedom, ranks China a hundred and sixty-seventh out of a hundred and seventy-three countries--just behind Iran and ahead of Vietnam. Article 35 of the Chinese constitution guarantees freedom of speech and the press, but it is no match in court against a web of laws on libel and on revealing state secrets. The Committee to Protect Journalists 2008 report counted twenty-eight reporters in Chinese jails, more than in any other country. (Earlier this month, Iran overtook China, for the first time in ten years.)

The Central Propaganda Department, as it's known in Chinese, operates in semi-secrecy, with no sign on its headquarters and no listed phone number. It issues directives to editors and publishers that outline the latest recommendations of dos and don'ts. Some boundaries are fixed; taboos include the military, religion, ethnic disputes, and the inner workings of government. But others are flexible. In the fall of 2005, editors enjoyed a free hand to report on a catastrophic chemical leak in the Songhua River. Weeks later, news sites were ordered to stop reporting the case of a surgeon who had spoken on the phone during surgery and paralyzed a patient's face. (Even revealing the contents of a directive can be dangerous for a Chinese reporter. Shi Tao, a contributor to the Contemporary Business News, is serving a ten-year sentence for describing a directive from his local propaganda authorities in an e-mail that he sent abroad.)

A publication's first offense usually draws a warning "yellow card," as in soccer. Three yellow cards in one year, journalists say, and a paper or magazine is shut down. (In 2004, three hundred and thirty-eight publications were suspended for printing "internal" information, according to a report in the state press.) But it's up to editors themselves to guess how far they can go and compute the risk of exceeding an undefined limit--an approach to censorship that the China scholar Perry Link, a Princeton emeritus professor, has likened to "a giant anaconda coiled in an overhead chandelier." "Normally, the great snake doesn't move," he wrote in the New York Review of Books in 2002. "It doesn't have to. It feels no need to be clear about its prohibitions. Its silent constant message is 'You yourself decide,' after which, more often than not, everyone in its shadows makes his or her large and small adjustments--all quite 'naturally.' "

The first time that I took a cab to visit Hu at home, I was sure that I was lost. Unlike many of the reporters and editors on her staff, she does not live in one of Beijing's new residential high-rises. She and her husband, Miao Di, a film professor at Beijing's Communication University of China, share a three-bedroom apartment in a concrete housing block with a view of an overgrown garden. In the nineteen-fifties, when the building was a privileged residence for Party cadres, the government assigned space in it to Hu's father. The neighborhood is China's old-media stronghold, home to the headquarters of the state radio and to China's film-and-television censors.

Hu's drive to work takes twenty minutes, and whisks her from one century to another; by the time she reaches the Caijing offices, she is next door to the Beijing bureau of the Wall Street Journal. Heading to work one recent afternoon, she was running late for an unusual appointment: Hu had decided that her top editors needed new clothes, and she had summoned a tailor. As Caijing grows in prominence, her staff is spending more time in front of crowds or overseas. "Foreigners always wear suits this way," she said, approvingly pulling her jacket tightly around her, as she hastened to her car. She had offered her editors a deal: Buy one new suit and the magazine would pay for another. The tailor carried an armful of suits into a conference room, and the staff filed in for a fitting.

"Doesn't it look baggy here?" Hu said, tugging at the underarm of an elegant gray pin-striped jacket being fitted to Wang Shuo, her thirty-seven-year-old managing editor. With his boss prodding at his midsection, he wore an expression of bemused tolerance that I had seen several times on a dog in a bathtub.

"It is rather tight already," Wang protested.

"He feels tight already," the tailor said.

"Hold on!" Hu said. "Think about the James Bond suit in the movies. Make it like that!"

The change implied by Hu's flamboyant internationalism runs deeper than aesthetics. A well-meaning American professor once advised her, "If you stay in China as a journalist, you will never really join the international mainstream." She seems determined to prove him wrong.

On her mother's side, Hu comes from a line of Communist Party journalists and intellectuals. Her grandfather Hu Zhongchi was a famous translator and editor at Shen Bao, a Shanghai paper. His elder brother Yuzhi founded a publishing house that produced collections of Lu Xun, one of modern China's leading writers and a family friend, as well as Chinese translations of Edgar Snow and John Steinbeck.

Hu's mother, Hu Lingsheng, was a senior editor at Workers' Daily in Beijing. Her father, Cao Qifeng, studied English at a missionary school before becoming an impassioned underground Communist and taking a mid-level post in a trade union. They named their younger daughter Shula, for a Soviet war martyr. In the nineteen-seventies, she changed her name to Shuli, a more popular name for women.

Hu has an acute understanding of China's fickle regard for intellectuals. Her great-uncle Yuzhi was a deputy minister of culture before the Cultural Revolution. "But we were told never to say that to others," Hu told me. Her forthrightness at times worried her parents. "I was not very disciplined. I always spoke about what I was thinking." She attended Beijing's elite 101 Middle School, which had once educated many offspring of Party cadres. Students had privileged access to a smattering of banned foreign literature, including translated volumes of Kerouac, Salinger, and Solzhenitsyn, printed in limited batches for Party elites. Hu would also take books from her family and hide them under her pillow until she could swap them with friends.

    如果一家中国报纸详细列出了批准建设不安全校舍的官员名单，它可能会在承担公共责任上为自己加上一分，但这种调查行动同样会让报纸非常容易受到小气的政治报复。胡舒立说：“我们努力不给那些不愿意被批评的干部们留下任何把柄。”最终，她说，重要的问题不是“哪些人在十五年前没有使用质量好的砖块”，而是一些更深层的东西。“我们需要进一步的改革”，她说，“我们需要监督和制衡。我们需要透明。我们用这种方式表达，没有简单的说辞，没有口号。”

    这种方式能够对那些真正想解决问题但又不愿放弃权力的政府内部改革者产生吸引力。一些中国记者说胡舒立最伟大的能力是让一个利益集团与另一个对抗，不论是依靠放大中央政府铲除腐败市长的努力，还是依靠政府一派反对另一派的计划。根据这种说法，它能让最具权力的集团留下来，而你也能做出真正的——甚至是可以产生利润的——新闻。然而危险在于，随着《财经》的影响力的增加和金融利益的增长，杂志可以选择承担更小的风险。最近，一位读者在《财经》的网站上发表评论说：“《财经》越来越主流了……批判思维的味道不见了，取而代之的是旨在吸引读者和订阅者兴趣的东西，但这些东西缺乏灵魂。”

    在绝对的禁区上，《财经》被证明是相当注意中国政府观点的。当上周乌鲁木齐发生民族暴力事件时，杂志派出了两名记者，他们在当地的报道描述了暴力及其带来的破坏，但他们的早期报道并没有冒险去调查造成骚乱的深层原因。同样地，西藏骚乱在少数民族中引发对当局的不满15个月以来，《财经》在很大程度上避开了这个话题。

    不久前，我和中国最活跃的报纸之一《南方都市报》的前主编程益中一起吃了一顿午饭。程益中因2003年的孙志刚事件报道而成名。当时该报记者发现，孙志刚被带到了收容所，后来被打死。表面上看，收容所是为了安置流浪汉和亡命者，但收容制度却广受非议，因为它给予了警察在大街上要求人们出示身份证和暂住证，并可以没有理由地关押他们的权利。那些不能缴纳罚款的人可以通过为看守所运营的农田和工厂干活而获得释放。后来人们发现，孙志刚在街上被警察拦住并逮捕，尽管他坚称自己证件齐全。《南方都市报》的报道引发了公众对收容制度的愤怒浪潮，该报和其他报纸的后续报道显示，收容制度对于地方警察来说有利可图，并已孵化出一个全国性的网络，包括七百个收容所。根据报道，最少在一个地区，收容站购买收容者以获得更多的收入。2003年8月，此案促使中央政府废除了收容制度，这是中国媒体影响国家政策的一个令人惊奇的案例。但不到一年，程益中就被捕了，他的两个同事也因“非法挪用编委会奖金”的罪名入狱。此案被广泛认为是报道孙志刚事件以及之前的SARS带来的秋后算账。程益中在狱中度过了5个月，现在做一份不太为人所知的媒体工作。他的两个同事则被判了更长时间的徒刑。

