鑽石舞台

So what you're seeing here are pearl ponds in rural Zhejiang.And on the day that I visited, the owner of these ponds was surprised that anyone outside of her town, let alone the pearl farming business,would want to know more about these ponds.70 percent of the world's pearls are cultured and produced here.And so each of these mussels, they contain 40 to 50 pearls.

你現在看到的是浙江農村的珍珠池塘。我去參觀的那天，這些池塘的主人驚訝地發現，不光是從事珍珠養殖業的人，連小鎮外的人，都想要對這些池塘有更多地了解。世界上70%的珍珠都是在這裡培育和生產的。每個貽貝都含有40到50顆珍珠。

And the higher end ones are taken out, sold as jewelry, and the lower end pearls are actually extracted, put into smaller oysters, vacuum sealed,preserved in formaldehyde and shipped off all the way to places like rural Indiana for online pearl parties where thousands of people sit watching these oysters being cracked open in real time.

高質量的珍珠被拿出來，作為珠寶出售，低質量的珍珠被提取出來，真空密封在較小的牡蠣中，這些牡蠣被保存在甲醛中，並被運往印第安納州農村等地，在線上珍珠派對上被展示，成千上萬的人們看着這些牡蠣被打開。

Online pearl parties are truly an internet-enabled phenomena, growing out of platforms like Facebook and Instagram.Because on the internet, no one can tell just how bad these oysters smell.When we think of tech, we often think of cities.Places like San Francisco or Shenzhen, where tech is built and visibly part of everyday life.Rarely do we think of the countryside, and when we do, it's as a place that's lacking tech, that's lacking digital media literacy,and we see the rural as backward.

線上珍珠派對是一種互聯網現象，起源於Facebook和Instagram等平台。因為在互聯網上，沒有人知道這些牡蠣有多難聞。當我們想到科技時，我們經常會想到城市。科技在像舊金山或深圳這樣的地方誕生，成為日常生活的一部分。我們很少想到農村，當我們想到農村時，就會想到缺乏技術、缺乏數字媒體素養，我們認為農村地區是落後的。

Yet the pearl-producing towns of Zhejiang and places in rural Indiana, where online pearl parties flourish, they don't just exist as an afterthought,waiting to become cities one day.As online pearl parties show, rural China and rural America are connected in unexpected ways.And these connections need to be more than ones of economic growth.There's numerous stories like this.

然而，在浙江和印第安納州農村的一些產珍珠的城鎮，在線珍珠聚會盛行，這些存在並不是想要實現城市化後知後覺的表現。正如在線珍珠聚會所展示的那樣，中國農村和美國農村以一種意想不到的方式聯繫在一起。而這些聯繫需要的不僅僅是經濟增長的聯繫。像這樣的故事不勝枚舉。

Whether it's rural families manufacturing for online lifestyle brands in the US or influencers in rural China cashing in by making livestream videos of themselves pulling noodles,eating chili peppers, picking tea and, my favorite, hunting bamboo rats.There's whole pockets of e-commerce, whether on Amazon or Taobao, that are sourced from rural manufacturers in China, made by families.

無論是美國的農村家庭為在線生活方式品牌生產產品，還是中國農村的網紅通過製作自己拉麵、吃辣椒，採茶，還有我最喜歡的捕獵竹鼠的直播視頻來賺錢。無論是在亞馬遜(Amazon)還是淘寶(Taobao)上，都有大量來自中國農村的以家庭為單位的電子商務製造商。

So this one family workshop that I visited was fairly typical, with a husband and wife making Halloween costumes for export,while the 90-year-old matriarch looked on, sifting through plastic packaging for shipping.And across the US and China, I've seen similar dynamics:rural areas becoming home to data centers, e-commerce warehouses, rare earth mines.

我參觀的這個家庭作坊相當典型，有一對夫妻在製作出口的萬聖節服裝，而這位90歲的女族長則在一旁看着，篩選着要發貨的塑料包裝。在美國和中國各地，我也看到了類似的動態:農村地區成為數據中心、電子商務倉庫和稀土礦的所在地。

And ... also top-down entrepreneurship initiatives, like this free range chicken farmer that I met,who is using chicken biometrics tracking and blockchain to improve supply chain transparency.At a larger scale, rural areas are connected through global market forces.Whether it's soybeans grown in Brazil, shipped all the way to industrial hog farms in southern China,or America's biggest pork player, Smithfield, being acquired by a Chinese pork company.

還有自上而下的創業計劃的所在地，比如我遇到的這個自由放養的雞農，他正在使用雞肉生物識別跟蹤和區塊鏈來提高供應鏈的透明度。在更大的範圍內，農村地區通過全球市場力量聯繫在一起。無論是在巴西種植的大豆，被運往中國南方的工業養豬場，還是被中國豬肉公司收購的美國最大的豬肉生產商史密斯菲爾德(Smithfield)。

And even the process of hog farming itself is becoming high tech.NetEase, one of the world's largest online gaming companies, now has its own hog farms, and Alibaba, the internet giant,is now partnering with farms to use AI and computer vision in order to create a highly optimized pig.Because the idea being, AI and computer vision will help scale up pork production to an unprecedented level,meeting the demands of a rising middle class.

