长城到底有多长?

There are reports that you found portions of the Great Wall outside China.
《华尔街日报》：有报道说你在中国境外找到了长城遗址。

To explain my findings of 2011, I coined a new term: 'Great Wall outside China.' Which is a compromise. It's a recognition that the structure being seen is a great wall─it's a fortification built during the conflict between the nomadic people of the north and the sedentary crop-growing people of the south. But it's outside today's China.
林赛：为解释我在2011年的发现，我造了一个新短语：“中国以外的长城”（Great Wall outside China）。这是一种折中的说法。我所看到的建筑物的确是长城，它是北方游牧民族和南方农耕民族发生冲突时期修建的堡垒，但它又不在现在的中国境内。

How can they still be finding parts of the Great Wall today?
《华尔街日报》：那怎么还有人继续发现新的长城呢？

I would rephrase it. Last year I never claimed to have discovered a section of the Great Wall. I evidenced the existence of a section of Great Wall built by a dynasty not previously known to have built a Great Wall.
林赛：我重新表述一下。去年我从未宣称自己发现了一段长城。我证明的是某个朝代所修建的一段长城的存在，而我们之前以为这个朝代没有修建过长城。

How did you do that?
《华尔街日报》：你是怎么发现的？

Thumbing through an atlas of Mongolia, I saw a symbol for what looked like the wall, but when I checked it out in the legend, it was not the Great Wall of China. Of course, how could it be─it was in Mongolia. It was the wall of Genghis Khan. And then eventually I looked on Google Earth and found this faint line crossing the south Gobi. So first of all, it's on the map, so obviously I didn't discover it. But I'm the first researcher that went there, and going there is not easy. It's the heart of the Gobi.
林赛：在翻看一本蒙古地图册的时候，我发现了一个像长城的符号，但我在图例中查找时，却发现它并不是中国长城。当然，怎么可能是呢，它是在蒙古境内。它是成吉思汗长城。最后我在Google Earth上发现了这条穿越戈壁滩南部的模糊线条。因此它本来就在地图上，但我没有发现它。不过我是第一个到达那里的研究者，而且去那里很不容易。那是戈壁滩的心脏地带。

Didn't you risk your life in one expedition?
《华尔街日报》：你这不是为了一次考察冒生命危险吗？

It turned out that way. Just a year before, I had made a documentary, and I wanted to take viewers of the documentary to one of the rarest parts of the wall, dating from 110 B.C.
林赛：结果确实是这样。就在一年前，我做了一部纪录片，我希望把这部片子的观众带到从公元前110年就开始存在的这段最人迹罕至的长城。

We couldn't get there with vehicles, because there were dried-up watercourses, wadis, very deep, preventing vehicle access. I was going in with a crew of filmmakers carrying equipment, and some of the members of the crew ignored my caution to take 10 bottles. It transpired halfway through this filming sequence that many people only set off with two or three bottles of water, so those with the water had to share it out, and that meant everyone was short of water on the return trek. People started suffering from cramps, collapsing with the heat, and eventually we decided on a rescue plan: Me, my assistant and the cameraman would continue on trying to get to the road and organizing a rescue, while the others waited.
我们没法开车去，因为有很多干涸的河道，旱谷非常深，车没法通过。我是跟一个带着设备的拍摄团队一起进去的，有些队员不听我的劝告，没有带够10瓶水。拍到一半的时候，发现很多人出发时只带了两三瓶水，所以有水的人就得分一些出去，这就意味着在回来的路上每个人的水都不够。有人开始抽筋，中暑晕厥，最后我们商量出了一个营救计划：我和我的助手还有摄影师继续努力向公路进发并组织营救，其他人原地等待。

The temperature reached 46 degrees Celsius in the late afternoon. I don't want to come that close to death anymore.
当天下午晚些时候气温达到了46摄氏度。我再也不想离死神那么近了。