    我问程益中：为什么胡舒立的遭遇如此不同？他说，《财经》已经达到了一种高度，这将它置于低级官僚的势力范围之外。但他同时指出了差别所在：他的报道旨在从根本上制衡绝对权力，而《财经》的关注点则是改善并提升政府的工作。“《财经》的话题没有触及到政权根本和统治体制，因此它相对安全，也应该得到容忍。”他补充说，“我并不同意对胡舒立的批评，相反我认为她很高明，她使《财经》在当今中国各种利益集团博弈的狭缝中得以生存。”

    不出所料，胡舒立的看法有些不同：“我们不考虑这个或那个集团——我们考虑的是整个体制，以及所有能够达成改革的东西。”

    承认体制权威，然后谨慎地追求它的改进，这种策略决定了《财经》的过人之处，也决定了它的局限性。曾经是新闻人的钱钢告诉我说：“洪水凶猛，但解决不了任何问题。在中国，我们认为‘水滴石穿’。”

胡舒立则更喜欢一个更加喧闹的比喻。她说：《财经》是一只啄木鸟，永远在敲打一棵树，不是为了把树击倒，而是为了让它长得更直。

  “很荒谬，”她发现农民们丧失了干农活的所有动力。“他们只想在地里躺上两小时。我问：‘咱们什么时候开始工作？’他们说：‘你怎么能想这个？’”她继续说道：“十年后，我意识到一切都错了。”胡舒立的姐姐当时在一个邻村，她后来写了一本书《走出熔炉（Out of the Crucible）》，描述上山下乡运动是如何永远改变他们那一代人命运的。它“埋葬了他们的共产主义乌托邦之梦。”她写道。

    两年后，胡舒立参军了——几年之后，她又因此加入了共产党——她被派往江苏北部农村一所偏远的医院，一待就是八年。她在餐厅工作，养猪，帮忙看门，运作一个小小的广播台，播放音乐和通知。1978年高校复课，胡舒立在中国人民大学获得了渴望已久的位置。新闻系并不是她的第一志愿，但它是这所学校所能提供的最好专业。她是校园里的风云人物：系里唯一一名穿军装上学的大一女生。“班上没有一个人不知道她是谁，”苗棣回忆说。当时，来自一个北京军人家庭的苗在历史系学习，一节英语课上认识了胡舒立。苗棣也曾被下放，他们都怀有一种类似的不满。1982年，他们结婚了。

    大学毕业后，胡舒立加入了《工人日报》。在进行了一些早期的调查报道之后，1985年，她被派往东南沿海城市厦门的记者站。这个地区被指定为发展市场经济的试点。在那里，她发展了自己建立关系网的能力，她与市政府的每一个人见面——包括和市长打桥牌。在她采访的人当中，有一位前景看好的年轻干部，当时担任副市长，他就是习•近•平，一位政治局委员之子。习是一名亲市场的忠诚党干部，他成功建起了一座主题公园，这给他带来了“财富之神（the God of Wealth）”的称号。今天，习是中国的副主席，并被认为是主席的接班人。


    1987年，胡舒立获得了前往位于明尼苏达的世界新闻研究所（World Press Institute）进行五个月研究的机会。这段经历有如天启。“我整晚地阅读圣保罗先锋通讯社的新闻”，她说，她对这家通讯社的规模感到惊奇。（那时的《工人日报》只有四个版。）她与《费城问询报》的调查记者见面，并在《今日美国》实习。回国后，1989年春天的运动激发了北京新闻界的活力，在几周的时间里，报纸从审查制度中解放出来。包括胡舒立在内的许多记者加入了游行队伍。6月3日晚军人镇压，胡舒立回忆说，“我到街上去，然后回到办公室，说‘我们应该报道此事’。”但决定已经下达：“报社决定就此事不发一言。”和运动的牵连让她付出了代价。许多说话的记者被解雇，或被放逐到外省。苗棣认为胡舒立可能被捕，最后，她被停职十八个月。

    她利用这段时间写作了《美国报海见闻录》，这是第一本审视美国媒体与民主关系的中文图书，内容包括对水门事件和五角大楼秘密文件案的描述。在中国的新闻工作者中，这曾是一本必读书。她在书中向同行们提问：我们当中的谁“能够身先士卒，做一些类似于美国媒体所做的事情”？

    1998年，胡舒立接到了王波明的电话，王是那个在宾馆里搭起办公室的证券市场研究设计中心创建者之一。他准备办一份杂志，想让胡舒立来运作。胡舒立提出了两个条件：王波明永远不能干涉她的编辑部，并且提供一份两百万元人民币的预算，用以支付严肃报道的差旅费用，以及给记者们提供高到能够防止他们收受贿赂的工资。王波明同意了。这并不是什么慈善施舍，他和他的那些在政府里决意改革的同伴们将这份杂志视为他们经济现代化决心的延展。

    “你需要媒体的作用来向公众揭示事实，以及，从某种意义上说，帮助政府发现弊病，”王波明最近在他位于《财经》总部楼下大而乱的办公室对我说。他是那代人当中的典型代表，在美国接受教育然后回到中国。他头发浓密，黑中带着点点灰色，戴Ferragamo的眼镜，一根接一根地抽烟，具备中英双语的幽默感。当他谈起胡舒立的时候，脸上划过一种不耐烦的表情，这是因为他最终得到的东西比自己最初指望的要多。“我们没有料到一起到来的还有这种程度的风险，”他说。不过王波明的言谈中也流露出：他敏锐地感受到了胡舒立对中国的重要性。“当年我在美国上学的时候，需要自己挣学费，所以我给唐人街的一份报纸打工——《中华日报》，”他说。作为一位初出茅庐的新记者，他喜欢抓住每一次发掘一条线索的机会，他体会到了“无冕之王”的感觉。

   《财经》很快就确立了自己的风格。1998年4月，它的创刊号做了一则爆炸性的封面特稿，报道对象是琼民源案：一家地产公司虚报利润后股价涨了四倍。《财经》报道说，散户投资者损失了几百万元，而事先得到消息的内部人员则早已卖掉股份。监管者愤怒了，他们指责《财经》无视新闻纪律，王波明的高管们不得不一起前往监管者的办公室做检查。

    每一则报道都在修正着胡舒立对自己能够走多远的计算。2002年，一名25岁的《财经》记者在浏览海关记录时发现，中国最大的上市公司之一银广夏股份在网上发布了一则伪造的8700万美元利润单据。这则报道的政治风险很高，因为一批高层领导已经参观过该公司，并提出了表扬。王波明很担心《财经》会因刊登此报道而被关掉，他做了一件自己表示永远不会再做的事情：出刊前给党内一名高官打电话求得批准。“他问：‘这则报道是真实的吗？还有没有什么疑问？’”王波明回忆说，“我说：‘报道绝对真实，但会带来政治上的影响。’他说：‘如果是真的，就出吧。’”报道刊出几小时后，银广夏的股票被停牌，公司高管们先后被送进了监狱。

    不过，奠定《财经》地位的决定性时刻还要等到几个月之后。那时，记者曹海丽到达香港，发现火车站月台上的每一个人似乎都戴着口罩。究竟是怎么回事？她通知了胡舒立。中国媒体当时已经在报道一种神秘的新型病毒，但卫生部官员向公众保证：病毒得到了控制。广东省的报纸编辑们被私下要求编发让大家对病毒放心的报道，一名编辑回忆说，有的要求甚至细致到了用怎样的字体。但这些限制并没有影响到广东省之外的媒体。“我买了很多关于呼吸系统疾病、传染病和病毒的书，”胡舒立说，她的员工们也开始寻找政府声明中的谬误。同时，《财经》的编辑们跟踪着世界卫生组织的网站，根据网站记录，SARS病毒感染病例在中国持续增长，而政府却在继续否认。《财经》的报道口吻严肃，提出质疑，但并没有真正指责政府在说谎。

    在一个月的时间里，《财经》出版了每周一期的SARS增刊。最终，杂志碰到了底线。“《财经》正准备出版一期反思SARS的杂志，”香港大学“中国传媒研究计划”成员David Bandurski说，“政府送来了禁令：‘不，不能这么做，现在就得停下。’”

    渐渐地，胡舒立能够精确地感觉到一个敏感的话题何时才能够安全地进行报道。“你能感觉到她在作调整，”原《财经》编辑王丰告诉我说。“比如说，在周一的编辑会议上她可能决定做某个内容，编辑记者们就去做。到了周三的会上，她可能会说：‘知道吗？我得到了关于此事的更多信息，我们不能谈它了，或许我们应该把目标调低一些。’”在极其敏感的政治腐败案中，《财经》的调查记者经常花几周几月的时间收集信息，然后等待机会。很多情况下，一旦新华社发布了关于某官员被捕的简短消息，《财经》已经准备好了一则详细的报道。6月8日，新华社发布了一条一句话新闻，称深圳市市长被调查；29分钟后，《财经》就发布了一篇深度报道。

