XICHONG, China — One of the world’s largest population centers was spared the worst when Typhoon Mangkhut swept through Hong Kong and the cities of the Pearl River Delta¹ four days ago, but not this village in a remote peninsula that has become a destination for something still novel in China: surfing.

中国西涌——四天前，当台风“山竹”席卷香港和珠江三角洲众多城市时，这个世界上最大的人口中心之一躲过了最严重的部分；然而一个偏远半岛上的小村子没能幸免。那里是一项在中国尚属新奇的运动——冲浪——的目的地。

When the storm hit the village, called Xichong, it created sea surges that dismantled² sea walls upon which dozens of small shops, cafes and guest cottages stood. Wind gusts³ that reached 100 miles per hour shredded⁴ scores of coniferous trees that studded the scenic⁵, crescent-shaped cove⁶ facing the South China Sea.

风暴袭击这个名为西涌的村庄时掀起了巨浪，摧毁了建在海堤上的几十家小商店、咖啡馆和民宿。风速达到每小时100英里，将许多针叶树撕成粉碎。那些树曾经装点着一个面朝南海的月牙形美丽海湾。

A brick guardhouse where loudspeakers once warned surfers of dangerous conditions had toppled onto the beach from a bank overlooking the sea, still intact but its foundation washed away. A large chunk⁷ of pink wall — neon hues⁸ being the color of choice here — was hurled⁹ back to where the surf breaks on the beach, a reminder¹⁰ of the awesome¹¹ power of a turbulent sea.

一座砖砌的岗亭原本位于堤岸上，通过一个喇叭向冲浪者发出危险情况警报，如今它已经掉落到海滩上，房子仍然完好无损，但地基被冲走了。一大块粉红色的墙壁——霓虹色是这里的首选色调——被抛回到浪打在沙滩上的地方，提醒着人们汹涌澎湃的大海的惊人力量。

In a matter of hours, the typhoon destroyed a beachfront repurposed in recent years as a laid-back retreat from the urban bustle¹² of Shenzhen, a center of global trade, investment and technology with 13 million residents.

在短短几小时内，台风摧毁了一片海滩区域。这一带靠近深圳的城市喧嚣，近年来被作为悠闲的休养地来重新规划。深圳是全球贸易、投资和科技中心，拥有1300万居民。

“Too horrible to look at,” said Xia Bing, who owns concessions¹⁴ along a section of the beach that until Sunday included a cafe called Brother, changing facilities for swimmers and surfers, and a handful of bungalows¹⁵ for overnight guests — all now a twisted mangle¹⁶ of debris¹⁷ and broken branches. Accessories like air-conditioners and a television simply disappeared.

“惨不忍睹，”夏冰说。他在海滩的一段区域拥有经营特许。在周日以前，他的经营范围包括一家名为“兄弟”的咖啡馆，为游泳和冲浪者提供的更衣设施，以及为过夜客人准备的几间平房——现在这些全都变成了扭曲、损毁的的废墟和折断的树枝。像空调和电视这样的配件干脆消失了。

“It was like this when we got back,” he said. “Nothing left.”

“回来就是这样，”他说。“什么都没有了。”

Typhoon Mangkhut cut a far more catastrophic swath through the Philippines, where scores were killed in floods and landslides¹⁸, but it also exacted a considerable toll¹⁹ in China. The storm hammered Hong Kong and Macau on Sunday morning, before moving into the mainland, where at least five people were killed, according to latest government figures cited by the state-run news agency Xinhua on Tuesday. One person is still missing.

台风“山竹”在菲律宾造成的灾难要严重得多，数十人在洪水和山体滑坡中丧生。但中国的损失也不小。据中国官方媒体新华社周二援引的政府最新数据，台风周日上午袭击了香港和澳门，随后进入中国内地，造成至少5人死亡。一人至今失踪。

In Shenzhen, which abuts²⁰ Hong Kong, nearly 12,000 trees were knocked over in the city, according to municipal officials, and workers continued to clear roads and highways in the days following.

在毗邻香港的深圳，据市政官员称，该市有近1.2万棵树被吹倒，工人们在接下来的几天里继续清理道路和高速公路。

The recovery in Xichong — a two-hour drive east from Shenzhen’s city center, when fallen limbs have not blocked the roads — could take far longer.

在落下的树枝没有阻塞道路时，西涌距深圳市中心有两小时车程，这里的重建工作可能要慢得多。

Xichong lies within a national park at the end of the Dapeng Peninsula, which extends into the South China Sea. The area’s remoteness and natural beauty are what began luring²¹ surfers and backpackers. Now, the beach is divided into four sections, all owned by the Xichong Beach Company, a private enterprise created to capitalize on a growing tourist market.

西涌位于伸入南海的大鹏半岛尽头的一座国家公园内。这一带的偏远和自然美景吸引了冲浪者和背包客。海滩现被分成四个部分，全部归西涌海滩股份有限公司所有。这是一家希望在此地不断增长的旅游市场中牟利而成立的私营公司。

Surfing culture is still relatively²² new to China, but has begun to win adherents²³. Hainan, the island southwest of here that is known as the Chinese Hawaii, is the undisputed capital of Chinese surfing, with beaches like those at Riyue Bay hosting international competitions.

冲浪文化在中国还相对较新，但已经开始赢得追随者。位于深圳西南部、被称为“中国夏威夷”的海南是无可争议的中国冲浪之都，那里拥有日月湾之类举办过国际比赛的地方。

The surfing guide Magic Seaweed notes that in Guangdong Province, where Xichong is, “spots are few and far between,” but it goes on to explain that at Xichong and another beach nearby “good longboard waves peel lazily down some rivermouth sculpted²⁴ sandbars.”

