HONG KONG — Owners of dozens of buildings across the city drape the
exteriors with enormous displays for the holidays — an expense that
appears to be downturn-proof.
香港——在過去幾周里，摩天大樓側面展示着舞動的聖誕老人，它們喜氣洋洋，身邊環繞着閃爍的星形燈飾和各式各樣的裝飾物。
香港的大街小巷裡，數以萬計的燈飾呈現出了各式各樣景象：在城區的一角，聖誕老人騎在海豚上；不遠處，系著綵帶的巨大禮品盒裝點了另一座大樓的外牆，在數層樓高的位置閃閃發亮。
按圖放大
Alex Hofford for the International Herald Tribune
黃劍山
中國文化喜愛燈火，香港的天際線上全年都閃耀着世界上最明亮、最絢爛多彩的燈光。每當夕陽西下、夜幕降臨，商店的門面、指示牌，甚至整座建築都點亮了燈，其中一些還有波浪和閃爍的效果，整個城市都籠罩在橙色的光芒之中。
但每年的這個時候，香港的景象會更加燈火輝煌。許多大廈會裝上五彩繽紛、設計繁複的巨大燈飾，覆蓋很多層樓，相比之下，紐約的洛克菲勒中心
(Rockefeller
Center)和倫敦的牛津街則顯得遜色許多。數十座大廈上的燈飾，都裝點成了嬉戲的馴鹿、頭戴絨球帽的雪人，以及巨大的聖誕樹，有時這番景象還會呈現出
令人驚異的效果。
很多燈飾圖樣背後的設計人是黃劍山(Terence Wong)，他經過培訓成為電工，曾經負責劇院的舞檯燈光工作。30年前，一家香港房地產開發商讓黃劍山給位於尖沙咀東新建的寫字樓群增添一些季節氛圍，當時那塊區域並不繁華。黃劍山毫不猶豫地接受了這項工作。
“這是讓我傾注熱情的工作，”今年54歲的黃劍山在堆滿文件和燈飾配件的辦公室里，接受採訪時說。“我從沒想過要停止。”
他的第一份工作是從樓頂向下懸掛簡單的星形燈飾。隨着黃劍山和他的員工學會了如何利用清洗窗戶的工作平台，將燈串固定到樓宇的玻璃幕牆上，他就開始讓燈飾的設計變得越來越複雜。
黃劍山表示，根據燈飾圖樣的大小和複雜程度的不同，價格通常在2萬到10萬港元（約合2600美元到1.3萬美元）不等。然而在許多樓宇的業主看來，裝點外牆就像西方文化里，購物中心經營者和普通市民在聖誕樹上點燈一樣，都是假日時節的一部分。
黃劍山說，經濟下滑並沒有促使業主抑制這項開支。他說，2003年香港暴發非典(SARS)疫情，導致旅遊業風光不再、經濟低迷，但樓宇業主實際上花費了更多資金做燈飾。
與之相似，今年的花費同樣沒有改變，儘管受到全球經濟衰退，以及中國經濟放緩的影響，2012年香港經濟預計只會增長1.2%，低於去年的4.9%和前年的6.8%。燈飾顯示了香港消費抵禦衝擊的潛力，香港失業率仍然很低，政府最新數據顯示，香港失業率為3.4%。
燈飾是中國民俗文化中根深蒂固的一部分。千百年來，燈籠一直是進行藝術表達、展示社會地位的物品，時至今日每到大型節慶時，都會舉行的眼花繚亂的焰
火表演也是如此。同樣，在中國各地，主要建築物入夜都會燈火通明，通常每隔幾秒鐘還會換一換顏色，燈光表演也成為一種廣受歡迎的公共娛樂方式。
在香港，多種不同因素讓這種現象愈發明顯。與中國內地城市不同，香港有規模很大的基督教和西方人社區，所以聖誕節、元旦和春節一樣，成為重要節日。
香港是一個高度商業化的城市，其財富中的很大一部分來自數以百萬計的內地遊客。滙豐銀行(HSBC)經濟師郭浩庄(Donna
Kwok)在本月的一份研究報告中表示，“現在，來香港的內地旅客人數，是前往新加坡或者紐約的遊客人數的20倍，甚至更多。”她補充說，到2015年，
這些遊客預計將消費550億美元（約合3428億元人民幣），相當於香港國內生產總值(GDP)的三分之一。
香港在夜間舉行的燈光激光秀等節目，也是吸引遊客的重要因素。香港旅遊發展局組織了超過40座建築物參加燈光秀，每晚都有數以千計的遊客前來觀賞。
財源滾滾的假日期間，建築物上的燈飾，會一直亮大約三個月。聖誕節和西曆新年結束後，燈飾就轉而體現慶祝春節的主題。春節標誌着中國農曆新年開始，
通常會在西曆1月或2月到來。“聖誕快樂”的祝願，被漢字書寫的“萬事如意”和“恭喜發財”所代替，聖誕老人也變成了財神。星星和雪花也由代表財富和幸福
的符號所取代。
黃劍山的燈飾業務從11月底開始增多，一直會持續到2月10日蛇年到來之後一周或兩周。
不過，黃劍山一年到頭都很忙碌，他要管理燈串及其他所需裝備的生產，並準備下一季的燈飾設計。他說，他從不重複使用過去的圖樣。他的順時燈飾公司(Shun Sze Lighting)每次在投標裝飾項目時，都會設計三個新的方案。這家公司是他在1976年建立的。
順時燈飾每年都會為二十多座樓宇提供裝飾服務，這需要大量繪圖工作，但黃劍山似乎對此並不介意。
“我一年到頭，每一天都在想聖誕節，”他笑着說。“每天都想着，聖誕老人要來了！”
Joanne Lam 對本文有報道貢獻。
翻譯：許欣
HONG KONG — For the past few weeks, Santa Claus, looking cheerful and
surrounded by twinkling stars and ornaments, has been dancing on the
sides of skyscrapers.