    SARS之后，《财经》从未完全退至商业新闻的界线当中，尽管今天人们认为它“只是在监督经济”的看法让它获益。随着《财经》的独家新闻不断累积，银行业监管者开始召集记者寻求指点，而不是记者去找监管者。更令人满意的是，西方媒体别无选择，只能选择并相信《财经》的引导。在一定程度上，杂志的成功和声势已经在自我强化：它已经走得够远，以至于政府里的保守派已经无法确定其他哪些官员在支持着它。

    紧接着，《财经》因为走得太远而得到了第一次教训。2007年1月，它的封面报道《谁的鲁能》描述了一群投资者是如何用微薄的代价换得对一个庞大集团的控制的，这个集团的资产从发电厂到足球俱乐部无所不包。《财经》报道说，鲁能集团当时市值超过100亿美元，但一个鲜为人知的私营公司仅仅花了不到5.5亿美元就得到了鲁能92%的资产。国家监管者没有得到这桩交易的通知——这是法律上的通常要求——此外，混乱重叠的董事会和股东看上去就是为了模糊公司新所有者的身份以及他们资金的来源。《财经》发现，近一半的收购资本来自一个难以追踪的源头。

    在《财经》试图刊出一个简短的后续报道之后，当局命令网站删除这篇报道，报摊撤下杂志。据说《财经》上海记者站的员工被要求用手撕掉杂志。“每个人都觉得被羞辱了。”一个曾经的编辑说。

    从那以后，《财经》不时因鲁能调查而被谈起，但胡舒立并不想谈这一事件，她将与政府发生冲突视为杂志“最大的灾难”。一个熟悉《财经》及这则报道的人说，揭露从私有化中疯狂获利的行为太容易将中共高层领导子女卷入其中了——这是一个甚至会将改革派对开放媒体的意愿彻底扼杀的禁忌。 

    2007年，哈佛大学尼曼基金会授予胡舒立一个奖项，以表彰她的“良知和正直”。这个奖项是完全应得的，但它却将胡舒立置于稍微有些尴尬的同伴当中：之前的获奖者包括一位伊朗的编辑，她因自己杂志的报道而屡屡被召至法院；还有一位津巴布韦的编辑，他曾被军方逮捕并施以酷刑。

    胡舒立并不像地下出版物的编辑那样生活在社会边缘，也不在异见份子的宣言上签字。她充满怀疑精神并饱含激情，但她的文章却引人瞩目地很少带有义愤。当她在专栏和社论中进行批评的时候，她使用的是忠实反对派（loyal opposition）的语言。在2006年的社保案之后，她并没有质疑一党政府的道德险境，而是强调中国脆弱的财产公开法律致使官员们的亲属和同僚获利。在2007年一篇题为“中共十七大之公众期待”的文章中，她表示：“当前民间积怨最大者莫过于官场腐败蔓延，权力缺乏制衡。”她继续写道：“有些论者总是担心推进政治体制改革将导致社会不稳定，殊不知政改裹足不前才会成为动荡的温床。”换句话说，政治体制改革带来的是巩固权力，而不是丢失权力。

    四川地震一周年之后不久的一个6月下午，我在胡舒立的办公室里问她：为什么其他媒体因为报道校舍坍塌而被处罚了，但《财经》没有？“我们从不用非常感性或者不正式的语言说话，比如‘你说谎了’，”她说，“我们尽力分析体制，谈论一个好的设想或愿景为什么无法变为现实。”

    

本文来源《纽约客》2009年7月20日

作者：EVAN OSNOS

译者：方可成

    2008年5月12日，《财经》双周刊创始人、主编胡舒立正在北京西郊的一家宾馆主持一场奖学金项目学员典礼。一条短信告诉她：四川省发生了强烈地震。她向身边的钱钢凑过去，请这位曾经报道过唐山大地震的资深新闻人估计这场地震带来的破坏情况。钱钢判断：至少这场地震没有发生在大家熟睡的时候。但很快，他就意识到：学校正在上课，“学生们的伤亡将会很惨重。”

    胡舒立出发前往北京市区，在车的后座上通过电话和电子邮件工作。她指挥员工租赁一台卫星电话，并派出一队记者前往四川。身材小、健谈、好斗的胡舒立——她手下的一名记者在第一次见到她的时候觉得她就像一位“女教父”——决定报道这场地震，尽管在中国，报道这样规模的灾难将有政治上的风险。当这个国家在1976年遭遇上一场大地震时，政府将报道死亡数字的新闻压了三年。

    但胡舒立已经因洞察言论自由的边界而成名。自从创办《财经》十余年来，她尖锐地挑战了中国媒体梦游般的形象。《华盛顿邮报》的David Ignatius对我说，她成为了这个国家的“复仇天使”。当其他顽强的中国记者被拘捕或噤声之后很久，胡舒立仍然留在主编的位置上。在中外媒体上，她经常被描述为“中国最危险的女人”，而她仍在从事自己的事业。

    不到一小时，第一位出发的《财经》记者已经在前往四川的飞机上，在他之后还有九名同事。当国家通讯社新华社强调地震“牵动了中国共产党的心弦”的时候，《财经》正在调查死伤者的大致人数，并指出“许多受灾者仍然在等待救济物资”。

    学校坍塌在钢筋水泥的废墟中。中宣部，一个有权力开除编辑、取缔报刊的政府部门禁止对学校的救援行动进行报道。几家中国报纸质问：为什么有这么多校舍倒塌？它们针对建筑问题和遇难学生数量做出了严厉的报道（人们认为至少有5300名学生遇难）。胡舒立听说地方当局正在批评那些继续就校舍问题进行报道的媒体，但她相信《财经》可以找到报道此事的方法。她认为，一篇用正确的口吻和事实写成的报道将能够被刊出。“如果这事不是被绝对禁止的，”她说，“那我们就要做。”

    6月9日，《财经》杂志刊出了一份长达12页的调查报道，语言冷静，事实可靠。根据这篇报道，轻率的经济增长，被挥霍的公款，以及对建筑标准近乎猖獗的忽视共同导致了灾难的发生。报道详细介绍了地方干部是如何偷工减料的，但并未提及相关责任人的名字。当我向胡舒立询问政府的反应时，她说：“他们生气了。非常非常生气。”但她和《财经》杂志都没有被惩罚。

    在中国记者（或者按照党的语言说，“新闻工作者”）的世界里，五十六岁的胡舒立有着独一无二的轮廓。她是一个无可救药的扒粪者，1989年曾因同情广场示威者而被中止记者职务，但她已经和一些中共最高权力领导人结成了可以直呼其名的亲密关系。

    5.2英尺高，身材苗条，精灵短发（pixie haircut），一柜子色彩协调的衣服，她经常未见其人，先闻其声。在北京闹市区的泛利大厦19层，整洁而开放的灰色砖砌空间构成了《财经》杂志的编辑部。走廊上，鞋跟敲出的急切脚步声预告了胡舒立的到来。她迅速穿过编辑部，滔滔不绝地发布自己的命令和想法，然后再次走出门去——“就像一阵风般突然和迅速”，如今在香港大学从事研究工作的钱钢说。

    我认识的不止一个人都将与胡舒立聊天的经历比作接受机关枪连珠炮般的攻击。一些人对她的这种强度不太对胃口。胡舒立的一位老友，《经济日报》编辑汪郎曾经再三谢绝她加入《财经》一起工作的邀请，因为汪认为“保持一定的距离对我们的友谊更好”。在有的观点看来，和她在一起要么令人惊心动魄，要么令人丧失勇气。她的老板，财讯传媒集团董事局主席王波明半开玩笑地告诉我说：“我怕她！”

    1998年，胡舒立依靠两台电脑和一个借来的会议室创办了《财经》。从那时起，她已经在领导这本杂志的过程中展现出了近乎完美的判断——判断多大程度的坦率和挑衅是这个政权能够容忍的。这意味着决定报道什么——那些猖獗的公司欺诈，政府对SARS病毒的隐瞒，以及一例例的政治腐败；但同时也决定不报道什么（Fa輪gong，广场周年纪念）。当美国印刷媒体处于衰退的时候，中国的传媒正在成长，《财经》是第一份有望跻身世界级的出版物。“它与你在中国见到的任何东西都不一样，”前摩根士丹利经济学家，为《财经》写专栏的谢国忠说，“它的存在，从某种程度上说，是一个奇迹。”