冲浪指南《神奇海草》(Magic Seaweed)指出，在西涌所在的广东省，“冲浪点很少，且相隔较远。”但这本指南接着说，在西涌和附近的另一个海滩，“那些河口冲击而成的沙洲上会缓缓卷起不错的长板浪。”

Yang Xue, 28, owns a surfing school and hostel²⁵ in Xichong called Offshore²⁶ Wind. Admittedly biased²⁷, she said that in the summer the beach had “the best waves in China.” The accommodations at Offshore Wind were not luxurious²⁸, though that is not what attracts people to Xichong.

28岁的杨雪在西涌拥有一所冲浪学校，和一家名叫“离岸风”的青年旅社。她承认自己有偏见，但她认为这里的海滩在夏天有“中国最好的浪”。离岸风的住宿条件并不豪华，尽管这并不是吸引人们去西涌的原因。

“The surf community in China is still really small,” a surfer who identified himself only as Jun wrote on Vice²⁹ China, describing how he came to take up residence in Xichong. “It’s so small that every time I meet a new surfer, it turns out we already have, like, 20 to 30 mutual³⁰ friends. That helps it feel like a real community. No one is aggressive in the water.”

“浪人目前还算是一个很小的族群”，一位自称叫“君”（音）的冲浪者在Vice中国上描述他是如何来到西涌定居的。“小到每次加个微信都能发现二三十个共同好友。这让它感觉像是一个真正的社区。浪人是没什么竞争意识的一个族群。”

He compared the mood here with Shenzhen, where “people are constantly overstimulated, staring at their phones on the subway, craning their necks downward to watch some imported soap opera.”

他把这里的气氛和深圳作比较。在深圳，“人们总是受到过度刺激，在地铁上盯着手机，低头看一些进口肥皂剧。”

Ms. Yang employed 20 people. Many of them gathered again on Tuesday to help begin the arduous³¹ task of clearing debris. Chain saws buzzed through fallen limbs and trees, but repairing the damage to some of the buildings and the sea wall will be more difficult and expensive.

杨雪有20名员工。他们中许多人周二再次聚在一起，帮助开始清理废墟的艰巨任务。链锯在倒下的树枝和树木间嗡嗡作响，但修复对一些建筑和海堤的破坏将更加困难和昂贵。

Most of those helping³² Tuesday were dressed for surfing — T-shirts and flip-flops — and the damp on their clothes made it clear that some had recently taken breaks from their work. Adversity had not seemed to affect the spirit of the place.

周二参加救援的大多数人都穿着去冲浪的衣服——T恤和人字拖——衣服的潮湿表明，一些人刚刚忙里偷闲去玩了一会。逆境似乎并没有影响这个地方的精神。

“It’s O.K.,” Ms. Yang said when offered condolences for the damage. “We are still here.”

“没事的，”当有人向她遭到的损失表示慰问时，杨雪说，“我们还在这里。”

The damage extended the length of the beach, which remains³³ closed to visitors, though locals still waded³⁴ in and two fishermen’s boats came ashore³⁵ as the sun set Tuesday, hauling a decent catch, including two large sea bass³⁶.

这次破坏延长了海滩的长度。海滩尚未对游客开放，但仍有当地居民上海滩。周二日落时，两艘渔船上岸，他们捕获了相当多的鱼，其中包括两条巨大的海鲈鱼。

The shops here had no insurance, Ms. Yang and other owners said, so they are relying for assistance on the company that operates the beach concession¹³ or the local government.

杨雪和其他业主说，这里的商店没有保险，所以他们依赖经营海滩特许权的公司或当地政府的帮助。

Echo Huo, a worker at a new surf shop, moved here in April because she wanted to learn to surf. She previously³⁷ worked at a cafe in Dali, far inland in Yunnan Province. She does not take lessons, but paddles out when off work. More seasoned surfers generously offer pointers.

在一家新开的冲浪店工作的艾蔻·霍（音）因为想学冲浪，今年4月搬到这里。她曾在大理的一家咖啡馆工作过，那是在内陆的云南省的一座城市。她不上课，只是不上班时划水出海。经验丰富的冲浪者会慷慨地为她提供指点。

Winds sheared³⁸ off the shop’s corrugated³⁹ roof, which in turn sliced into a neighboring shop. The exterior⁴⁰ wall disappeared, leaving a precipitous drop from the bank to the sand below. Everything in and around the shop was virtually destroyed.

商店的波形板屋顶被吹飞，插进了隔壁的店面。外墙消失了，房子危险地悬在海堤边，俯瞰下方的沙滩。商店内外的一切几乎都被摧毁了。

China’s building codes and zoning laws are often so vaguely⁴¹ written and loosely enforced that they can cause confusion in the best of times. No one in the storm’s aftermath could say for certain whether the spot would — or could — be rebuilt the way it had been.

中国的建筑规章和分区法律往往写得含糊不清，执行不力，在平常的时候都可能会造成困惑。飓风过后，没有人能确切地说，这个地方会不会——或能不能——重建成以前的样子。

“We don’t know if they will let us rebuild or not,” she said. “We haven’t received any official notice from the company or the government yet.”

“我们不知道他们是否会让我们重建。我们还没有收到公司或政府的正式通知，”她说。

Asked what she would do in the meantime, she shrugged⁴², while making it clear she had no plans to leave. “We wait,” she said.

当被问及在此期间她会做什么时，她耸了耸肩，同时明确表示她不打算离开。“我们等着，”她说。