We were staring at a big old-fashioned Japanese gate: red, with dark brown wood and a green tile roof. It was a structure straight out of “Spirited Away.” Waiting on the other side, framed perfectly in the doorway, was one of my favorite things in all of Miyazaki: a squat stone statue, inscrutable and smiling.

我们凝视着一扇老式的日式大门：红色，深褐色的木头和绿色的瓦屋顶。这是一个直接来自“千与千寻”的结构。在另一边，完美地框在门口，是我在整个宫崎最喜欢的东西之一：一个矮胖的石像，神秘而微笑。 

My guides were two friendly members of Ghibli’s P.R. team, Mai Sato and Seika Wang. I met them up at the train station, after I finished puttering around the area, lost. They confirmed that yes, I had come to the right place. Unlike any theme park I’d ever been to, Ghibli Park was located inside a larger park, Expo 2005 Aichi Commemorative Park. And, like a very polite houseguest, it had tucked itself in without making much of a fuss. Its signage was subtle, and its attractions were spread around, at great distances from one another. The guides told me that our tour would take approximately four hours.

我的向导是吉卜力公关团队的两位公关成员，Mai Sato 和 Seika Wang。我在火车站与他们会合。那时，我在闲逛后，已经迷路了。他们确认我来对地方了。与我去过的任何主题公园不同，吉卜力公园位于一个更大的公园内，即 2005 年爱知世博会纪念公园。而且，就像一个非常有礼貌的房客一样，它把自己藏起来，没有大惊小怪。它的标牌很微妙，它的景点散布在周围，彼此相距很远。导游告诉我，我们的游览大约需要四个小时。

As my body passed through the “Spirited Away” gate, I felt a slight, shimmering thrill. That smiling statue on the other side was a spirit shrine, guardian of the other world — the first real sign, in the film, that Chihiro’s life is about to be transformed. As we approached, I wanted to stop and take a selfie and text it to everyone I know. But other tourists were doing that, and more people, over to the side, were waiting politely for their turn. So the guides and I walked on.

当我的身体穿过“千与千寻”的大门时，我感到一种轻微的、闪闪发光的快感。另一边的微笑雕像是精神神殿，是另一个世界的守护者——电影中第一个真实的迹象，表明千寻的生活即将发生转变。当我们走近时，我想停下来自拍并发短信给我认识的每个人。但其他游客也在这样做，更多的人在一旁礼貌地等待轮到他们。于是我和导游继续前行。

This is when we entered the forest.

这时，我们进入了森林。

If you want Miyazaki to love you, it might help to be a tree. He has a well-documented reverence for nature. Rivers and mountains and oceans are practically the heroes of many Ghibli films. Miyazaki’s forests are so distinctive that certain mossy shades of green automatically make me think of them. In fact, Miyazaki often compares storytelling itself to a tree. It’s not just about flashy ornamentation, he likes to say, it’s about the deep invisible roots that support the trunk that supports the branches — all of which, in the end, allows you to hang the ornaments that everyone will admire.

如果你想让宫崎骏爱你，变成一棵树可能会有所帮助。他对自然有着有据可查的崇敬之情。河流、山脉和海洋实际上是许多吉卜力电影的主人公。宫崎骏的森林是如此独特，以至于某些长满苔藓的绿色阴影让我不由自主地想起它们。事实上，宫崎骏经常将讲故事本身比作一棵树。他喜欢说，这不仅仅是华而不实的装饰，而是支撑着树干支撑着树枝的无形的深根——所有这些最终都让你可以挂上每个人都会欣赏的装饰品。

Ghibli Park was designed, as the official website puts it, in “close consultation with the surrounding forest.” My guides told me that, amazingly, not a single tree was cut down. Again I thought of Disney World, which was created at the expense of whole ecosystems — square miles denatured and paved to make way for lucrative, user-friendly worlds of plastic and metal. Ghibli Park, by contrast, is largely unchanged forest. Seeing its attractions involves walking, endlessly, through wooded paths. Some of those paths are new or recently improved. But many seem old. The forest’s trees were thin and twisty; they stretched over our heads like sunlit hallways. They tangled off into the distance. They just stood there, being trees. Staircases, wooden and stone, branched off up and down hills. Without my guides, I would have had no idea where to go. As we walked, the American in me kept wondering about lawsuits. Surely, someone would someday trip on a root and fall down a staircase. And wouldn’t that person blame Ghibli Park? At one point, we saw a warning sign, attached to a post, telling people to beware of snakes and hornets. It listed a phone number to call if you got into trouble.