   《财经》杂志印刷光洁，版式设计和《财富》杂志类似。它很沉，广告很多，包括卡地亚手表、信用卡、奔驰SUV。它的写作有意保持高信息密度，甚至是精英式的。比起一份仅仅拥有二十万发行量的杂志，中国的宣传官员们更可能对电视和销量巨大的报纸进行压制，后者有着以百万计的受众。但这份杂志进入了中国政府、金融机构、学术机构的许多最重要的办公室，这为它带来了非凡的影响力。最近几年，它开始通过中、英文的一对网站延伸自己的影响范围，网站对《纽约时报》的网站进行了少量的模仿。这两个网站每月吸引320万独立访客。胡舒立为杂志和网站写作专栏，并被广泛引用。她还管理着一系列吸引了共产党的经济领导来参加的会议。《财经》最新未公开的计划，是以布隆伯格和道•琼斯为目标：和香港大亨李泽楷合作一个英文通讯社，该通讯社将发布《财经》记者的报道。

    当加州大学圣地亚哥分校的政治学者Sam Popkin和她的妻子，从事中国研究的学者谢淑丽（Susan Shirk）第一次目睹胡舒立做报道的时候，他想起了《The Boys on the Bus》一书对《纽约时报》记者R. W. Apple的描绘：“Apple常常每天打上百个电话。”Popkin说：“她总是在想办法弄清到底是这个体制里的谁有权力知道发生了什么。”Popkin补充说：“她是一个人体U盘，你写入信息，然后她继续去找其他人。”胡舒立的竞争对手当然记得最清楚。近20年前，时任一家主要商业报纸记者的林力博努力与她竞争对一轮闭门会谈的了解程度。他回忆说：“她甚至搞到了他们的菜单！”

    1992年，胡舒立是国内第一份全国性商业报纸《中华工商时报》的国际版编辑，她开始报道一小群在西方经济制度下接受训练的中国人回国后推动中国证券市场的工作。他们当中的许多人与她同龄，是高干子弟。这群人将自己的团队称为“中国证券市场研究设计中心”，他们在崇文门饭店租用了一些房间，搬出床铺，设立了办公室。其中一张办公桌属于高西庆，他在杜克大学获得了法律学位，回国前在理查德•尼克松位于纽约的律师事务所工作。另一张桌子属于王波明，作为前驻外大使、副外长之子的他曾在哥伦比亚大学学习金融，并曾在纽约证券交易所的研究部门担任经济学家。他们赢得了一批中共明日之星的支持。

    “我决定采访中国所有的顶级金融家，”胡舒立回忆说。她称之为自己的“家庭作业”，而时任《华尔街日报》驻京记者的James McGregor也开始注意到，胡“与他们中的所有人交谈，从他们身上抽取信息，就好像一个研究生在同德高望重的教授们谈话一样。”作为成果，胡舒立得到了一连串的独家新闻，并逐渐和那些后来的高官建立了联系，这串名单是无人能比的：今天，高西庆掌管着中国两千亿美元的主权财富基金，王岐山是副总理和经济政策制定者，周小川则是央行行长。

    北京的很多人都想知道，早年建立起来的这些关系在多大程度上保护了胡舒立。但她坚持认为，人们高估了她和权力的接近程度。“我不知道他们的生日，”她说，“我是一名记者，他们也把我当作记者对待。”

    胡舒立的关系网看上去发挥的是更微妙的作用。她将自己置于局内人和局外人的边缘，置于共产主义历史和资本主义现实的边缘，置于维护中国利益和拥抱世界的边缘，并已成为一名无价的沟通者、翻译者。2008年奥运会的几周前，中国政府麻烦缠身，看上去开始变得粗暴起来。她利用一篇社论谴责了发生在警察和记者之间的冲突，劝诫大家“自信、开放、友好”。“用英语来说，”她补充道，“（中国的奥运组织者们）应该‘take it easy’。”这是一种高明的角色。另一次，胡舒立需要为广受瞩目的年刊选择一幅封面照片。编辑们将选项缩小为两个：一幅是古板的新闻图片拼贴，另一幅则是一个看起来尖锐的镜头：一个女子走进沙尘暴之中。胡舒立更喜欢那副看起来挑衅的，但最后一刻她又犹豫了。

    “这会给我们带来麻烦吗？”根据当时在场的人回忆，她这样问道。“它是否太负面？”有人争辩说，它展示了中国最好的一面——它的决心，胡舒立笑了。“我能解释它，”她说。

中国的媒体不再完全是温顺的绵羊，但在这个喧闹的经济体中，媒体的自由度仍然低于其他行业。《财经》和它对新闻价值的判断是少数派。去年九月，新华社在网站上发布了一则报道，详细介绍神舟七号是如何完成它的第30圈绕地飞行的。这则报道有相当多吸引人的细节，比如“调度员坚定的报告声，打破了全船的沉寂。”但不幸的是，那时火箭都还没发射。（后来新华社道歉说自己误发了一篇“草稿”。）在中国两千份报纸和八千份杂志中，《财经》和其他几份金融报纸是少数具备独立声音的私营出版物。（所有中国媒体都被要求拥有一个挂靠单位，尽管挂靠单位对各媒体的干涉情况各不相同。而作为香港证券交易所的上市公司，财讯传媒集团是由十五名个人投资者控制的。）

    自从广场事件以来，中国的领导层对媒体改革一直谨小慎微。“中国的报纸、广播和电视永远不再会被允许成为资产阶级自由主义的战斗前线。”根据新西兰坎特伯雷大学中国媒体研究专家Anne-Marie Brady收集的党内文件，江泽民曾经这样宣告。中国记者不会像俄国同行那样被黑社会谋杀所困扰，但记者无国界组织在它最近的全球新闻自由指数中将中国排为173个国家中的167位——位于伊朗之后，越南之前。中国宪法第35条保障言论自由和新闻媒体，但在法庭上，它总是输给那些诽谤和泄露国家机密的罪名。保护记者委员会在2008年的报告中指出，有28名记者被关进了中国的监狱，比其他任何国家都多。（这个月早些时候，伊朗超过了中国，十年来的头一遭。）

    很多中国人都知道，中宣部是以半秘密的形式工作的，它的总部没有标志，也没有公开的电话号码表。它给编辑和发行人下达最新要求和禁令。一些底线是固定的，禁忌的内容包括军事、宗教、民族争议以及政府的内部运作。但其他一些边界却是灵活可变的。2005年秋天，媒体人在报道松花江污染事件时享受了自由。几周后，他们却又被要求停止报道一起外科医生手术时打电话致使病人面部瘫痪的事件。（对于一名中国记者来说，甚至连披露这些指示的内容都会带来危险。《当代商报》记者师涛就曾因在一封发往国外的电子邮件中描述当地宣传部门的指示而被判处十年徒刑。）

    当一家媒体第一次触犯宣传禁令时，会得到一张和足球比赛中类似的“黄牌”警告。有记者说，如果一年之内得到三张黄牌，那么这家报纸或杂志就要被关了。（根据国家通讯社的报道，2004年，有338份出版物因发布“内部”信息而被关停。）但编辑们需要自己猜测他们可以走多远，需要自己计算越过一个未经定义的界限的风险——普林斯顿大学研究中国问题的名誉教授Perry Link将这种审查方式比作“盘在头顶吊灯上的一条巨蟒”。“通常，巨蟒不会动弹，”他在2002年的《纽约书评》中写道，“它不需要动。它觉得没有必要明确自己的禁令。它那沉默而持久的信息是：‘你们自己决定’。在它的阴影下，每个人都往往会作出或大或小的调整——一切都显得那么‘自然’。”

    第一次乘出租车去胡舒立家的时候，我确信自己迷路了。和她的很多编辑记者同事不同，她并不住在北京新建的高层住宅楼中。她和她的先生，中国传媒大学影视教授苗棣在一群老式住宅楼中拥有一套三居的房子，窗外是枝繁叶茂的花园。1950年代，这里的房子是提供给共产党干部的专用住所，政府将一部分空间分给了胡舒立的父亲。隔壁则是中国的旧媒体要塞，住着国家广播台的总部人员以及电影电视的审片者。

