彩虹邨的“新生”：香港公屋成“网红”拍照地

he basketball courts at Choi Hung Estate, a public housing complex in Hong Kong, would seem the perfect place to play. Brightly painted in blue, orange, yellow and red, they are on the sunny roof of a two-story parking garage, and surrounded on three sides by equally colorful high-rise apartment buildings.

彩虹邨(Choi Hung Estate)是香港的一个公共租住房屋小区，这里的篮球场看起来本该是一个打球的好场所。这些涂着蓝橙黄红鲜艳色彩的球场，位于小区两层楼停车场的充满阳光的屋顶，球场的三个边被同样五颜六色的高层公寓楼环绕。

But it can be hard to get a game going with all the people standing, sitting and lying down for pictures.

但是，这里有这么多的人在站着、坐着、躺着拍照，以至于很难把一场球打下去。

Across Hong Kong, where almost half the population lives in government-provided housing, public housing complexes have become wildly popular Instagram destinations. Locals and tourists have flocked to estates around the city, craning their necks to get that perfect social media shot and irritating residents in the process.

香港有近一半人口居住在政府提供的公屋，这些屋邨已成为Instagram上最受欢迎的目的地。当地人和游客纷纷涌入位于香港各处的公屋邨，摆姿势拍摄用以上传社交媒体的完美照片，也在这个过程中激怒了当地的居民。

The estates have drawn professional interest as well, featuring prominently in marketing campaigns and even a music video by the Korean boy band Seventeen.

这些屋邨还吸引了专业摄影者的兴趣，它们被引人注目地用在营销活动的材料上，甚至还出现在韩国男子流行音乐团体Seventeen的音乐视频中。

It is easy to see why places like Choi Hung, which means “rainbow” in Cantonese, are so Instagram friendly. Other estates make for equally pleasing photographs: One is made up of bright blue structures with mesmerizing concentric circles, another of cylindrical buildings with interiors that resemble giant Slinkys.

不难理解为什么彩虹邨这样的地方特别受Instagram用户的喜爱。其他的屋邨也适合拍出同样赏心悦目的照片：一个屋邨里的明亮蓝色建筑构成引人入迷的同心圆，另一个由圆柱形建筑组成，建筑内部像是巨大的螺旋弹簧玩具“机灵鬼”(Slinky)。

“It’s visual art. It attracts people’s attention,” said William Leung, 38, a self-proclaimed “public housing fanatic” and an avid photographer who recently published a photo book about Hong Kong’s estates.

“这是视觉艺术，吸引着人们的注意力，”38岁的威廉·梁(William Leung)说，他自称是“公屋迷”，也是一位狂热的摄影爱好者，最近出版了一本关于香港公屋的摄影集。

As with so much architecture, good looks go a long way. But what many of the tourists toting selfie sticks do not realize is that the estates are miracles of public housing, creating affordable homes for millions of people in one of the world’s most expensive cities.

和许多建筑一样，上镜头的大都是漂亮的外表。但许多拿着自拍杆来这里的游客没有意识到的是，这些屋邨是公共住房的奇迹，在世界上最昂贵的城市之一，为数百万人提供了经济适用的住所。

“When you see Choi Hung Estate becoming popular on Instagram, it’s purely based on aesthetics,” said Christopher DeWolf, a journalist who writes about urbanism and architecture, and the author of “Borrowed Spaces: Life Between the Cracks in Modern Hong Kong.”

“你看到彩虹邨在Instagram上走红，那纯粹是基于其表观美学，”克里斯托弗·德伍尔夫(Christopher DeWolf)说，他是从事城市与建筑报道的记者，著有《借来的空间：现代香港的夹缝生活》(Borrowed Spaces: Life Between the Cracks in Modern Hong Kong)一书。

“A lot of Hong Kong’s public housing estates were built at a time when modernism was an ascendant form of architecture,” said Mr. DeWolf, 33. He said their clean lines and symmetry make them “very striking” as photographic backdrops.

“香港的许多公共住房都是在现代主义成为一种日益受欢迎的建筑形式的时代建造的，”33岁的德伍尔夫说。他说，这些建筑清晰的轮廓和匀称的线条使它们成为“非常醒目”的摄影背景。

The estates also provide a different view of Hong Kong, which is more often photographed for its iconic skyline.