吉卜力公园被设计为 如同官方网站描述的“与周围的森林密切协商”。我的向导告诉我，没有一棵树被砍倒。令人惊讶。它让我想起迪士尼乐园，一个以牺牲整个生态系统为代价而创建的——平方英里经过改造和铺平，为利润丰厚、用户友好的塑料和金属世界让路。相比之下，吉卜力公园在很大程度上是一片没有变化的森林。要想游览它的景点，就需要在树木繁茂的小径上无休止地行走。其中一些路径是新的或最近改进的。但是很多看起来很旧。森林里的树木又细又曲折；它们像阳光普照的走廊一样在我们头顶伸展开来。他们纠缠到远方。他们只是站在那里，成为树木。楼梯、木头和石头，在山上分叉。没有我的向导，我不知道该去哪里。我们走路时，我内心的美国人一直在思考诉讼。当然，总有一天会有人被树根绊倒并从楼梯上掉下来。那个人不会责怪吉卜力公园吗？有一次，我们看到贴在一根柱子上的警告标志，告诉人们要提防蛇和黄蜂。它列出了遇到麻烦时可以拨打的电话号码。

Months before, in my first meeting with Studio Ghibli’s P.R. team about a possible visit, I was told that the studio would be happy to work with me but had one serious concern. If The New York Times published an article about Ghibli Park, they said, it might make more people want to come visit. This struck them as a problem. Like many Ghibli products, Ghibli Park is impishly non-user-friendly. This is true for people in Japan, and even more so for international visitors. Consider, for instance, its location. Unlike Tokyo Disneyland or Universal Studios Japan (in Osaka), Ghibli Park is not located in a tourist hub. Instead, it sits on the outskirts of an unglamorous city called Nagoya, in a region famous for being the home of Toyota — basically, the Detroit of Japan. And the park is not even in Nagoya proper. From my hotel in the center of the city, it took me an hour, and three different trains, to reach Ghibli Park. The website suggests taking the train because the park has no dedicated parking lot.

几个月前，在我第一次与吉卜力工作室的公关团队就可能的访问进行会面时，我被告知工作室很乐意与我合作，但他们有一个严重的担忧。他们说，如果《纽约时报》发表一篇关于吉卜力公园的文章，可能会让更多人想来参观。这让他们觉得是个问题。与许多 Ghibli 产品一样，Ghibli Park 顽皮地对用户不友好。日本人如此，国际游客更是如此。例如，考虑它的位置。与东京迪士尼乐园或日本环球影城（在大阪）不同，吉卜力公园并不位于旅游中心。相反，它坐落在一个名为名古屋的不起眼城市的郊区，该地区以丰田的故乡而闻名——基本上是日本的底特律（汽车制造城）。而且公园甚至不在名古屋市内。从我在市中心的酒店出发，我花了一个小时，换乘了三趟不同的火车，才到达吉卜力公园。该网站建议乘坐火车，因为公园没有专用停车场。

The website also does its best to lower expectations, declaring immediately, “There are no big attractions or rides in Ghibli Park.” The surrounding grounds are public and free to walk around, all day long. There are only three paid areas in Ghibli Park, and by theme-park standards the admission fees are laughably low: the equivalent of about $10 to $20 for each area. But tickets, at that time, were nearly impossible to get. There was a lottery system, and they were sold out for months in advance.

该网站也尽力降低期望值，立即宣布：“吉卜力公园内没有大型景点或游乐设施。”周围的场地是公共的，可以全天自由走动。吉卜力公园只有三个付费区域，按照主题公园的标准，入场费低得可笑：相当于每个区域大约 10 到 20 美元。但在那个时候，门票几乎是一票难求。有一个彩票系统，他们提前几个月就卖光了。

Occasionally, my guides would lead me to a modest little statue. “Do you recognize this?” they would ask. And it would be something from a Ghibli film: sitting on a bench, Mei’s hat and ear of corn from “My Neighbor Totoro”; standing near a tree, a tanuki from “Pom Poko”; on a table, Sosuke’s bucket from “Ponyo.” There are 15 of these objects, they told me, scattered throughout the park. A little fan-service scavenger hunt.

I would pause, identify the item and take a photo. Other tourists would stop and do the same. And then we would all keep walking through the trees.

偶尔，我的向导会带我去一座不起眼的小雕像。 “你认得这个吗？”他们会问。这将是吉卜力电影中的东西：坐在长凳上，梅的帽子和龙猫中的玉米穗；站在一棵树附近， “Pom Poko”  里面的一只狸；在桌子上，宗介的水桶来自 “波妞。” 他们告诉我，这些物品中有 15 件散落在公园各处。一个小小的为粉丝设置的寻宝游戏。

我会停下来，识别物品并拍照。其他游客也会停下来做同样的事情。然后我们都会继续穿过树林。

After a while I told my guides, only half joking, that Ghibli Park seemed like an extremely elaborate way to lure people out into the middle of an obscure Japanese forest. 

过了一会儿，我半开玩笑地告诉我的向导，吉卜力公园似乎是一种极其巧妙的方式，可以将人们引诱到一个不起眼的日本森林中。

Yes, they said. That is basically correct.

是的，他们说。这基本上是正确的。

Studio Ghibli did not offer me an interview with Hayao Miyazaki. He was busy with his final film, and he almost never agrees to do interviews anymore. Besides, they said, Ghibli Park was not really his project. The man in charge was Goro — Hayao Miyazaki’s son.