    胡舒立上班需要开20分钟的车，这段车程将她从一个世纪带到另一个世纪。当她到达《财经》办公室的时候，《华尔街日报》北京办事处就在她隔壁。最近一个下午，她上班迟到了，而迟到的原因则是一场特殊的约会：胡舒立决定给自己的高层编辑们换一身新衣服，她召来了一个裁缝。随着《财经》杂志的声望越来越高，她的员工们也将更多的时间用来面对公众或是海外人士。“外国人总这么穿，”她一边匆匆走向自己的车，一边满意地拉拉自己的贴身上衣。她和自己的编辑们达成协议：每人去买一套新衣服，杂志社就掏钱再给他们买一套。裁缝抱着一堆套装走进了会议室，员工们陆续进来试衣。

   “这里看上去太宽松了吧？”37岁的执行主编王烁正在试一套精致的灰色条纹上衣时，胡舒立拉着衣服的腋下说。被老板戳着自己身体的王烁展现出茫然忍耐的表情，这种表情我在被放进浴缸的狗身上看到过好几次。

   “已经很紧了。”王烁提出抗议。

   “他已经感觉很紧了。”裁缝说。

   “继续！”胡舒立说，“想想电影里的007。就要那样！”

    这种要求与其说是出自美学的，不如说暗示了胡舒立对国际化有些夸张的追求。一位善意的美国教授曾经劝告她说：“如果你在中国当记者，你将永远不能真正进入国际主流。”她看上去决定要证明他是错的。

    在母亲的家族这一边，胡舒立生于一连串共产党记者和知识分子之后。她外公胡仲持是知名的翻译家，也是《申报》的编辑。而胡仲持的哥哥胡愈之创建的出版社则出版了《鲁迅全集》以及埃德加•斯诺和约翰•斯坦贝克作品的中文版。鲁迅是现代中国最优秀的作家之一，也是胡愈之家族的好友。

    胡舒立的母亲曾是《工人日报》的高级编辑，父亲早年在一所教会学校学习英语，后来成为一名激情燃烧的地下共产党员，之后在工会任中级职务。他们将自己年幼的女儿取名舒拉，以纪念一位在苏联卫国战争中牺牲的烈士。1970年代，她将名字改为舒立，一个更常见的女名。

    胡舒立对于中国对待知识分子变幻无常的态度有着敏锐的理解。她的叔祖父胡愈之在文革前曾是文化部副部长，“但我们却被告诫：不要对其他人谈及此事。”胡舒立告诉我说。她的直率屡屡让父母忧虑。“我不太守规矩，总是想什么就说什么。”后来她进入了带有精英色彩的北京101中学就读，这里曾经是很多共产党干部后代学习的地方。学生们可以有特权接触到当时被禁的外国文学作品，包括专门为有限的党内精英印刷的凯鲁亚克、塞林格和索尔仁尼琴作品译本。胡舒立还从家中拿书出来，藏在自己的枕头底下，直到她可以和朋友们交换书籍阅读。

    胡舒立13岁的时候，文化大革命席卷全国，她的学业也被迫中止。作为一名表现突出的编辑，胡舒立的母亲在报社被批斗，被软禁于家中。她的父亲被发配去做二线工作。和其他同龄人一样，胡舒立成为了一名红卫兵，在全国串联。当运动陷入暴力的时候，她从书中寻找庇护，努力保持接受教育的样子。“那是一个非常困惑的时期，因为我们丧失了所有的价值，”她说。在16岁生日的前一个月，她被派往农村干革命。

DJ 股市聚焦：中国IPO申请所面临的不公平竞争

上海（道琼斯）--国有企业进入股市融资的做法被中国市场人士戏称为：“吃完了财政吃银行，吃完了银行吃股市”。

这一说法也准确地描述了许多排队等待中国政府批准进行首次公开募股(IPO)的公司遭遇到的不公平待遇。

中国政府7月份终止了长达九个月的非正式IPO冻结期，但从那时起就一直安排国有企业比财务状况更好的民营企业优先上市，而这为未来6-12个月股市可能发生动荡埋下了隐患，届时，部分上市国有企业的业绩报告可能让其本质上的弱点大白天下。

不仅如此，为了迅速提高这些国有企业的利润，中国政府还延长市场的发展期，而不是任其在没有政府干预的情况下自行成熟。

中国有300家企业的IPO申请在等待政府审批，看看7月份以来获准上市公司的名单一切就一目了然：中国建筑股份有限公司(China State Construction Engineering Corp.)、中国冶金科工股份有限公司 (Metallurgical Corp. of China)、中国北车股份有限公司(China CNR Corp.) 和中国船舶重工集团公司(China Shipbuilding Industry Corp.)。

四家获准的公司都是国有企业，并且它们的IPO申请很快就通过了审批程序。

在市场中流传著这样一种解释：由于上证综合指数走势依然强劲（年初以来已累计上涨56%），中国政府批准国有企业优先上市是希望让它们们能够抓住以较高本益比发行股票的机会。

考虑到在正常情况下这些国有企业没有一家能够上市的情况，这种解释就更加可信了。

上述四家国有企业都未能满足上市前连续三年实现净利润的上市要求：其中三家去年才刚刚成立，而中国船舶重工集团由于2008年发生巨额亏损也不符合上市资格。

中国证券监督管理委员会(China Securities Regulatory Commission, 简称：中国证监会)一位拒绝透露姓名的官员称，这些公司的上市获得了国务院(State Council)的特许。

这表明中国政府有著自己的算盘：所有这些国有企业的借贷比率都超过了80%，让它们从股市融资意味著政府在实施人民币4万亿元经济刺激计划时甩掉了一个大包袱。

那么试想民营企业又会作何感想呢？它们已经苦苦等待了这么长时间，好不容易等到IPO重启，却又让中国中冶这样的国有企业占尽先机。要知道，中国中冶的核心业务是炼钢业务，而钢铁业目前正面临产能过剩的压力。

这些民营企业才是真正连续三年实现净利润的公司。政府的这一做法让它们彻底意识到：在政治背景面前，经营业绩算不了什么。

-Michelle Ng

人生就是这样的，有的人遇到便携手一生；有的人只能陪你一段路，也有的人，注定只是一个瞬间邂逅过的陌生人，无论是否有缘分，也总是走着走着就散了……

而无论身处何处，无论我们是否记得那些曾经见面，却成为陌生的陌生人，但愿我们都有时间抬头仰望星空，都在过我们希望的生活。

一号陌生人

一号小朋友是我在丽都广场偶遇的。节假日的丽都附近，是狗仔最爱去拍国产明星八卦新闻的地方，而工作日的丽都，没人，安静，绿色环绕，是我的乐土。

某个安静的午后，我跟好朋友张悦然谈完事情，等待朋友来接我的空挡里，跑去巴克买咖啡，发觉有个很帅气很帅气的小正太，一身Gap的潮流童装，一个人孤独的坐着沙发里面吃maffin，超有型的，于是忍不住就走上前跟他搭讪，问他，我可以坐这里吗？

小正太很淡定的看了我一眼说，yes pls，但我有女朋友了，先告诉你。

哇，还是一个讲洋文的，难怪是个小正太。

“你叫什么，怎么一个人呢？爸爸妈妈呢”忍不住，我的问题一大堆

小正太撇撇嘴说，“作为一个陌生人，你这样问，很不礼貌。但我还是告诉你，我叫Oscar
我一个人是因为我讨厌Mara一直跟着我，所以她去超市了
我的爸爸妈妈正在楼上的律师楼协议离婚……”

Oscar今年7岁半，原来住在日本大阪，但他是一个美国banana小孩，妈妈是中国人，据他说是个著名的舞蹈演员，爸爸是美国人，好像是一个美国商会驻日本的一个什么什么，那段英文我听的不是很真切，而他也翻不成中文。

我问Oscar，他们离婚，你会难过吗？
Oscar说，喔，我们都是公平的，他们愿意分，我接受，但上帝保佑，不要再吵架
就怎么样都好
那你要跟爸爸还是妈妈呢？
爸爸要留在日本，在日本不能说英文，我不想。而妈妈有了新的男朋友，在北京
那你想去哪儿？
我想回旧金山，因为Linda在那里
Linda是谁？她跟Mara是怎么回事
Oscar不高兴了，说，Mara是菲律宾人，而Linda是我的太阳，她是我女朋友
我一下就乐了
Oscar又不高兴了，说，请你尊重我的女朋友
我赶忙点头说，Linda很需要你吗？