这些屋邨也为人们提供了香港的一个不同景观，照片上的香港通常拍的是其标志性的天际线。

“Posing in front of public housing complexes where so many people live creates the sense that they’re in the middle of the world,” said Cyrus Wong, an architectural assistant who researched the popularity of public housing on Instagram as part of his master’s thesis.

“在住着这么多人的公屋邨里摆姿势拍照，给人以处于世界中心的感觉，”建筑助理赛勒斯·黄(Cyrus Wong)说，他在研究公屋在Instagram上的流行，这是他硕士论文的一部分。

Sometimes, those selfie-takers are posing in the middle of a basketball game.

有时候，这些自拍者们在篮球赛还在进行时就站在球场上摆姿势拍照。

Vincent Yeung, 23, has lived at Choi Hung Estate almost his entire life. On a recent Saturday afternoon, he was the lone basketball player on courts that were otherwise packed with photographers.

23岁的文森特·杨(Vincent Yeung)几乎一直住在彩虹邨。不久前一个周六的下午，他是球场上唯一一个打球的人，其他的场地则挤满了拍照者。

“There are too many people taking photos here,” he said. “My friends have gone elsewhere to play.”

“这里拍照的人太多，”他说。“我的朋友们都去其他地方打球了。”

A few months ago, he was playing a game of 3-on-3 when a couple decided to sit in the middle of the court for photos. A stray ball inevitably hit them, Mr. Yeung said, and the couple exploded in anger, cursing at him and his friends.

几个月前，他在打一场三人赛时，有一对情侣非要坐在场地中间拍照。果然，一个球打偏了砸到他们，杨说，这对情侣勃然大怒，咒骂他和他的朋友。

“If we scold them, we’re accused of discrimination,” he said of the mainland tourists who are among the visitors to the estate. “But if we don’t scold them — well, we’re playing basketball here! It’s really a dilemma.”

“如果我们要是说他们吧，就会说我们搞歧视，”他指的是来彩虹邨参观的内地游客。“但是如果我们不说他们——哎，我们正在这里打球!真是不好办。”

There are no explicit rules against photography at the estates, but passcodes are required to enter the buildings themselves.

在公屋邨，没有明令禁止拍照，但是进入楼内需要密码。

At another Instagram hot spot — an incredibly dense collection of five residential blocks in the Quarry Bay neighborhood that were featured in the movie “Transformers: Age of Extinction” — residents trying to protect their privacy have posted signs warning visitors not to take photos or videos without prior approval.

在Instagram上的另一个热门景点——电影《变形金刚：绝迹重生》中出现过的鲗鱼涌(Quarry Bay)五栋密密麻麻的居民楼——竭力保护隐私的居民们张贴起告示，警示游客不要在未经许可的情况下拍照或是录影。

Public housing in Hong Kong does not have the negative connotations it sometimes does in the United States, partly because so many people here depend on it.

香港的公屋不像美国的公屋有时带有负面含义，部分原因可能是这里如此多的人都依赖它。

“If almost half of the population lives in public housing, it becomes an everyday backdrop, rather than something separated and isolated,” said Eric Schuldenfrei, an associate dean in the architecture department at the University of Hong Kong.

“如果近乎一半的人口都住在公屋里，那么它就成了一种日常背景，而不是被分开或被孤立的东西，”香港大学建筑系副主任邵达辉(Eric Schuldenfrei)说。

Public housing has played an important role in Hong Kong’s history, with government policy often reflecting the city’s economic development.

公屋在香港历史上发挥着重要作用，政府的政策通常反映的是这座城市的经济发展状况。

Hong Kong saw a huge influx of refugees from roughly 1937 to 1950, which was spurred by the Japanese invasion of China in the lead-up to World War II and continued through China’s civil war. The city struggled to accommodate the newcomers, and hundreds of thousands ended up living in sprawling, overcrowded shantytowns packed with squatter huts.

