A 16.5-meter tall, bright yellow inflatable duck floating in Victoria Harbor has ignited a frenzy in the city, attracting hundreds of thousands of visitors and spawning a wave of duck-related products and dishes, occasionally served with the famous visitor's feathered brethren.

一只高16.5米、漂浮在维多利亚港的亮黄色充气橡皮鸭在香港激起了阵阵狂热，吸引了数十万人前去一睹真容，并催生了一波与鸭子有关的产品和菜品，其中有些菜品竟就以鸭子为主打。

The duck has already shown up in nine countries, in cities from Osaka to Sao Paulo to Sydney. But the welcome it has triggered in Hong Kong has eclipsed them all. Residents in the city embraced the inflatable water fowl even before it arrived. Word that the duck, still deflated, had landed in Hong Kong spread on social media and crowds gathered in an industrial section of the city to watch it get pumped up.

这只橡皮鸭已在九个国家的城市亮相，其中包括大阪、圣保罗和悉尼等，但它在香港的受欢迎程度超过了所有这些城市。早在这只充气鸭抵港之前，香港市民就已张开双臂欢迎它了。当时这只还未充气的橡皮鸭登陆香港的消息在社交媒体上传开，吸引了一大批人聚集该市某工业区围观它的充气过程。

When it was time to tow the duck to its temporary home next to a waterfront shopping mall, traffic jammed nearby streets. As it was being pulled by a tugboat, the duck was serenaded for 30 minutes by the city's official police band and greeted by girls from a dance school pirouetting in orange tutus and yellow feather headdresses.

当这只鸭子被拖到它位于海滨购物中心隔壁的临时居所时，附近的街道发生了堵车。当拖船拉着它亮相世人眼前时，香港官方警察乐队为其奏响了30分钟的乐曲；来自某舞蹈学校的一群小女孩也身着橙色芭蕾舞短裙、头戴黄色羽毛头饰起舞迎接。

Floating on the Kowloon side of Victoria Harbor, the duck is visible from many towers in Hong Kong's glittering skyline. The Star Ferry, which has crossed the harbor since 1880 and is one of the city's big tourist draws, docks next to the duck.

橡皮鸭在维多利亚港靠近九龙的一边漂游，从耸立于香港璀璨的天际线中的许多高楼望出去都可以看到它。自1880年以来便穿梭于维多利亚港的天星小轮是香港最知名的旅游景观之一，这次它也停在了橡皮鸭旁。

The duck has drawn hundreds of thousands of visitors from the city and across Asia, but why it became a sensation is subject to debate. In a recent legislative session, politician Lau Wong-fat cited the duck and the 'limitless amounts of joy' it had brought to Hong Kong, as well as the salutary effect the duck had had on local businesses. 'Has the government tried to consider why the big duck has swept the city in such a fashion?' he asked the city's leader, Leung Chun-ying.

这只鸭子吸引了香港本土及亚洲各地的数十万游客前去观赏，至于它为什么如此轰动还存在着争议。在最近一次立法会会议上，香港议员刘皇发就谈到了橡皮鸭，谈到了它给香港带来的“无限欢乐”以及它给本地企业带来的有益影响。他还向香港特首梁振英问道，政府有没有试着想过为什么这只巨型鸭能以如此声势席卷全城？

Merchants have embraced the duck. The Marco Polo Hotel is offering a Giant Yellow Rubber Duck package, which it says includes rooms with 'breathtaking' duck views, a complimentary rubber duck toy (while supplies last) and a late checkout for $300 a night.

香港各大商户也利用起这只鸭子带来的商机。例如，马哥孛罗香港酒店就推出了巨型橡皮鸭住宿套餐，包括入住其声称可观赏到“令人叹为观止的”巨型鸭景观的客房、一份橡皮鸭玩具礼物（送完即止）及延迟退房等服务，房费约为300美元（约合人民币1,860元）一晚。

One restaurant is serving duck sculptures fashioned out of deep-fried mashed taro and shrimp, and another sold 1,000 slices of freshly baked yellow bread decorated like a duck's face in less than a week. Still others, not deterred by nearby cooing over the giant duck's winsome appeal, are serving the bird itself.