Oscar字正腔圆的说，我绝对不会像爸爸对待妈妈那样对待Linda的，我不会在Linda需要我的时候不在她的身边，我不会让她失去我……as a man，我要对她负责任。

这时候，一个穿着相当入时，确实很美很美的年轻女郎走进来，跟Oscar说，怎么就你一个人，Mara呢？我们走吧。
Oscar问，mum，你签字了吗？
女郎看了我一眼，什么也没说，拉着Oscar离开了。

二号陌生人

我的工作，需要我每年不断的看演唱会和音乐会。

那几天正在沮丧期，工作的进展不如预期，又面对某一个vip人士给的选项，留在北京奋斗真的去另外一个地方过富足而平静的生活，犹豫而矛盾。
于是科尔家长说，想也想不出，我们去看演唱会吧。
硕大的工体，其实不怎么是我的菜的歌手，很多很多人聚集在一起，却依然让我觉得充满了距离感。
我们坐在第七排，而我注意到，有个矮小的女生，来来去去的在我身旁和前面晃，看了我很多次。盖斯基调侃我说，人家认得你哇。
后来，开场，几万人跟着帅哥鬼那么high，而我却完全置身事外，于是决定退场。终于，偶像开始唱慢歌的时候，我偷偷摸摸的往外蹭，准备去找来北京做唱片的Francis聊天去。
但也许因为我们坐在内场的最中间，因此磨磨蹭蹭了很久，才走到边上的出口，于是我就看到了二号小姐。
她头发短短的，一件白色的小tee和简单的牛仔裤，很安静的在万人的叫喊中对着我笑。她问我，你是闹闹吗？我说我是。
然后遇到一曲结束，在大家的尖声叫喊中，我完全听不到她在说什么，是很长的几句。
偶像中场讲话，略微安静一点的场地，二号小姐跟我说，我是你的读者。
每每遇到这种事情，其实我也不知道自己要回答什么，好像这种时候我就是个不怎么大方的人，就只是简单的说了个谢谢
那女孩说，我还记得你写过的那句王尔德说的话，“即使身处阴沟，也总有人看得到星星”，我会努力做那个可以看到星星的人……

在那场合，突然听到有陌生人说这句话，真的是……然后，她就递给我一个小东西说，我想送你个小礼物，可是真不好意思，我只能送你这个……然后她就跑开了

我手里，是一个做的笨笨的幸运星，而需要知道的是，那是拿那天演唱会的票外面的票卡折的……需要知道的是，我们都见过那种用来做票卡的纸，有多么的厚，而把那纸折成一个幸运星，又有多么的麻烦……

幸福的是，我是真的，就这样简单的，被你鼓励了。

我很喜欢那句话，因此会一次次写在我的博客里。而人生的一种幸运，就是你的信念，可以传递给对的人，并且一路被继续传递着。

三号陌生人

三号小朋友是最让我难忘的一枚。

遇到他是在我的故乡济南。不久前，回去看爸爸妈妈，而每次回济南，我最爱做的事情就是跟爸爸一起在周末早晨去逛英雄山的书市和旧货市场，买些有的没的好玩的东西，英雄山市场出来，延伸到新世界百货门口，是一大片自由摆摊和卖艺的人。远远的，我就听到很有些功力的唢呐声。循声走过去，远远就见一对爷孙样貌的老人和孩子，正在一片嘈杂的人群的脚边卖力表演，爸爸常常说我有职业病，只要遇到这种跟民间音乐相关的凡此种种，我是无论如何都要去看看的，因为只听声音就不难分辨，水准真的很不错，而且笙与唢呐，结合的完美。

大抵因为他们去的晚了，或者因为他们是外地人，所以没有什么好一些的位置可以留给他们，他们表演的地方，是一个行人如织的转角，即使你想停下来，除非很用力的挤过去，蹲下来，否则根本没可能停留。他们的面前，摆了一块破破的布，上面歪歪扭扭的写了他们的状况，那块布已经被来去的行人踩的乱七八糟了。

我用了好几分钟挤到前面，布上大约是说，孩子的爸爸是个复员军人，回村路上遇到车祸，残疾了。孩子妈妈之后就留下一家老小走掉了，而孩子的爷爷是个腿脚不便的老人，他们的生活没什么依靠，现在只有靠卖艺维持生计。但那段文字的最后，专门写到，只要有一线可能，爷爷还是会用卖艺的钱送孩子念点儿书……

那孩子，很矮小很矮小，看不出年纪。但笙却驾驭的非常好。你知道，中国的传统民间乐器，其实就像民间相声或戏曲一样，原本就应该是一代传一代，师傅带徒弟，爷爷教儿孙，这样传承下来的艺术，有一种原汁原味的地道，与学院派是截然不同的感觉。我真的是瞬间就被那孩子征服了。

听了两曲，我还想听，但环境不允许。蹲在那块布前面的我显然是挡了很多人的路，曲子中间有几度，我都被挤倒，跪在了地上，再勉强蹲起来，然后再被挤到……
不得已，我拿出200块钱，递给老爷爷说，你们演的真好，但我得走了……

爷爷激动的不知道怎么办好，大叫了一声，哎呦……这……这可怎么是好……
你知道，卖艺的人一直被我所尊重，除却因为他是像我们一样凭本事吃饭之外，还有一点，就是尊严，他们是不会因为你给了钱就给你磕头或者下跪的，他们就是为你表演，而当他的付出被认同的时候，他的欣喜与手足无措，却是让我心疼的

面对那个手足无措的爷爷，我匆忙离开，而，没走几步，我的衣服被拉了一下，回头看
居然是那个穿着蓝色破旧衣服，一脸严肃的小男孩，他拿着他的笙。

他小小一个人，掷地有声的跟我说，我爷爷说了，不能白拿人家的钱，我们刚才没演好。我得再给你演一段……
他说完，就立正站好，完全像一个演员在舞台上一样，就在新世界商城对面的公共汽车站牌下，很认真的为我吹起了笙……

真的，我无法写下我当时的震撼于澎湃，总之瞬间我的眼泪就奔了出来，而我必须忍住，忍住，因为他需要的不是同情，而是被尊重。不管周围的人怎么怪异的讨论，莫名的冷漠，或者谈论，我就定定的站在他对面，等他把一首曲子吹完，然后他给我鞠个躬，说，谢谢！就跑开了，完全不似一个孩子

而他一走开，我的眼泪，瞬间就飚了出来……

四号陌生人

很多年以来，几个大人带着我们几个年轻点儿的，一直在一起盖学校。从不到处说，也因为我们有着共识，说了就会有人骂你摆样子，就会有人觉得你做的不够，就会有人声称你要做更多，索性干脆不讲。

上个月末，我们在晋北的一所简单的小学落成，但尚未有家具课桌。这次排队排到我，于是赶去。结果我就关键时刻掉链子了，怨不得任何人的，我把背包掉在了县城里。坦白说，丢的钱不多，但却是最需要的钱，不跟木匠作坊结账，就没办法拉走课桌送去村子的小学校里，而最要命的是，我稀里马虎的，把手机、身份证、钱包、工作证等等所有重要的东西通通都丢了，连个电话都没办法打。于是站在脏兮兮的招待所门口，无助的哭了……

四号陌生人出现了，是一个胖胖的中年男，后来知道，他是天津人，做矿的。去那座晋北小城，是因为他的一个矿出了事故，他亲自去安抚其中一个家在那座小城的事故矿工的家属。他坐着一辆在那座土黄色想小城里看起来如此高级的奥迪车，缓缓开过我站的招待所门口，大约是看到一个站在门口哭的稀里哗啦的女生吧，于是停车，走过来问我，是怎么了。而我也顾不得什么其他，大致说了下，但鼻涕一把泪一把，也就没什么逻辑，就一直说对不起孩子们，校长还在等我的课桌，我还没给他们救助的伙食费，都是我不好，等等等等。

四号先生用一根烟的功夫听完，扔掉烟头，然后一边取钱包一边问我，你从北京来的吧，志愿者吧……就这样，他给了我1200块钱，然后走到车上，对着窗口说了几句，里面就递出一支电话。他走回来，把电话给我，然后说，只能先给你这么多，剩下的你还是得自己想办法的。再给你个手机，你试着联系联系你们北京的人吧，先应急再说。