大约从1937年到1950年间，大批难民涌入香港，这是由于第二次世界大战前日本入侵中国以及后续的中国内战所致。香港努力接纳新移民，成千上万的人们最终住进了杂乱无序、拥挤的棚户区，里面挤满寮屋。

When a fire ripped through a squatter area on Christmas Day in 1953, displacing 53,000 people overnight, the government was forced to intervene. Temporary shelters and short-term resettlement centers were eventually replaced by permanent housing estates. One of the first was Choi Hung, built in 1964 to house some 43,000 people.

1953年圣诞节，一场大火席卷了寮屋区，使得5.3万人在一夜之间无家可归，政府被迫介入。临时避难所以及短期安置中心最终被永久性公屋邨所取代。其中首批就包括彩虹邨，它建于1964年，住着大约4.3万人。

In the decades since, the Hong Kong government has aggressively pursued a policy of housing its citizens. Today, 30 percent of the population lives in public rental housing, while 16 percent lives in apartments purchased with the help of government subsidies.

在那往后的数十年间，香港政府积极推进住房政策，为民众提供住处。如今，香港30%的人口住在公屋，16%的人口住在由政府补贴购买的公寓内。

The city “has a massive public sector housing program on a scale that is unprecedented in free-market economies,” according to a report on housing policy by Our Hong Kong Foundation, a research organization. “It is undeniable that the government of Hong Kong is the single largest landlord, developer and operator of housing within the territory.”

根据研究机构团结香港基金(Our Hong Kong Foundation)一份有关住房政策的报告，香港“有一个巨大的公共部门住房项目，其规模在自由市场经济体中前所未见”。“不可否认的是，香港政府是这片土地上独大的地主、房屋开发商和运营商。”

In spite of this, the city faces a severe housing crisis, and demand for public housing far outstrips supply. Families are now waiting more than five years for apartments, which in turn has pushed prices in the private market to astronomical highs.

尽管如此，香港还是面临着严重的住房危机，而且对于公屋的需求远超其供给。现在，很多家庭为了获得一套房需要等超过五年的时间，这反过来又将私人市场上的房价推向天文数字。

Older housing estates like Choi Hung remind people of a more affordable era, Mr. DeWolf said. Many of them were built in the 1960s, when the city transformed itself into a booming manufacturing hub, and 1970s, when the economy took off.

德伍尔夫说，像彩虹邨这样旧的公屋邨让人们回想起过去那个房价远可承受的时代。其中很多都建于20世纪六七十年代。六十年代，香港转型为蓬勃发展的制造业中心，到了七十年代，经济开始腾飞。

“In hindsight, there’s this optimism,” Mr. DeWolf said, “a yearning for a time that maybe seemed more simple, when it seemed like everyone in Hong Kong had a shot at success.”

“回想起来，这里面有一种乐观精神，”德伍尔夫说，“是对于一个更简单时代的向往，当时似乎每个香港人都有机会成功。”

K. Pang, a retired civil servant in his 50s, recently returned with his family to Choi Hung, where he had spent much of his childhood. 五十多岁的彭(K. Pang)是一名退休公务员，最近刚和他的家人回到彩虹邨，他在那里度过了大部分的童年时光。

“It’s nostalgic, to see an old estate like this now attracting tourists,” Mr. Pang said as he watched his children pose for photos. In the old days, he said, estates like these were associated with crime, but he now appreciates that they have become a popular attraction.

看着自己的孩子留影拍照，彭先生说：“看到这样一处旧的公屋邨如今吸引着游客，感觉很怀旧。”他说，在过去，像这样的公屋邨是和犯罪联系在一起的，但现在他却发现它们变成了受人喜欢的旅游景点。

Nelson Yuen, 25, a lifelong resident of Choi Hung, has seen the camera-toting crowds descend on his backyard. Far from being annoyed, he decided to set up a photo stand with his girlfriend, selling Polaroid shots for 40 Hong Kong dollars, or about $5, each.

25岁的尼尔森·袁(Nelson Yuen)一直住在彩虹邨，他看到自家后院里拿相机拍照的游客数量在减少。他完全没有被这种行为惹怒，反而决定和女朋友摆个照相摊，以每张40港币的价格出售拍立得相片。

“I think it’s pretty good, to make this place a tourist spot,” he said. “It’s better than not having people here.”

“我觉得这很好，把这里变成了一个旅游景点，”他说。“这比这里没有人要好。”