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| HONG KONG — On a damp Monday morning in Hong Kong, Freeman Ng looked out from the upper deck of the Star Ferry as it approached land. A sailor tossed a heavy rope to a colleague on the pier, who looped it around a bollard as the swoosh of the waves crashed against the green and white vessel pulling in from Victoria Harbor. |
| 香港——香港一个潮湿的周一早晨，天星小轮正在靠岸，弗里曼·吴从上层甲板向外张望。海浪撞击着这艘从维多利亚港驶入的绿白相间的渡轮，水手将一根粗绳子扔给码头上的同事，后者将绳子绕在桩上。 |
| Mr. Ng, 43, commutes from Kowloon to Hong Kong Island on the ferry most weekdays. The subway would be much faster, but Mr. Ng prefers to cross the harbor by boat. “The feeling is better on the ferry,” he said, taking in the salt air. |
| 43岁的吴先生在大多数工作日都乘坐渡轮从九龙前往香港岛。地铁会快很多，但吴先生更喜欢乘渡轮过海。“在渡轮上感觉好多了，”他一边说，一边呼吸着带咸味的空气。 |
| Hong Kong has had many casualties over the last three years. Mass social unrest in 2019 scared off tourists and hit restaurateurs and hoteliers. Coronavirus restrictions wiped out thousands of mom-and-pop shops. But the prospect of losing the Star Ferry — a 142-year-old institution — has resonated differently. |
| 过去三年，香港经历了许多创伤。2019年的大规模社会动荡吓走了游客，餐馆和酒店的经营者遭受打击。成千上万的家庭小店因新冠病毒的限制措施而不复存在。但即将失去有142年历史的天星小轮却产生了另一层共鸣。 |
| Since the pandemic began, the crowds that Mr. Ng once jostled to squeeze onto the ferry gangplank are gone. There are now so few passengers that the company that owns Star Ferry says the service may soon end, dimming the life of the harbor and the city itself. |
| 曾经吴先生要挤着推搡的人群通过吊板，自疫情开始以来，人群消失了。拥有天星小轮的公司表示，现在的乘客太少了，这项服务可能很快就会终止，这座海港城市本身的生活将因此变得黯淡。 |
| “It has so much history,” said Chan Tsz Ho, a 24-year-old assistant coxswain. “In the minds of Hong Kong people, including me, it’s an emblem of Hong Kong.” |
| “这么多年历史，”24岁的助理船长陈子豪（音）说。“在很多香港人心中，包括我自己，这是香港的象征啦。” |
| Like Hong Kong, the Star Ferry once represented a link between the East and the West. It was the first scheduled public ferry service in 1880 to connect Hong Kong Island to the Kowloon Peninsula, and the Chinese territory beyond it. Its founder, a Parsi baker and businessman, arrived in the city from Mumbai decades earlier as a stowaway on a ship headed to China. |
| 与香港一样，天星小轮曾经是东西方之间的纽带。这是1880年首个按时刻表服务的公共渡轮服务，往返于香港岛和九龙半岛，以及更远一些的中国领土。它的创始人是一名帕西人面包师和商人，几十年前从孟买偷渡到这座城市，当时他乘坐的是一艘驶向中国的船。 |
| At the time of his arrival, Hong Kong, only recently colonized by the British, was already transforming into a boomtown with corruption, drugs and disease on land and piracy and smuggling on the water. A police force made up of European, Chinese and South Asian officers tried to keep order. |
| 在他抵达时，被英国殖民没有多久的香港已经变成了一个繁荣的城市，陆地上出现了腐败、毒品和疾病，水上则有海盗和走私活动。一支由欧洲、中国和南亚警察组成的警察部队试图维持秩序。 |
| Dorabjee Naorojee Mithaiwala, the ferry’s founder, named his first four vessels Morning Star, Evening Star, Rising Star and Guiding Star. The current fleet includes eight boats that have changed little in the six decades since they were built. All eight have a star in their name. |
| 渡轮的创始人多拉吉·纳奥罗吉·米泰瓦拉将最初的四艘渡轮命名为晓星、晚星、高星和导星。目前的船队包括八艘渡轮，和六十年前创建时相比没多少区别。八艘渡轮的名字中都有一颗“星”字。 |
| The Star Ferry grew to become part of the lifeblood of Hong Kong. Residents were so dependent on it that a government-approved fare increase in 1966 led to days of protests, a harbinger of social unrest that spilled over into deadly demonstrations and riots a year later. British officials eventually responded with policy reforms. |