然后他看我也不是个会说话的人，好像我们也没什么可说的，于是就上车走了。过了半晌，我才反应过来，我是遇到一位煤老板，而我连他的名字都不知道……

用他给的电话，我联络了北京的前辈，前辈联系了太原的哥们，送钱送物，解救了我，而他给的1200块钱，也确实在最需要的时候搭救了我一把。顺便说一嘴，其实盖学校或买课桌椅这件事，在广大的中国农村，还是很廉价的。晋北的学校，五大间+全部课桌椅，不过7万人民币……

回北京的车上，我仔细的翻阅过那支很旧的手机，好像他们是来自山西榆次的，因为里面有好几个当地号码的固定电话，但我却无法知道他的名字。我一直等待那位帮我过的四号陌生人再打来，但却从未。不久之后，一位中年男打给我，号称是电话的机主，请我快递回去给他，并告诉我们，他的老板也去了那所学校，捐了2000本书，并且告诉我那次的邂逅是因为他去处理事故遇到的矿工家属，而至于名字，他却从未对我说过。

至此，四号陌生人的故事，也就结束了，一样的，我想我很难再遇到他。

对于北京人来说，很难想象距离你100公里的北京郊区就会有山区的农民穷到年收入500元，也很难想象仅仅就在山西北京交界处不远，沿着古长城的村落，就有人穷到一家一条完好的裤子，谁出门谁穿，这些，听起来都太像传奇，太像故事了。人就是这样的，总认为贫困距离自己很远，总是用一种居高临下的施舍的态度去面对那些其实距离你不过几十几百公里的活生生的存在。

人人都愿意去指责那些富人，一听到煤老板就觉得都是人渣，赚的是沾着人血的钱，而我们身处的现实世界里，是不是富人都是从不做好事的冷血动物？当你知道几十亿的救灾捐款都去了哪儿的时候，你还会为当年王石坚决不肯向红十字会捐款而遭受的种种指责投赞成票吗？

每个人，对我们身处的世界都充满着不满，但重点是，在指责和批判以外，我们是不是可以身体力行的做一点事情。假如，一个富人做了，那不管他的资本积累是怎样完成的，也不管他捐出来的钱占到他财产比例有多么小，只要他做了，那至少在这一点上面，他就比那些什么都不做，但一直在抱怨和指责、挑毛病的普通人，来的有意义与有价值。

在周周的第一本书里，他选来写序的朋友有段超精彩的话：“他坚信一件事，穿着Prada， 戴着劳力士，并不妨碍内心仰望星空，也不会迷失在选择的面前。世俗生活和精神生活不应该被划分的那么明确，它们并不相悖，如果世间的万物平等，那么它们都闪烁着本质的光芒。”这几句话，是我想说的。

叔本华说，我即他人，人皆众生。

Nownow 完稿于首都机场。

http://nownow.blogbus.com/logs/45452083.html#tb

2004 年6月，我去哈佛大学当了三个多月的访问学者，肯尼迪学院为我安排的住处就在查尔斯河边上，每当日落，我都会一个人去河畔的草地上散步。

河水很清缓，岸边的乱石都没有经过修饰，河上的石桥一点也不起眼，三百多年来，这里的风景应该都没有太大的变化。我每次走在那里，总会浮生出很多奇妙的感觉，我在想，这个河边，这些桥上，曾经走过34 位诺贝尔奖得主、七个美国总统，他们在注视这些风景的时候大概都不过三十岁，那一刻，他们心里到底在憧憬一些什么？

我还常常想起那个影响我走上职业记者道路的美国人。1908年，正在哈佛读二年级的沃尔特·李普曼就住在查尔斯河畔的某一座学生公寓，一个春天的早晨，他忽然听到有人敲房门。他打开门，发现一位银须白发的老者正微笑地站在门外，老人自我介绍：“我是哲学教授威廉·詹姆斯，我想我还是顺路来看看，告诉你我是多么欣赏你昨天写的那篇文章。” 我是十八年前，在复旦大学的图书馆里读罗纳德·斯蒂尔那本厚厚的《李普曼传》时遇到这个细节的，那天夜晚，它象一颗梦想的种子不经意掉进了我未尚翻耕过的心土中。

在从此的很多年里，我一直沉浸在李普曼式的幻觉中。我幻想能够象李普曼那样的知识渊博，所以我在大学图书馆里“住”了四年，我的读书方法是最傻的那种，就是按书柜排列一排一排地把书读下去；我幻想成为一名李普曼式的记者，在一个动荡转型的大时代，用自己的思考传递出最理性的声音，我进入了中国最大的通讯社，在六年时间里我几乎跑遍中国的所有省份；我幻想自己象李普曼那样的勤奋，他写了36年的专栏，一生写下14000篇文章，单是这两个数字就让人肃然起敬，我也在报纸上开出了自己的专栏，并逼着自己每年写作一本书；我还幻想象李普曼那样的名满天下，他读大学的时候就被同学戏称是“未来的美国总统”，26岁那年，正在创办《新共和》杂志的他碰到罗斯福总统，总统笑着说，“我早就知道你了，你是全美三十岁以下最著名的男士”。

你很难拒绝李普曼式的人生。任何一个行业中，必定会有这么一到两个让你想想就很兴奋的大师人物，他们远远地走在前面，背影飘渺而伟岸，让懵懵懂懂的后来者不乏追随的勇气和梦想。

当然，我没有成为李普曼，而且看上去将终生不会。

我遇到了一个没有精神生活的物质时代。财富的暴发成为人们唯一的生存追逐，没有人有兴趣聆听那些虚无空洞的公共议题，如果李普曼的《新共和》诞生在今日中国，销售量大概不会超过2000册，社会价值的物质性趋同让这个国家的知识分子成为最边缘、最被扭曲和受冷淡的一个族群。

我所在的传媒机构是一个“消息总汇”，它要求自己的记者汇总新闻而不可多做评论，在更多的时候它甚至鼓励记者去采集一些先验式的、“激励”人的经验报道。这里没有李普曼的新闻传统和传播土壤，思想在一条预先设定好的坚壁的峡谷中尴尬穿行，新闻沦为意识形态的弄臣。

我没有办法摆脱自我的胆怯和生活的压迫。我躲在一个风景优美的江南城市里，早早地娶妻生子，我把职业当成谋生和富足的手段。我让自己成为一个“商业作家”，在看上去舆论风险并不太大的商业圈里挥霍自己的理想。李普曼写给大学同学、也是一位伟大记者约翰·里德――他写出过《改变世界的十天》――的一句话常常被我用来做自我安慰：“我们都成了精神上的移民。”

这些年来，我偶尔回头翻看李普曼的文字会坐立不安。这个天才横溢的家伙著述等身，但被翻译到中国却只有一本薄薄的《公众舆论》，这是他32岁时的作品。在这本册子中，他论证了“公众舆论”的脆弱、摇摆和不可信任。他指出，现代社会的复杂和规模使得一般人难以对它有清楚的把握。现代人一般从事某种单一的工作，整天忙于生计，既没有时间也没有心思去深度关切他们的生活世界。他们很少认真涉入公众事务讨论。他们遇事往往凭印象、凭成见、凭常识来形成意见。正因如此，社会需要传媒和一些精英分子来梳理时政，来抵抗政治力量对公众盲视的利用。这些声音听起来由陌生而熟悉，渐渐的越来越刺耳，现在我把它抄录在这里，简直听得到思想厉鬼般的尖叫声。

尽管遥不可及，但这个人让我终身无法摆脱。我常常会很好奇地思考这个国家的走向与一代人的使命――这或许是李普曼留给我们这些人的最后一点“遗产”，我们总是不由自主地沉浸在大历史的苦思中而不能自拔 ――当物质的繁荣到达一定阶段、当贫富的落差足以让社会转入另外一种衍变型态的时候，我们是否已经储备了足够的人才和理论去应对一切的挑战？我们对思想的鄙视、对文化的漠然、对反省精神的抗拒，将在什么时候受到惩罚和报应？对于生活在这个时代的个人来讲，这都是一些没有办法回答的问题。我曾在哈佛燕京学社向著名的儒学家杜维明先生请教，“一旦精神真空的社会发生思想危机的时候，谁将成为最有力的拯救力量？”那天的午后阳光很好，杜先生请吃的自助西餐很合口，但是离开的时候我还是一派茫然。