甚至養豬的過程本身也變得高科技起來。全球最大的在線遊戲公司之一網易公司現在擁有了自己的養豬場，互聯網巨頭阿里巴巴，現在正在與養殖場合作，使用人工智能和計算機視覺來打造一種高度優化的豬。這個想法是，人工智能和計算機視覺將幫助擴大豬肉生產到一個前所未有的水平，以滿足日益增長的中產階級的需求。

So what happens when tech and the countryside intersect?Well, in my travels, I've talked to owners of large farms who see their work as one of inputs, outputs, land value and land ownership.I've also talked to small farmers who frame their work as one of ecology and stewardship.That their land is a place of relations.It's exactly this ecological framing that reminds us that to see and understand the countryside is a crucial part of moving towards a more livable future for everyone.

那麼，當科技和鄉村相交時會發生什麼呢？在我的旅行中，我曾與一些大型農場的所有者交談過，他們將自己的工作視為一種投入、產出、土地價值和土地所有權。我還和一些小農戶談過，他們把自己的工作定位為生態和管理工作。他們的土地是一個有着密切聯繫的地方。正是這種生態框架提醒着我們，看到和理解鄉村是每個人邁向更宜居未來的關鍵部分。

Because the tech that we imagine as urbanites to be solutions, things like online coding classes for farmers or, you know, factory work in cities,all of these are still framed as one-way relationships, with tech supposedly benefiting rural areas.But when we think of something like AI farming pigs at an unprecedented scale or small farmers turning their land into pearl ponds,it's not because tech has found a solution.

因為我們想象中的技術是把城市看作解決方案，比如為農民和農名工提供在線課程，所有這些仍被框定為單向關係，科技理應惠及農村地區。但當我們想到人工智能以前所未有的規模養殖豬或小農戶將他們的土地變成珍珠池這樣的事情時，這並不是因為科技公司已經找到了解決方案。

These small farmers turn their land into pearl ponds because they can't compete at a global scale against industrial farms who are using automation,chemicals and pesticides.So tracing these moments in rural tech reveals how so much of the technology we do build centers our consumption and our entertainment in cities.Besides, some of the most thoughtful, careful innovation is not happening in a place like Silicon Valley or San Francisco,but in places outside of them.

這些小農場主將他們的土地變成了珍珠池塘，因為他們無法在全球規模上，與使用自動化、化學品和殺蟲劑的工業化農場競爭。因此，追蹤農村科技的這些時刻也揭示了我們的科技是如何在城市中建立我們的消費和娛樂中心的。此外，一些最深思熟慮、最周密的創新並不是發生在硅谷或舊金山這樣的地方，而是在它們之外的地方。

Like Yangguang, a rice farming village four hours outside of Guangzhou.For years, the local agricultural bureau had worked with farmers to implement chemical fertilizers, chemical pesticides, industrial farm machinery.And so they did this, and they noticed a decline in their soil quality under these modern protocols.So the villagers took things into their own hands.So they do rice farming, and rice farming is mountain terraced.

像楊崗，一個離廣州四小時車程的水稻種植村。多年來，當地農業局一直與農民合作，實施化肥、化學農藥、工業農機。他們這樣做了後注意到在這些現代方式下，他們的土壤質量下降了。因此，村民們決定自己搞定這些。所以他們種植水稻，而水稻種植是在山區梯田上進行的。

So it's a form of natural irrigation, with water flowing from top to bottom.The village changed their governance structure so that stewardship of the rice paddies would change every few years via a lottery system,which also meant you wouldn't have contiguous paddies.So if you sprayed pesticides or dammed off water at the top, you might be affecting yours or your neighbor's paddy lower down.

所以這是一種自然灌溉，水從上到下流動。這個村莊改變了他們的管理結構，每隔幾年稻田的管理工作就會通過抽籤制度改變，這也意味着你不會有相鄰的稻田。如果你在頂部噴灑殺蟲劑或堵住水壩，你可能會影響到你或你鄰居的水稻。

They also started practicing organic farming and building their own farm machinery with the help of local blacksmiths.They also started selling their rice online.And while tech helped this village steward their land, it was really people, not tech, at the helm of decision-making.And so it's exactly this approach, without boundaries, without ambitions to scale, that reminds us of the humility and innovation,its ability to change political and social structures.

他們還開始實踐有機耕作，並在當地鐵匠的幫助下建造自己的農業機械。他們還開始在網上出售大米。雖然科技幫助這個村莊管理着他們的土地，但真正掌管決策的是人，而不是科技。因此，正是這種方法，沒有邊界，沒有擴大規模的雄心，讓我們想起了謙遜和創新，它有能力改變政治和社會結構。

We have to see the tech that we build as affecting a set of relations, ecologies and environments.Because innovation in this village is literally an ecosystem, one that doesn't scale across thousands of users but across the spectrum of time,regenerating the soil and community ties from one planting season to the next.And for that, you don't need a legion of engineers, millions of users or VC funding.

我們必須看到，我們建立的技術正在影響一系列關係、生態和環境。因為這個村莊的創新實際上是一個生態系統，一個不是跨越數千用戶而是跨越時間光譜的生態系統，從一個種植季節到下一個種植季節，更新土壤和社區關係。要做到這一點，你不需要大量的工程師、數百萬用戶或風投資金。

Thank you.

謝謝。