| 天星小轮逐渐成为香港活力命脉的一部分。居民如此依赖它，以至于1966年政府批准的加价引发了数天的抗议活动，成为一场社会动荡的先兆，一年后演变成致命的示威和骚乱。英国官员最终以政策改革作为回应。 |
| The Star Ferry riots came to symbolize the power of protest in Hong Kong, but as the ferry jolted across the harbor on a recent trip, with sailors pulling a chain to lower a red and yellow gangplank, that history appeared unremarkable to the scattered passengers trickling off the boat. |
| 天星小轮骚乱成为香港抗议力量的象征，但是现在，当渡轮颠簸着穿过港口，水手拉着铁链放下一块红黄相间的吊板时，对于走下渡轮的零散乘客来说，这段历史似乎并不引人注目。 |
| Issac Chan’s first memory of the Star Ferry was five decades ago, when his parents took him for an adventure as a young boy. “It traveled slow, but it was enjoyable. It wasn’t easy to go on a boat on the sea,” he said. Mr. Chan, 58, grew up in the New Territories, near the border with mainland China. |
| 艾萨克·陈对天星小轮的最初记忆是在50年前，当时他的父母带他出去玩。他说：“它开得很慢，但旅程很愉快。在海上乘船并不容易。”58岁的陈先生在靠近内地边界的新界长大。 |
| These days, he takes the ferry each morning after his shift as a night security guard in a residential building on Old Peak Road, a well-heeled area where Chinese people were unable to own property for part of British rule. The ride gives him time to unwind at the end of his work day, he said. |
| 现在他每天早上都会乘坐渡轮，他在旧山顶道的一栋住宅楼里当夜班保安，在英国统治的部分期间，中国人无法在这个富人区买房。他说，坐渡轮让他有时间在一天的工作结束后放松身心。 |
| When the British handed Hong Kong over to China in 1997, some who had fled to Hong Kong from China during the Cultural Revolution and, later, the bloody crackdown of Tiananmen Square in 1989 feared they would have to flee once again. Instead, life went on and little seemed to change for decades. Hong Kong continued to thrive as a hub for international finance and as a stopover for travelers in Asia. |
| 当英国在1997年将香港移交给中国时，一些在“文革”以及后来1989年天安门广场血腥镇压期间从中国逃到香港的人担心自己得再次逃离。相反，生活还在继续，几十年来似乎没有什么变化。作为国际金融中心和亚洲旅客的中转站，香港继续蓬勃发展。 |
| After the city built a cross harbor tunnel in 1972, other forms of public transport offered faster trips, and the ferry began to rely more on foreign visitors hopping on the boat for a cheap tour of the city. Commuters and touring passengers with cameras around their necks sometimes sat cheek by jowl, taking in the sights of flashing neon billboards, junk boats and shard-like skyscrapers rising toward Victoria Peak. |
| 1972年，香港修建了一条海底隧道后，其他形式的公共交通提供了更快的行程，渡轮也开始更多依赖外国游客，他们想以便宜的方式观光。通勤者和脖子上挂相机的游客有时会并肩坐在一起，欣赏闪烁的霓虹灯广告牌和传统帆船，以及带着棱角的摩天大楼向着维多利亚山顶升起。 |
| Yet the Star Ferry would once again witness upheaval. |
| 然而，天星小轮将再次见证巨变。 |
| In 2019, confrontations in Hong Kong between pro-democracy protesters and riot police officers were broadcast around the world. Protesters carrying helmets and protective goggles made their way to demonstrations to demand political freedom from China. Streets once crowded with tourists were shrouded in tear gas. |
| 2019年，香港支持民主的抗议者和防暴警察之间的对峙，经媒体传播到世界各地。戴着头盔和防护镜的抗议者走上街头示威，要求从中国获得政治自由。曾经挤满游客的街道被催泪瓦斯笼罩。 |
| The confrontations brought on a fierce crackdown from Beijing and marked the beginning of the Star Ferry’s recent financial troubles: The company says that it has lost more money in the 30 months since the protests erupted than it made over the last three decades. Even though the ferries can still be crowded at certain times of the day, especially when the weather is nice, the overall passenger numbers are far below what they were three years ago. |