这两年来，我把自己的时间大半都投入到中国企业史的梳理和写作中，我想在这个极其庞杂却并不辽阔的课题里寻找一些答案出来。我想静下心来做一点事，为后来者的反思和清算预留一些略成体系的素材，我还企图证明，这个社会的很多密码和潜流可能会淹没在中国经济和公司成长的长河中。我已经决定在四十岁的时候结束我的职业生涯，然后以一种更旁观的身份来观察和记录这个时代。在我的生命中，李普曼式的梦想早已烟消云散，唯留下的只有一些听上去很遥远、却让人在某些时刻会产生坚定心的声音。1959年9月22日，李普曼在他的70岁生日宴会上说――

“我们以由表及里、由近及远的探求为己任，我们去推敲、去归纳、去想象和推测内部正在发生什么事情，它昨天意味着什么，明天又可能意味着什么。在这里，我们所做的只是每个主权公民应该做的事情，只不过其他人没有时间和兴趣来做罢了。这就是我们的职业，一个不简单的职业。我们有权为之感到自豪，我们有权为之感到高兴，因为这是我们的工作。”

“因为这是我们的工作。”

十八年前，一个叫吴晓波的中国青年读到李普曼和他说过的这段文字。十八年来，时光让无数梦想破碎，让很多河流改道，让数不清的青春流离失所，却只有它还在星空下微弱地闪光。

在新华待了将近19个月之后终于拿到了聘书，大约意味着可以转正定级了吧。

这样，我便可以名正言顺地在这里消磨4年多的光阴，然后站在二十几岁的尾巴尖儿上，迎接三字开头的岁月。

一、人之所以痛苦，在于追求错误的东西。　
二、与其说是别人让你痛苦，不如说自己的修养不够。　
三、如果你不给自己烦恼，别人也永远不可能给你烦恼。因为你自己的内心，你放不下。
四、好好的管教你自己，不要管别人。　
五、不宽恕众生，不原谅众生，是苦了你自己。　
六、别说别人可怜，自己更可怜，自己修行又如何？自己又懂得人生多少？　
七、学佛是对自己的良心交待，不是做给别人看的。　
八、福报不够的人，就会常常听到是非；福报够的人，从来就没听到过是非。　
九、修行是点滴的工夫。　
十、在顺境中修行，永远不能成佛。
十一、你永远要感谢给你逆境的众生。
十二、你随时要认命，因为你是人。
十三、你永远要宽恕众生，不论他有多坏，甚至他伤害过你，你一定要放下，才能得到真正的快乐。
十四、这个世界本来就是痛苦的，没有例外的。　
十五、当你快乐时，你要想，这快乐不是永恒的。当你痛苦时你要想这痛苦也不是永恒的。
十六、认识自己，降伏自己，改变自己，才能改变别人。
十七、今日的执著，会造成明日的后悔。
十八、你可以拥有爱，但不要执著，因为分离是必然的。
十九、不要浪费你的生命在你一定会后悔的地方上。
二十、你什么时候放下，什么时候就没有烦恼。
二一、内心没有分别心，就是真正的苦行。
二二、学佛第一个观念，永远不去看众生的过错。你看众生的过错，你永远污染你自己，你根本不可能修行。
二三、你每天若看见众生的过失和是非，你就要赶快去忏悔，这就是修行
二四、业障深重的人，一天到晚都在看别人的过失与缺点，真正修行的人，从不会去看别人的过失与缺点。
二五、每一种创伤，都是一种成熟。
二六、当你知道迷惑时，并不可怜， 当你不知道迷惑时，才是最可怜的。
二七、狂妄的人有救，自卑的人没有救。
二八、你不要一直不满人家，你应该一直检讨自己才对。不满人家，是苦了你自己。
二九、一切恶法，本是虚妄的，你不要太自卑你自己。一切善法，也是虚妄的，你也不要太狂妄你自己。
三十、当你烦恼的时候，你就要告诉你自己，这一切都是假的，你烦恼什么？　　
三一、当你未学佛的时候，你看什么都不顺。当你学佛以后，你要看什么都很顺。
三二、你要包容那些意见跟你不同的人，这样子日子比较好过。你要是一直想改变他，那样子你会很痛苦。要学学怎样忍受他才是。你要学学怎样包容他才是。
三三、承认自己的伟大，就是认同自己的愚疑。
三四、修行就是修正自己错误的观念。
三五、医生难医命终之人，佛陀难渡无缘的众生。
三六、一个人如果不能从内心去原谅别人，那他就永远不会心安理得。
三七、心中装满着自己的看法与想法的人，永远听不见别人的心声。
三八、毁灭人只要一句话，培植一个人却要千句话，请你多口下留情。
三九、当你劝告别人时，若不顾及别人的自尊心，那么再好的言语都没有用的。
四十、不要在你的智慧中夹杂着傲慢。不要使你的谦虚心缺乏智慧。
四一、根本不必回头去看咒骂你的人是谁？如果有一条疯狗咬你一口，难道你也要趴下去反咬他一口吗？
四二、忌妒别人，不会给自己增加任何的好处。忌妒别人，也不可能减少别人的成就。
四三、永远不要浪费你的一分一秒，去想任何你不喜欢的人。
四四、多少人要离开这个世间时，都会说出同一句话，这世界真是无奈与凄凉啊！
四五、恋爱不是慈善事业，不能随便施舍的。感情是没有公式，没有原则，没有道理可循的。可是人们至死都还在执著与追求。
四六、请你用慈悲心和温和的态度，把你的不满与委屈说出来，别人就容易接受。
四七、创造机会的人是勇者。等待机会的人是愚者。
四八、能说不能行，不是真智慧。
四九、多用心去倾听别人怎么说，不要急着表达你自己的看法。
五十、同样的瓶子，你为什么要装毒药呢？同样的心理，你为什么要充满着烦恼呢？
五一、得不到的东西，我们会一直以为他是美好的，那是因为你对他了解太少，没有时间与他相处在一起。当有一天，你深入了解后，你会发现原不是你想像中的那么美好。
五二、这个世间只有圆滑，没有圆满的。
五三、修行要有耐性，要能甘于淡泊，乐于寂寞。
五四、活着一天，就是有福气，就该珍惜。当我哭泣我没有鞋子穿的时候，我发现有人却没有脚。
五五、多一分心力去注意别人，就少一分心力反省自己，你懂吗？
五六、眼睛不要老是睁得那么大，我且问你，百年以后，那一样是你的。
五七、欲知世上刀兵劫，但听屠门夜半声。不要光埋怨自己多病，灾祸横生，多看看横死在你刀下的众生又有多少？
五八、憎恨别人对自己是一种很大的损失。
五九、每一个人都拥有生命，但并非每个人都懂得生命，乃至于珍惜生命。不了解生命的人，生命对他来说，是一种惩罚。
六十、自以为拥有财富的人，其实是被财富所拥有。
六一、情执是苦恼的原因，放下情执，你才能得到自在。
六二、随缘不是得过且过，因循苟且，而是尽人事听天命。
六三、不要太肯定自己的看法，这样子比较少后悔。
***、当你对自己诚实的时候，世界上没有人能够欺骗得了你。
六五、用伤害别人的手段来掩饰自己缺点的人，是可耻的。
六六、世间的人要对法律负责任。修行的人要对因果负责任。
六七、在你贫穷的时候，那你就用身体去布施，譬如说扫地、洒水、搬东西等，这也是一种布施。
六八、内心充满忌妒，心中不坦白，言语不正的人，不能算是一位五官端正的人。
六九、默默的关怀与祝福别人，那是一种无形的布施。
七十、多讲点笑话，以幽默的态度处事，这样子日子会好过一点。
七一、与人相处之道，在于无限的容忍。
七二、不要刻意去猜测他人的想法，如果你没有智慧与经验的正确判断，通常都会有错误的。
七三、要了解一个人，只需要看他的出发点与目的地是否相同，就可以知道他是否真心的。
七四、人生的真理，只是藏在平淡无味之中。
七五、不洗澡的人，硬擦香水是不会香的。名声与尊贵，是来自于真才实学的。有德自然香。
七六、与其你去排斥它已成的事实，你不如去接受它，这个叫做认命。
七七、佛菩萨只保佑那些肯帮助自己的人。
七八、逆境是成长必经的过程，能勇于接受逆境的人，生命就会日渐的茁壮。
七九、你要感谢告诉你缺点的人