正在消失的香港街頭霓虹燈

For nearly four decades, a giant neon cow suspended above a steakhouse in Hong Kong’s Western District was a neighborhood landmark. It was where, if you were giving directions, you told someone to get off the bus or to take the next left. A glowing bovine beacon nearly 10 feet long and 8 feet tall, cantilevered over the street, you couldn’t miss it.

香港——四十年來，香港西區一家牛排餐廳上掛着的巨型霓虹燈奶牛已經成了地標。如果你給人指路，告訴別人在哪兒下車，在哪兒左拐，都會提到它。這頭閃閃發光的牛將近10英尺長，8英尺高，懸掛在街頭，肯定不會錯過。

It was supposed to be an Angus, said Iry Yip, the manager of Sammy’s Kitchen. The sign was designed in 1978 by her father, Sammy Yip, the restaurant’s founder, who at 84 still sits behind the cash register.

森美餐廳的經理葉鳳儀(Iry Yip)說，它是一頭安格斯牛(Angus)，是她的父親、餐廳創始人葉聯(Sammy Yip)在1978年設計的。他老人家今年84歲，仍然坐在餐廳的收銀臺後面。

But the sign maker decided that longer legs would look better, hence the world’s only known long-legged, bluish-white Angus, with “Sammy’s Kitchen Ltd.” emblazoned across its flank in green in English and in red in Chinese.

但是製作這個霓虹招牌的師傅覺得牛的腿還是長一點好看，於是它就成了世界上唯一一隻長着四條長腿，呈藍白色的安格斯牛，它的腹部裝點着綠色的“Sammy’s Kitchen Ltd.”與紅色的“森美餐廳”字樣。

But in 2011, the city’s Buildings Department decided the sign was unsafe and ordered it removed. After an unsuccessful campaign to save it, the sign came down in August.

但是2011年，香港屋宇署認爲這個招牌不安全，要將它拆掉。要求保留招牌的活動沒能成功，今年8月，它被拆除了。

“It feels like something is missing,” Ms. Yip said. “The street has gotten so empty.”

“感覺就像少了什麼，”葉鳳儀說，“整條街變得空蕩蕩的。”

Since the mid-20th century, endless towers of flashing, throbbing neon have defined Hong Kong’s landscape as much as Victoria Harbor and the skyline of densely packed high-rises.

自從20世紀中期，無數跳躍閃爍的霓虹燈便裝點着香港的街景、維多利亞灣，以及高樓大廈林立的天際線。

“When you think of Hong Kong and visual culture, one of the first things that comes to the fore is neon signs,” said Aric Chen, curator of M+, a museum that is collecting images of Hong Kong’s neon signs online and some of the signs themselves as they are retired, including the neon cow.

“一想起香港與它的視覺文化，首先躍入腦海的就會有它的霓虹招牌，”M+博物館的策展人陳伯康(Aric Chen)說，這家博物館專門在線收集香港的霓虹招牌照片，也收集一些被拆除的霓虹招牌，比如森美餐廳的霓虹奶牛。

The Hong Kong immortalized in the films of Wong Kar-wai, the director of “In the Mood for Love” and “Chungking Express,” is awash in neon, Mr. Chen said.

在《花樣年華》與《重慶森林》的導演王家衛的影片中，那個沐浴在霓虹燈中的香港得以永遠留存，陳伯康說道。

“If his representations of Hong Kong in the popular imaginations are seminal, which I think they are,” he said, “you can’t separate that image from the neon ambient glow.”

“我認爲他呈現的香港在大衆想像中具有深遠的影響，”他說，“那個香港的形象與霓虹燈的光輝密不可分。”

But the neon of Hong Kong’s streets is dimming.

但是如今，香港街頭的霓虹燈光愈來愈黯淡。

Neon has declined rapidly since the 1990s, sign makers and experts say, as building regulations here have tightened and new signs are made of LEDs, which lack neon’s warmth but are brighter and less expensive to maintain.

自從20世紀90年代，霓虹燈開始迅速消失，招牌製作師傅和有關專家們說，香港的建築規劃愈來愈嚴格，新的標誌都是用LED燈製作，它沒有霓虹燈的暖意，但是更加明亮，保養費用也較爲低廉。

The Hong Kong Buildings Department has no record of how many neon signs remain in the city or how many existed at their peak, but the department acknowledges that it removes hundreds of signs a year for failure to meet code. Signs are removed for safety and structural reasons, or when they are abandoned or unauthorized.