Chinese culture adores lights, and the Hong Kong skyline has some of
the biggest, brashest and most colorful in the world, year-round. Shop
fronts, signposts, entire buildings are lit up — some with undulating
and flickering effects — as the sun sets each evening, enveloping the
entire city in an orange glow.
But this time of year, the spectacle ratchets up several notches. Out
come vast, multicolored, complex designs that span many floors and make
the Rockefeller Center in New York and Oxford Street in London pale by
comparison. Frolicking reindeer, bobble-hatted snowmen, enormous
Christmas trees adorn dozens of buildings, sometimes to startling
effect.
The man behind many of these images is Terence Wong, who trained as
an electrician and once did stage lighting work for theaters. Thirty
years ago, Mr. Wong was asked by a Hong Kong property developer to add a
bit of seasonal pizazz to a new complex of office buildings in Tsim Sha
Tui East, an area that was then off the beaten track. He has not looked
back.
“It is my passion,” Mr. Wong, 54, said in an interview in his office,
which is filled with files and lighting accessories. “I never want to
stop.”
The first job involved simple stars suspended from the tops of
buildings. Over the years, Mr. Wong has made the displays ever more
complex, as he and his workers have learned how to affix strings of
light bulbs to the glass facades of buildings using window-cleaning
platforms.
The displays, Mr. Wong said, typically cost anywhere between 20,000
and 100,000 Hong Kong dollars, or about $2,600 to $13,000, depending on
the size and intricacy of the image. But for many building owners,
sprucing up exteriors is as much a part of the holiday season as tree
lights are for operators of shopping centers or private citizens in
Western cultures.
Downturns in the economy, Mr. Wong said, do not prompt building
owners to hold back on this expenditure. When an epidemic of severe
acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, hit Hong Kong in 2003, causing
tourism to evaporate and the economy to buckle, building owners actually
spent more on the displays, Mr. Wong said.
Likewise, spending this year has not changed, even though the Hong
Kong economy, hit by the global downturn and slower growth in China,
is expected to have grown just 1.2 percent in 2012.
That is down from 4.9 percent last year and 6.8 percent the year before
that. The displays are typical of the resilience in consumer spending
in Hong Kong, where unemployment remains low — 3.4 percent, according to
the latest government figures.
Light displays are deeply ingrained in Chinese folk culture. Lanterns
have been objects of artistic expression and status symbols for
centuries, as have the elaborate fireworks displays that feature in
major celebrations to this day. In the same vein, prominent buildings
are brightly lit all over China at night, often changing colors every
few seconds, while light shows are a popular form of public
entertainment.
In Hong Kong, various factors have given the phenomenon an extra
intensity. Unlike cities on the Chinese mainland, Hong Kong has sizable
Christian and Western communities, so Christmas and Jan. 1 join the
Lunar New Year as important festivals.
Then there is the sheer commercialism of Hong Kong, which derives a
large part of its wealth from millions of Chinese tourists. “For every
mainland Chinese who visits Singapore or New York today, there are 20 or
more who go to Hong Kong,” Donna Kwok, an economist at HSBC, said in a
research report this month. By 2015, these visitors are expected to
spend 55 billion dollars, equivalent to one-third of Hong Kong’s gross
domestic product, she added.
Attractions like the city’s nightly light-and-laser show, which
involves more than 40 buildings and is organized by the Hong Kong
tourism board, are an important draw, and visitors flock in their
thousands to see it each evening.
The holiday bonanza of decorative lights on buildings lasts about
three months. Once Christmas and the Western calendar New Year are over,
the displays are changed to focus on the Lunar New Year celebrations,
which mark the high point of the Chinese calendar and fall in January or
February. “Merry X-mas” wishes are replaced with Chinese characters
wishing good luck and wealth for the coming year. Santa Clauses morph
into Chinese money gods. Symbols of fortune and happiness replace stars
and snowflakes.
Mr. Wong’s illuminations started going up in late November and will
stay up until a week or two after the start of the Year of the Snake, on
Feb. 10.
Mr. Wong, however, stays busy year-round, looking after the
manufacture of the strings of light bulbs and other equipment he needs
and preparing the designs for the next season. He never recycles old
images, he said, but designs three new proposals for each decoration job
that Shun Sze Lighting, the company he founded in 1976, bids for.
Given that Shun Sze does about two dozen buildings per year, that is a lot of drawings — but Mr. Wong does not seem to mind.
“Every day, I think about Christmas — all year,” he beamed. “Santa Claus is coming — every day!”
Joanne Lam contributed reporting.
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