The City That Never Sleeps
不夜城
I grew up in a small town where the streets were empty by nine in the evening. Last winter I visited a big city for the first time, and the difference surprised me more than I expected.
我在一个小镇长大，那里晚上九点街上就空了。去年冬天我第一次去大城市，差异比我预想的更让我吃惊。
At midnight the underground was still full of people carrying shopping bags and tired faces. A woman next to me was eating noodles standing up, because she had no time to sit down.
午夜时分，地铁里仍挤满了提着购物袋、一脸疲惫的人。我旁边一位女士站着吃面，因为她没时间坐下来。
In my town, night means silence and closed shutters; here it means another working shift. Both ways of living have their own price, and neither is simply better than the other.
在我的小镇，夜晚意味着安静和关上的百叶窗；在这里，它意味着另一个班次。两种生活方式各有代价，都不能简单地说哪一种更好。
What impressed me most was not the lights but the loneliness that can exist inside a crowd. A city gives you a thousand chances to meet people, and just as many chances to stay unknown.
最让我触动的不是灯光，而是人群之中也可能存在的孤独。城市给你一千次遇见别人的机会，也给你同样多的机会继续做一个陌生人。