A car went to battle with a golden railing the other day in Beijing. The railing won.
不久前，一辆轿车撞上了北京长安街上的金色护栏。护栏完好无损。At around lunchTime Tuesday, a driver was heading along Beijing's iconic Chang'an Avenue near Jianguomen, not far from Tiananmen Square, in a Volkswagen Magotan sedan. Suddenly, the car got a flat and crashed into a traffic railing in the middle of the road, according to the Beijing Morning Post.
中国媒体对护栏的抗冲击性能感到惊讶。据《北京晨报》报道，本周二中午时分，在距天安门广场不远的建国门附近，一名司机驾驶大众迈腾(Volkswagen Magotan)轿车沿长安街行驶时突然爆胎，撞上了路中间的交通护栏。Unfortunately for the driver, this was not the ordinary white fencing that local governments in many Chinese towns install to discourage bad behavior by motorists, such as unexpected U-turns and abrupt lurches into oncoming traffic.
对司机来说，很不幸的是，这并不是在中国很多城镇都可以看到的普通白色护栏。这种白色护栏主要是为了防止随意调头、突然驶入逆向车道等不良驾驶行为。
The gold-painted railing, which was installed in April and is engraved with lotus flowers, was made from special anti-collision materials that rendered it almost impervious to damage.
今年4月份安装的长安街金色护栏雕有莲花图案，由特殊防撞材料制成，几乎不会受到任何损害。The same couldn't be said for the car. Images uploaded to the Internet show its left side so torn up it looked like it had been put through some giant paper shredder. A spokeswoman for Volkswagen in China said Thursday the company would look into the incident.
撞上护栏的这辆轿车就没有这么幸运了。上传到网上的照片显示，这辆车的左侧受损严重，看起来就像是从某个巨型碎纸机中穿过。大众在中国的发言人周四表示，公司将对这起事故进行调查。Police told Beijing Morning Post reporters that one of the bars of the railing was slightly bent, but that it was hardly noticeable. The rail did move out of place as a result of the collision, but not by much, the newspaper reported.
警方对《北京晨报》的记者称，金色护栏中的一根栏杆略有弯曲，但几乎看不出来。该报称，这次撞击导致护栏移位，但移动并不大。Beijing's City Police Bureau didn't respond immediately to questions from China Real Time Thursday about the condition of the car, or of its driver.
北京市公安局未立即回应《中国实时报》(China Real Time)周四提出的有关肇事车辆及司机现状的问题。Many Chinese netizens were surprised by the apparent magical powers of the fence. Others, though, said the incident brought into question just how safe cars are on Chinese roads.
许多中国网民都对该护栏的“神威”大感吃惊。不过，也有一些人说，这起事故引发了这样一个问题：在中国道路上行驶的汽车安全性如何？'What's more important for public safety? Powerful fences or solid cars? This is totally a case of 'putting the cart before the horse,' lawyer Dai Heping wrote on his verified account on Sina Corp.'s Twitter-like Weibo.
律师戴和平在他的新浪微博上写道：“车和栏杆哪个坚固对人们安全有意义？本末倒置啊！”The very public display of strength of the golden railings has spotlighted its manufacturer, Special Use Industrial Co., which is based in Inner Mongolia.
“黄金护栏”大显身手，使其生产商、位于内蒙古的包头北方专用机械有限责任公司(Special Use Industrial Co.)受到关注。An administrative staffer at the company who answered the telephone Thursday who would only give his surname as Li said it had been supplying fencing in the Tiananmen area of Beijing for 12 years.
该公司一名管理人员周四接听了记者电话，称公司为北京市天安门地区供应护栏已有长达12年的历史；该人士仅透露自己姓李（音）。He declined to say who placed the order or why, though he said that the shock-resistant railings are capable of withstanding terrorist or violent attacks. One three-meter stretch of fencing, for example, weighs more than 200 kilograms, he said.
他并未透露是谁下的订单及其原因，不过他说，抗撞护栏能够承受得住恐怖主义或暴力攻击。他说，例如一个三米长的护栏，重达200多公斤。China Real Time expects to see more of these golden railings dividing streets around China in the months to come: the country has been increasingly jittery following attacks such as the one at Tiananmen Square last October, in which a driver crashed a Jeep in front of the Forbidden City, killing two tourists in the subsequent explosion.
《中国实时报》栏目预计，未来几个月中国各地街头将出现更多这样的金色护栏：在发生了去年10月份天安门广场冲撞事件这类攻击之后，这个国家越来越紧张。当时，一人驾驶一辆吉普(Jeep)汽车在故宫前面撞毁，随后发生爆炸并导致两名游客死亡。