A hugely-popular, Nanjing-shopping icon is now more-than likely a thing of the past. Citizens were left aghast over the weekend at images of the enormous fire and resulting smoke engulfing one of Nanjing’s mega malls which flooded social media.
At about 10:00 this past Saturday, 29 October, an initially-not-so-serious fire broke out in the branch of the Jinsheng Department Store at 2 Jianning Lu (Zhongyang Men) in Nanjing’s Gulou District. First responders were immediately mobilised to the scene.
10月29日上周六10时左右，南京市鼓楼区建宁路2号金盛百货店（中央门）发生火灾，火灾起火程度不高。急救人员立即被派往现场。
But the fire quickly spread and became out of control, to the extent that additional firefighters and equipment were called in from the nearby cities of Wuxi, Changzhou and Yangzhou, reports The Paper.
但据澎湃新闻报道，火势迅速蔓延并失去控制，以至于从附近的无锡、常州和扬州等城市调来了更多的消防人员和设备。
As a sign of the fire’s severity, it took almost a full day for it to be completely extinguished, as Nanjing’s fire authorities confirmed at 06:44 on Sunday.
南京消防部门于周日 06 点 44 分证实，大火花了近一整天的时间才被完全扑灭，可见火灾的严重性。
In something of a miracle, by all reports there were no casualties in the enormous blaze, everyone in the building having been evacuated quickly after the initial fire.
据报道，这场大火没有造成人员伤亡，这真是一个奇迹，最初的火灾发生后，大楼里的每个人都很快被疏散了。
While official media is playing down the extent of the blaze, photographs have been circulating online that show there is little left of the Jinsheng mall. Indeed, some tenants thereof, many of whom were in the midst of preparations for the “Double 11” shopping-discount carnival, said they have lost about ¥700,000 worth of inventory.
虽然官方媒体淡化了火灾的严重程度，但网上流传的照片显示，金盛购物中心已所剩无几。事实上，一些租户表示，他们已经损失了价值约70万元的库存，其中许多租户正在为“双11”购物折扣狂欢节做准备。
Around noon on Saturday, reporters called a Ms Wang, owner of Fuwandai Jewelry on the first floor of Jinsheng. She said that her shop was not burned by the fire, but flooded by the attempts to extinguish it.
周六中午左右，记者致电金盛一楼富万代珠宝店主王女士。她说，她的店铺并没有被大火烧毁，而是因为扑灭大火而被淹没。
In her shop, Wang held ornamental pieces of gold, silver, jadeite, amber and more, valued at over ¥3 million. “We came out empty handed, nothing, and now we are not allowed to go in”, said Wang at the time, adding that she won’t be opening a shop there again in the future.
王女士的店里摆满了金、银、翡翠、琥珀等装饰品，价值超过300万元。 “我们空手而出，什么都没有，现在也不让进去了”，王女士当时说，并补充说，她以后不会再在那里开店了。
Away from shopowners who have lost their livelihoods, media has instead focused its attention on the mall’s principal shareholder, AXA Minmetals. On 30 October, an article on the AXA Minmetals Group website stated the fire would inevitably cause incalculable losses to the company, stores and merchants.
除了失去生计的店主之外，媒体将注意力集中在商场的大股东安盛五矿(AXA Minmetals)身上。 10月30日，安盛五矿集团网站发文称，火灾势必给公司、门店和商户造成难以估量的损失。
This incident is the latest on a long list of recent financial woes for the real-estate developer. The company’s founder, Wang Hua, was in 2006 ranked 7 on the Hurun Retail Rich List. More recently, however, with AXA Minmetals Group in a litigation quagmire, Wang Hua now instead finds himself listed as a dishonest executor.
这起事件是这家房地产开发商近期遭遇的一系列财务困境中的最新一起。公司创始人王华在2006年胡润零售富豪榜上排名第七。然而最近，随着安盛五矿集团深陷诉讼泥潭，王华反而发现自己被列为失信执行人。
Jinsheng in Nanjing was for decades a popular place for anything cheap. Indeed, other than Taboo, there were few places things could be had for less. But unlike the online version, at Jinsheng, you could come in person, see, feel and smell the products, and most importantly, bargain.
几十年来，南京金盛一直是物美价廉的热门场所。确实，除了 Taboo 之外，几乎没有什么地方可以花更少的钱买到东西。但与网上版本不同的是，在金升，你可以亲自来到，看到、摸到、闻到产品，最重要的是还可以讨价还价。
Over five floors with 18 escalators and nearly 1,000 independent stores, Jinsheng carried over 50,000 kinds of goods in 30 categories. Home furnishing, tourism, festive crafts, baby products, soft home furnishings, daily necessities, down clothing; you name it, Jinsheng had it.
金盛共五层楼，18部自动扶梯，近千家独立门店，经营30大类5万余种商品。家居、旅游、节庆工艺品、婴儿用品、软家居、日用品、羽绒服装；只要你能想到的，金胜都有。
While the building itself, old as it was, will likely not be missed, the experience of shopping therein, something unique to China and especially Nanjing, will certainly be.
尽管这座建筑本身很古老，但人们很可能不会错过其中的购物体验，这是中国尤其是南京独有的体验。