吉卜力工作室没有让我采访宫崎骏。他忙于他的最后一部电影，他几乎再也不同意接受采访了。此外，他们说，吉卜力公园并不是他真正的项目。负责人是五郎（Goro）——宫崎骏的儿子。

In person, Goro Miyazaki is almost the opposite of his father. Miyazaki the elder is a spectacle — perpetually in motion, smoking and agonizing and clutching his hair. He looks like a Miyazaki character. Goro, by contrast, looks like an absolutely normal man. He is 56, clean-shaven, slim. He sits still and speaks softly, modestly, with none of his father’s bombast. His eyes are like deep pools.

一眼看去，宫崎骏几乎与他的父亲截然相反。年长的宫崎骏是一个奇观——永远在运动，抽烟，痛苦地抓着他的头发。他看起来像宫崎骏角色。相比之下， Goro看起来就像一个绝对正常的人。他今年 56 岁，胡子刮得干干净净，身材苗条。他静静地坐着，说话轻声、谦虚，没有他父亲的夸夸其谈。他的眼睛像深潭。

Goro and I met at Ghibli headquarters, a leafy compound, designed by Hayao Miyazaki himself, that is spread over several blocks of a quiet Tokyo suburb. We sat in a meeting room featuring shelves of animation books and statuettes of Ghibli characters. Goro arrived carrying multiple large folders: his sketches and plans for Ghibli Park.

五郎在吉卜力总部会面，这是一座绿树成荫的大院，由宫崎骏亲自设计，分布在东京安静郊区的几个街区。我们坐在一间会议室里，会议室里摆满了动画书籍和吉卜力人物雕像。五郎带着多个大文件夹来了：他的吉卜力公园的草图和设计。

The Miyazakis, father and son, have what you might call a fraught relationship. Both men have been surprisingly open about this. During Goro’s childhood, the great animator was mostly absent, cranking out masterpieces. The little boy got to know his father like the rest of Japan, by watching his films. “I just wanted him to be there,” Goro says in the NHK documentary, with great feeling. “He feels alive only when he’s making a film.” And then he adds, resigned, “He can’t change now.”

宫崎骏父子之间的关系是那种令人担忧的。两人对此都出人意料地坦诚相待。 Goro 的童年时期，这位伟大的动画师几乎缺席，只专注创作出他的杰作。通过看他的电影，这个小男孩像其他日本人一样认识了他的父亲。 “我只是想让他在我的生活中，” Goro在 NHK 纪录片中充满感情地说道。 “只有在拍电影的时候，他才会觉得自己还活着。”然后他无奈地补充道，“他现在不可能改变自己。”

“I owe that little boy an apology,” Hayao Miyazaki says.

“我欠那个小男孩一个道歉，”宫崎骏说。

Goro, meanwhile, was raised by his mother, Akemi Miyazaki. She taught him to love the outdoors. They were always going hiking, and they spent summers up in her father’s mountain cabin. In high school, Goro joined the mountaineering club. In college, he studied forestry. After graduation, he worked in landscape architecture. In his 30s, Goro led the construction of a quirky little Ghibli Museum in suburban Tokyo, designed by his father, which opened in 2001.

五郎由他的母亲宫崎明美抚养长大。她教儿子热爱户外活动。他们总是去远足，他们在她父亲的山间小屋里度过夏天。高中时，五郎加入了登山社。在大学里，他学习林业。毕业后从事景观设计工作。在他 30 多岁时， Goro领导在东京郊区建造了一座奇特的小型吉卜力博物馆，该博物馆由他的父亲设计，于 2001 年开放。

This is something father and son could share: a reverence for nature. And Goro brought this reverence to his design for Ghibli Park.

这是父亲和儿子可以分享的东西：对自然的敬畏。 Goro将这种崇敬带到了他对吉卜力公园的设计中。

“There was a time when we considered making our own version of Disneyland,” he told me. “Here is the Totoro area. People can ride the Cat Bus. That’s great. But what about the environment around it?”

“有一段时间我们考虑制作我们自己的迪斯尼乐园，”他告诉我。 “这里是龙猫地区。人们可以乘坐 Cat Bus。那太棒了。但是周围的环境呢？”

After all, the action of “My Neighbor Totoro” is inseparable from its natural setting: thick trees, grass fields, rice paddies. Totoro drops acorns everywhere as a kind of calling card. To love Totoro is to love not just a single creature but a whole habitat.

毕竟，《龙猫》的一举一动离不开它的自然环境：茂密的树木、草地、稻田。龙猫到处撒橡子，作为它的一种名片。爱龙猫不仅仅是爱一个生物，而是爱整个栖息地。

“It doesn’t feel right to have that kind of idyllic landscape in a theme park,” Goro continued. “You can’t have a rice field that’s green all year round.”

“在主题公园里拥有那种田园诗般的风景感觉不对，” Goro继续说道。 “你不可能有一年四季都是绿色的稻田。”

 What about plastic? I asked.

塑料呢？我问。

“A plastic rice field contradicts the whole idea of Totoro’s world,” he said.

“塑料稻田与龙猫世界的整体理念相矛盾，”他说。