Wall-less campuses friendly to a more open society
无墙校园有利于更开放的社会
Walls are no stranger to the Chinese people in the long history. They built walls by piling up stones, hay and mud in layers to protect their villages from animal attacks; they built solid city walls to protect residents from bandits and invaders; they built the Great Wall to defend their country against foreign invasions.
历史长河中，墙对于中国人来说并不陌生。他们用石头、干草和泥土层层堆砌筑墙，保护村庄免受动物袭击；他们建造坚固的城墙来保护居民，抵御强盗和侵略者；他们修建长城来保卫祖国免受外部侵略。
The "wall culture" continues. Big budgets are made to build walls when constructing a university, school, hospital, a residential complex or even a public park. So influenced was I by the "wall culture" that the first time I went to study abroad 40 years ago, I was shocked to find that my university was not encircled by walls — nor were the hospitals, residential compounds or parks.
“墙文化”仍在继续。在建造大学、学校、医院、住宅区甚至公园时，都会花费大量预算来修建围墙。我深受“墙文化”的影响，40年前第一次出国留学时，我惊讶地发现大学竟然没有围墙，就连医院、小区、公园也没有。
My memory was still fresh about my schooldays when I had to climb over two "unnecessary" earthen soil walls in order to take a shortcut to school.
我对学生时代的记忆犹新，当时我必须翻过两道“不必要的”土墙才能抄近道去学校。
Building wall-less campuses and housing complexes has been continuing for two generations in China and is finally bearing fruits. It is reported that a number of new universities and new branches of existing universities have no boundary walls, while many other universities have replaced their walls with fences.
中国拆除校园和住宅小区围墙的运动已经持续了两代人之久，终于有所成效。 据报道，很多新大学和现有大学的新分校没有围墙，而许多其他大学则用围栏取代了围墙。
Peking University and Tsinghua University, China's top two academic institutions, however, should be thankful to their century-old solid stone walls that prevented their campuses from being turned into Black Friday sales venues. So many people want to visit their campuses nowadays that they have introduced an appointment-only entrance system to make sure that their campuses are still dominated by their students and faculty members, not visitors.
然而，中国顶尖的两所大学北京大学和清华大学应该感谢它们有百年历史的坚固石墙，它们的校园从而没有变成“黑色星期五大卖场”。如今，很多人想要参观清北校园，因此两校启用了预约入场系统，这样校园仍然以学生和教职员工为主，而不是游客。
Most universities still have their boundary walls intact, though, because most university administrations don't want to bring down the boundary walls because they feel it would threaten campus security and increase administrative cost — and replacing the existing walls with fences requires a lot of money.
不过，大多数大学的围墙屹立不倒，因为大多数大学管理部门不想拆除围墙，他们认为这会威胁校园安全，而且增加管理成本，用围栏替换现有围墙需要大量资金 。
Walls around community squares and public parks in cities have now given way to iron fences. In some cities, even the fences have been dismantled. When a couple of years ago Beijing took the lead in dismantling the iron fences guarding its free public parks, I was worried that the fruits and flowers on the trees and plants would be stolen overnight and the well-maintained lawns could be trampled by pedestrians within a few days.
城市社区广场和公园周围的围墙现已被铁栅栏所取代，而且在一些城市甚至连围栏都被拆除了。几年前，当北京率先拆除免费公园的铁栅栏时，我担心树木和植物上的水果和花朵会在一夜之间被偷走，维护良好的草坪会在几天之内被行人践踏。
That did not happen, indicating that urban dwellers know what is good, and what is not, for their city and its people. They can also help ensure us a safe and colorful life without walls — be they mental or physical.
但这并没有发生，这说明城市居民是知道是非曲直的。这些公园确保我们的生活安全而多彩，没有围墙的束缚——无论是精神上的还是身体上的。