有家餐厅推出了用油炸的芋艿和虾泥雕刻而成的鸭子雕塑，另有一家餐厅在不到一周的时间内卖出了1,000片装饰成鸭脸模样的新鲜烘烤的黄色面包。还有一些餐厅无惧周围对巨型鸭迷人魅力的赞赏之声，直接推出鸭子菜品。

Hong Kong-based rubber duck manufacturer Edeva Ltd., which produces around one million ducks a year in its factory across the border in the mainland Chinese city of Dongguan, says inquiries are up 60% since the duck arrived in Hong Kong this month.

Edeva是香港一家橡皮鸭生产企业，其位于中国大陆城市东莞的工厂一年大约生产100万只橡皮鸭。该公司称，自从巨型橡皮鸭本月抵港之后，有关该产品的问询量上升了60%。

'The duck is a yellow catalyst,' says Florentijn Hofman, the Dutch artist behind the installation, which he says was designed to 'spread joy.' The duck has different sponsors in different locations who pay for its installation. It gets built locally each time.

荷兰艺术家弗洛伦特珍•霍夫曼(Florentijn Hofman)是这件装置的设计师。他说这只鸭子就是一种黄颜色的“催化剂”，设计它是为了“传播快乐”。在不同地方均有不同的赞助方为它的安装掏腰包，每次它都在巡游城市当地充气成形。

Mr. Hofman, whose previous works include a giant pig, frog and bear, says he is ambivalent at the sight of so many people swarming the duck.

霍夫曼之前的作品还包括巨型橡皮猪、橡皮蛙以及橡皮熊，他说他看到这么多人涌到橡皮鸭周围的心情很矛盾。

'It's almost too difficult to connect to the duck, with everyone trying to take their own pictures,' says Mr. Hofman. 'On one hand, I felt very happy and thought, wow, so many people all coming to see it. But on the other hand, I thought, can you really see the duck now? Can you really get it?'

他说：“每个人都想拍下自己的照片，要和鸭子接触基本上太困难了。一方面，我觉得非常开心，心想‘哇，这么多人都来看它’；但是另一方面，我又想现在你真的能看到鸭子吗？你真的能感受到它吗？”

Mr. Hofman said before this month's launch, he had already received a number of requests from residents asking him to bring the duck to Hong Kong, saying the city was a gloomy place in need of a pickup. April was particularly bleak, recording only half the normal level of sunlight, while high levels of pollution wrapped Victoria Harbor in a thick haze. The day the duck sailed into the harbor the temperature reached just 16 degrees Celsius, the coldest May day since 1917. Some of the world's most expensive real estate leaves many in the city living in tiny apartments with little hope of moving out.

霍夫曼说，在橡皮鸭于本月亮相之前，他就已经收到大量香港市民的请求，让他把鸭子带到香港去，他们说香港是一个阴郁的地方，需要有个件让人提振的事情。今年的4月特别阴冷，有阳光的时间只是正常水平的一半，同时重度污染也让维多利亚港笼罩在浓重的阴霾中。在橡皮鸭入港的那一天，香港的气温只有16摄氏度，是1917年以来5月份最冷的一天。在这个拥有一批全球最昂贵地产的城市，许多居民只能蜗居在小小的公寓中，搬离的希望微乎其微。

'My friends say the duck represents freedom,' said Rachel He, 32, a clerk from mainland China who traveled four hours from Guangdong province to witness the spectacle after seeing an avalanche of posts about the duck on Sina Weibo, China's Twitter-like microblogging service. 'Maybe because the duck can float where it likes.'