香港屋宇署沒有這個城市目前還剩多少霓虹招牌的統計數字，也沒有它在全盛時期的準確數字。但該機構承認，它在一年內拆除了數百個不符合相關規定的霓虹招牌。拆除不是出於安全與建築結構原因，就是因爲安裝時未經許可，或者招牌本身已被棄置不用。

In a workshop with gray, peeling walls, Lau Wan, one of the last of Hong Kong’s neon sign makers, heated a glass tube on a naked flame, effortlessly bending it into the Chinese character for Polytechnic University.

劉穩是香港最後一批霓虹招牌製作師傅之一，在牆皮斑駁脫落的車間裏，他用明火給一個玻璃管加熱，一邊輕鬆地將它彎曲成“香港理工大學”的中文字樣。

Mr. Lau, who has been making neon signs by hand since 1957, helped turn Hong Kong nights into blazing, garish days. He created one of the city’s largest and most famous signs, the red-and-white Panasonic billboard that covered an entire building on Nathan Road from 1973 to 1995.

1957年入行後一直靠手工製作霓虹燈的劉穩，和其他工匠製作的霓虹光管一起，把香港的夜晚變成了五光十色、令人目眩的白晝。他的作品包括香港最大也最著名的霓虹招牌之一——紅白兩色的“樂聲牌”(Panasonic)廣告招牌，從1973年到1995年，它佔據了彌敦道上一座大廈的一整面外牆。

According to Guinness World Records, another Hong Kong sign, a 210-by-55-foot ad for Marlboro cigarettes, was the world’s largest in the 1980s. It was eclipsed here in 1999 by a giant dragon sign, about 299 feet by 151 feet, Leila Wang, a Guinness spokeswoman, said.

根據吉尼斯世界紀錄，20世紀80年代，210英尺×55英尺的香港萬寶路香菸霓虹廣告牌曾是世界上最大的霓虹招牌。吉尼斯女發言人萊拉·王(Leila Wang，音譯)說，1999年，它的紀錄被香港的另一座霓虹招牌超過，那是一座299英尺×151英尺的巨龍招牌。

Now, at 75, Mr. Lau said he feared that his craft was dying.

75歲的劉穩說，他擔心這門手藝會失傳。

“I want it preserved, but I probably won’t be able to see it,” he said.

“我希望它可以保存下去，但我可能看不到了，”他說。

His colleague, Wu Chi-kai, 47, is the second-youngest of the nearly dozen neon sign makers left in the city, and there are no apprentices being trained for the next generation.

他的同事、47歲的胡智楷是香港第二年輕的霓虹招牌師傅，但在這裏僅存的十來位師傅中，大家都無徒可授。

“Just like every other industry, if the business is good, there must be new blood,” Mr. Wu said. “If no one is joining the industry, the reason is the lack of business.”

“和所有行業一樣，如果生意興隆，就會有新鮮血液，”胡智楷說，“如果沒有人加入這個行業，那就是沒有生意做。”

Neon was a Western import that quickly gained its own vocabulary in China, first in Shanghai, then Hong Kong, combining the ancient Chinese art of calligraphy with modern advertising.

霓虹燈是西方的舶來品，但是很快在中國發展起新的形式，先是在上海，然後是在香港，它把古老的中國書法藝術與現代商業廣告結合在一起。

Before computer fonts took over, master calligraphers drafted the Chinese characters, making sketches that were traced by sign makers.

在電腦字體一統天下之前，霓虹招牌上的中文字由書法大師起草，再由師傅按照這個底稿進行製作。

Fung Siu-wa, 66, calls himself the champion of the character outlining game. He still has no computer in his office, where the most advanced piece of technology is a television. Sipping a cup of black tea in his black silk tang suit, he said the work involved spending time learning the shapes of the words, understanding the structures of the characters and catering to the needs of particular industries.

66歲的馮兆華（Fung Siu-wa）自稱爲勾勒字體的冠軍。他的辦公室裏仍然沒有電腦，最先進的東西就是一臺電視。他身穿黑色絲綢唐裝，品着紅茶，說自己的工作就是研究中文方塊字的形狀結構，以便適應不同行業的需要。

“Every industry has different preference for typeface,” he said. “Restaurants and hotels like more honest-looking characters, while more artistic businesses like salons, nightclubs and karaoke prefer ethereal-looking ones that give a romantic and relaxing sensation.”