| 这些冲突招致北京的严厉镇压，标志着天星小轮公司近期财务困境的开始：该公司表示，自抗议活动爆发以来的30个月里，该公司亏损的金额超过了过去30年的收入。尽管渡轮在一天中的某些时段仍然拥挤，尤其是天气好的时候，但总体乘客人数仍远低于三年前的水平。 |
| “The company is bleeding hard and we definitely need to find our way out,” said David Chow Cheuk-yin, the general manager. Mr. Chow has appealed to the public through media appearances, hoping that a cry for help will resonate with a deep-pocketed investor in a city built by business tycoons. |
| “公司失血过多，我们肯定需要找到出路，”总经理周卓贤表示，他通过媒体呼吁公众，希望在这个由商业大亨建造的城市里，呼救声能够带来一位财力雄厚的投资者。 |
| When he was asked to take over running the Star Ferry late last year, things were looking up, Mr. Chow said. Hong Kong had declared victory over the virus. Small businesses nearly destroyed by pandemic restrictions that had mostly cut Hong Kong off from the rest of the world began making plans to fully reopen. Some lawmakers even discussed loosening border controls. |
| 周卓贤说，去年年底，当他被要求接管天星小轮时，情况正在好转。香港宣布战胜疫情。许多几乎被防疫措施摧毁的小型企业开始计划全面重新开业，之前的那些限制基本上切断了香港与世界其他地方的联系。一些议员甚至讨论过放宽边境管制。 |
| “We were talking about recovery when I first took up this role,” Mr. Chow said. |
| “刚上任的时候，我们正在讨论怎么恢复，”周卓贤说。 |
| Then Omicron broke through Hong Kong’s fortress walls, forcing restaurants, bars, gyms and schools to close. “Instead of recovery, we are talking about survival mode,” said Mr. Chow. “Everything changed so quickly.” |
| 然后奥密克戎突破了香港的堡垒，迫使餐馆、酒吧、健身房和学校关闭。“我们讨论的不再是恢复，而是生存模式，”周卓贤说。“一切都变得太快了。” |
| For Mr. Chan, the assistant coxswain, being a seaman is a time-honored family tradition. His father, also a Star Ferry sailor, regaled him with stories of the sea as a young boy. His grandfather, a fisherman, also shared tales. So when there was an opening for a trainee position at Star Ferry three years ago, Mr. Chan jumped. |
| 对助理船长陈子豪来说，水手职业是悠久的家庭传统。他的父亲也是天星小轮的水手，在他小时候给他讲了很多关于大海的故事。他的祖父是一名渔民，也有很多故事。所以，三年前天星小轮有一个实习职位的空缺时，陈子豪就来了。 |
| The baby-faced boatman, who stands out among the weathered older sailors at Star Ferry, said he would spend the rest of his life on the water if given the chance. His favorite part of the job is navigating the whims of the currents and steering the ferries in challenging weather, carving out different paths each time, he said. |
| 站在天星小轮饱经风霜的老水手们当中，这位娃娃脸的船长显得格外醒目。他说，如果有机会，他愿意在水上度过余生。他说，这份工作中他最喜欢的部分是在变幻莫测的洋流中航行，在恶劣的天气中掌舵，每次都开辟出不同的航线。 |
| When the fog hangs over the water, hindering visibility in the crowded harbor, he and the crew have to use their ears as well as their eyes to navigate. “You can’t even see the other end of your own vessel,” he said. |
| 当浓雾笼罩水面，拥挤的港口能见度下降时，他和船员们必须用耳朵和眼睛来导航。“船头看不到船尾，”他说。 |
| Mr. Chan’s young face betrayed a hint of disappointment as he started to explain that his morning shift begins an hour later now because the ferry has reduced its hours. For much of this year it had stopped running two hours earlier at night, too. The sounds of passengers flipping the ferry’s wooden seats are muted. |
| 陈子豪解释说，由于渡轮缩短了工作时间，他的早班时间也推迟了一个小时，说话时他年轻的脸上流露出一丝失望。在今年的大部分时间里，它晚上也会提前两个小时停止运行。乘客翻动渡轮木质座椅的声音小多了。 |
| “Sometimes there is only one or two passengers crossing the harbor,” Mr. Chan said, “but we are a full crew.” |
| “有时候就是一个人两个人过海，”陈子豪说，“但我们却是一班人。” |
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