今年32岁的Rachel He是一名来自大陆的职员，在新浪微博上看到铺天盖地的关于这只橡皮鸭的消息之后，她花了四个小时从广东来到香港目睹这一奇观。“可能是因为这只鸭子能漂到它想去的地方吧，”她如此说道。

Ms. He said she was disappointed when she visited the duck for the second day and found it floating in the exact same location. 'I guess it's not as free as I thought.'

她说当她在第二天参观这只鸭子，发现它只是在同一个地点漂浮时很是失望。她说，“我想它并没有我想的那么自由”。

Hong Kong resident Jessie Wong, posing for photos with her 78-year-old mother, said the duck's popularity made sense, given the lack of other entertainment options in the city. 'If people want to see real animals, for example, there's not a lot of zoos,' she said. She also said the duck reminded people of their childhoods.

香港居民Jessie Wong与78岁的母亲一同合了影，她说这只鸭子如此受追捧情有可原，因为香港可供娱乐的其他东西不多。她说：“比如说你想看真正的动物，但动物园又不多。”她还说这只鸭子让大家回想起自己的童年。

'Except I didn't have ducks when I was a child,' her mother said. 'We were farming.'

她的母亲则说道：“只是我在小时候就没有鸭子玩具，那时候我们都务农。”

Perhaps unsurprisingly for a city that loves to shop, the duck was brought over as a promotion by Harbour City, a shopping mall. Hong Kong's malls, already some of the busiest in the world, fight with each other for traffic with over-the-top installations. One recently displayed a shriveled Ice Age baby mammoth from Siberia while another featured topless appearances by the strapping male Chippendale dancers. 'The competition is very fierce here,' says Andrew Yeung of Harbour City, which spent several hundred thousands of dollars to host the duck.

这只鸭子是被购物中心海港城引进做宣传的，对于一个热衷购物的城市来说，这一点并不令人惊讶。在已经拥有一些全球最繁忙商场的香港，各大商场均采用各种夸张手段来互相争夺客流。不久前一家商场展出了来自西伯利亚的一只干瘪的冰河时期猛口幼象标本，另一家商场则请来一批赤裸上身、高大威猛的猛男舞者。海港城的杨浩章称：“这里的竞争非常激烈。”此次该商场引进这只鸭子就花了数十万美元。

The city, once the world's toy-manufacturing capital, has a long history with rubber ducks. In 1992, a container ship that left Hong Kong carrying tens of thousands of yellow ducks spilled into the Pacific Ocean during a violent storm. The toys were lost at sea until they started to wash up in places from Alaska to Maine, and continued to surprise beachcombers for more than a decade. Scientists later used the spill to research ocean current patterns.

香港曾经是全球玩具制造之都，与橡皮鸭的关系可谓源远流长。1992年，一艘从香港出发的集装箱货轮遭遇强烈风暴，一只装有数万只黄色橡皮鸭玩具的集装箱坠入太平洋。这些玩具在海上漂流多年，后来开始陆陆续续被冲上阿拉斯加和缅因州等地的海岸，十多年来一直不停地让海滨拾荒者收获意外。后来，科学家们还通过这次玩具坠海事件来研究洋流模式。

People in Hong Kong are already starting to plan for when the giant duck leaves on June 9. Harbour City says it is contemplating a farewell send-off. Some are pondering the duck's legacy for the city.

香港人已开始为这只巨型鸭6月9日的离港日期做准备。海港城称其正在筹备一个欢送会。有些人也在思考这只鸭子将给这个城市留下的东西。

At the recent legislative session when the duck question was raised, Mr. Leung, the city's leader, agreed that the duck stimulus was worth analyzing. 'If we can learn from or imitate the phenomenon, it's something we should do,' he said.

在最近那次提到这只鸭子的立法委会议上，香港特首梁振英也认同这只鸭子带来的激励值得分析。他说：“如果我们能从这个现象学到些什么或是能模仿它，那么我们就应该这么做。”