“不同的行業喜歡不同的字體，”他說。“飯館和酒店喜歡看上去更老實的字體，而沙龍、夜店、卡拉OK那些比較藝術化的行業更喜歡浪漫、輕鬆的感覺。”

Certain tropes have developed, such as the badge-shaped sign that every Hong Kong resident knows as the logo for pawn shops. The design resembles a bat holding a coin in its mouth. The Chinese word for bat sounds like the word for fortune, and the coin symbolizes wealth.

這個行當還發展出了特定的修辭，比如所有香港人都知道，某種徽章形狀的招牌是典當行的標識，上面的圖案是一隻蝙蝠嘴裏叼着一個銅板。在中文裏，“蝠”與“富”諧音，而銅板象徵着錢財。

What the medium itself represents has changed over time. When Hong Kong first fell for neon in the 1920s, it was an indicator of urban sophistication and prosperity.

作爲媒介，霓虹燈的意義也隨着時間的變化而變化。20世紀20年代，香港剛剛迷上霓虹燈的時候，它曾是城市品位與繁榮的象徵。

By the 1960s and ‘70s, when some neighborhoods here were as chockablock with neon as Times Square, it was considered gaudy, if not headache-inducing. By the 1980s, neon signs were often associated with urban decay and red-light districts.

60年代到70年代，香港的一些地方開始像紐約的時報廣場一樣佈滿了霓虹燈，人們覺得它們就算不是讓人頭疼，至少也是過於花哨俗氣。80年代，霓虹招牌經常和城市的墮落與紅燈區聯繫在一起。

Today, as they grow scarcer, they have become retro-chic artifacts and objects of nostalgia. Old signs are purchased as folk art by collectors and museums, while modern artists incorporate neon in their work.

如今，隨着霓虹招牌日漸稀少，它們開始成爲用於復古與懷舊的東西。收藏家和博物館把老的霓虹招牌當做民間藝術收購，現代藝術家們則把霓虹燈融入自己的作品。

Mr. Chen of M+ says the signs should remain in their natural habitat, suspended above Hong Kong’s busy streets. But his museum has acquired signs to save them from the junk heap. M+, which for now has no space of its own, hopes to display them when its building is finished in 2019.

M+的陳伯康說，霓虹招牌應該保留在原來的地方，懸掛在香港繁忙街道的上方。不過，他的博物館也在從垃圾堆裏搶救它們。M+如今還沒有自己的空間，要到2019年場館落成後，才能公開展示自己收藏的霓虹招牌。

Plenty of handmade neon remains in the city for those who notice it. Mr. Chen says most residents do not.

香港還是有很多手工製作的霓虹燈，根本無人注意。陳伯康說，大多數居民不會留意身邊的霓虹招牌。

“Neon signs are so familiar to people in Hong Kong that, of course, they almost don’t need to think about it,” he said. It often takes a foreign eye, he said, to see the beauty.

“香港人非常熟悉這些霓虹招牌，所以多數人理所當然地不會多想它們，”他說。大多數時候，異鄉人的眼睛才能看到它們的美。

The sign makers, however, downplay any artistic pretension. As their work began to blanket the city, art was not the point.

不過，霓虹招牌製作師們並不重視藝術化的虛飾。他們的作品遍佈全城的時候，藝術根本不重要。

“The only requirement at that time was to be able to immediately catch someone’s attention among a street full of signs,” Mr. Wu said. “That was the standard.”

“當時滿街都是招牌，唯一的要求就是，你的招牌能夠立刻吸引人們的注意力，” 胡智楷說，“這是行業的標準。”

Most of the work today, Mr. Wu said, consists of indoor decorative signs for boutiques, bars and restaurants.

胡智楷說，如今，他們的大多數作品是爲精品店、酒吧和飯館製作室內裝飾性的招牌，也包括室內裝潢。

These pieces may be lovely, and may even be art, but they are obscure. The neon signs Mr. Wu and Mr. Lau once made were seen by a city of seven million.

這些作品或許很可愛，甚至堪稱藝術品，但它們不爲人所知。然而胡智楷和劉穩以前製作的那些招牌可以被整個城市的800萬人看到。

“When foreigners came to Hong Kong, looking at the scenery of the narrow streets, and were stunned by the neon signs, it made us sign makers quite proud,” Mr. Lau said. “We worked so hard for Hong Kong and were actually making contributions.”

“外國人來到香港，看到狹窄街頭登上的景象，到處都是霓虹招牌，總會讓他們驚歎不已，這讓我們招牌師傅非常驕傲，”劉穩說。“我們爲香港拼命工作，真是做了不少的貢獻。”