Lan Kwai Fong: The hottest place to party in the world? 世界最熱門的派對場所─蘭桂坊
Hong Kong (CNN)-There are many reasons to dread visiting Lan
Kwai Fong (or LKF), the legendary nightlife zone in the middle of Hong Kong's
busy Central business district.
香港CNN-走訪位於香港熱鬧的中環商業區中心，著名的夜生活區─蘭桂坊(簡稱LKF)，令人生畏的理由有很多。
The precipitous incline that spells trouble for
tipsy high heel wearers.
The unavoidable shoulder-rubbings along narrow,
sweaty streets.
The not-so-subtle, disapproving once-overs from
cool-than-thou partiers.
像是陡峭的斜坡常導致喝醉酒又穿著高跟鞋的人發生意外、在狹窄又充滿汗水的街上無可避免的摩肩擦踵、還有那些比你酷的派對咖銳利且鄙視的眼神。
But those are the same reasons that make LKF
the most popular party area in Hong Kong -- and in recent years, a hot
commodity that every Chinese city wants to clone.
但這也是為什麼蘭桂坊在香港是最熱門狂歡區的理由，在近年，更是很多中國城市想要效仿的熱門商機。
No ties
無拘無束
Allan Zeman,
"the father of Lan Kwai Fong."
「蘭桂坊之父」盛智文
LKF is technically the name of a short L-shaped
street in Central.
Back in the 1870s, the street began its urban
life as an area of prostitution.
By the early 1900s it was popular with hawkers,
or street traders.
蘭桂坊嚴格來說，是中環一條L型小徑的名字，追溯到1870年代，蘭桂坊的前身是紅燈區，而在早期1900年代，更以街頭叫賣的小販而聞名。
In the last three decades, it's become a slick
entertainment and dining area that has sprawled into neighboring D'Aguilar Street,
Wyndham Street and beyond.
Many attribute the area's rise to one man:
Allan Zeman, "the father of LKF."
很多人都認為蘭桂坊的興起都要歸功於「蘭桂坊之父」盛智文。
Sitting in his office in Central -- more like a
stylish tea house adorned with art pieces including sculptures by Chinese
artist Liu Bolin -- the former textiles mogul from Canada tells
CNN the story of LKF's success.
這位來自加拿大的前紡織大亨向CNN述說蘭桂坊的成功故事，坐在他中環的辦公室裡，像是現代時尚茶樓一般，裝飾著許多藝術品，包括劉勃麟的雕刻作品。
For Zeman, it all started back in the 1980s
when Hong Kong was still counting down the days to 1997, when Britain would
hand the territory back to China.
對盛智文來說，一切都要追溯於1980年代，香港九七回歸倒數，英國將領土歸還給中國。
"In those years when the British were
here, the restaurants were in hotels and were quite formal -- they gave you a
tie and a jacket," he says.
As a young upstart from the fashion industry,
Zeman didn't quite fit in.
盛智文說：「在英國統治的那些年，餐廳通常設置於飯店裡面，而且非常正式，他們要求你要穿大衣打領帶。」但是身為時尚業的年輕新秀，他並不這麼做。
"I don't wear ties, I don't wear a jacket,
I don't wear socks," he says (still wearing neither tie nor socks).
"I felt that Hong Kong, as such an
international city, needed an area like LKF. That's why I started it."
And so, three decades ago, he opened up the
California Bar.
他說：「我不打領帶、不穿大衣，也不穿襪子(直到現在仍然如此)。我認為像香港這樣國際性的城市，應該要有像蘭桂坊這樣的地方，所以我開始著手經營。」
因此在30年前，他開設了一間加州酒吧。
An immediate hit, he quickly expanded to other
LKF properties, including the multistory California Tower and the California
Entertainment Building.
立即引起一陣熱潮，他快速的拓展到其他蘭桂坊的所有地，包括加州高樓大廈及加州娛樂大廈
These became home to Central's major party
complexes and caused a ripple effect as other bars and restaurants moved in.
這些建築使得中環成了社交複合式建築的發源地，也吸引了其他酒吧和餐廳進駐。
In 2010, the iconic buildings were demolished
to make way for the bigger and bolder California Tower, a 27-story landmark
that opened last summer.
這些象徵性的建築物於2010年拆除，改建成更大、更醒目、共有27層樓的加州大廈地標，並於去年夏天開幕。
People
watching people
你看我 我看你
LKF can sometimes be a squeeze -- which is why people love it.
蘭桂坊時常人擠人，這也是人們喜愛這裡的理由
Beyond
building into the sky, Zeman has witnessed other major developments over the
past five years that have inked LKF firmly onto Hong Kong's map.
"LKF
has become one of the most important icons in Hong Kong's tourism
industry," he says Zeman. "It's become a lifestyle brand.
"Tourists
now come here, some just to take a picture of the LKF street sign with
themselves."
從地上的建設到空中的開發，盛智文表示，過去五年的其他主要開發使得蘭桂坊在香港的地圖上屹立不搖。
他說：「蘭桂坊成了香港旅遊業最重要的指標之一，也成一種生活品牌，有些遊客來到這裡只是為了和蘭桂坊的街牌拍照。」
Zeman now
helms the Lan Kwai Fong Group, an association overseeing the 100-plus bars and
restaurants crammed into the party zone.
Its
lucrative business and no corner of LKF goes to waste.
盛智文目前領導蘭桂坊集團，管理上百家聚集在這鬧區的酒吧和餐廳，這是一份很賺錢的生意而且沒有浪費蘭桂坊任何一處角落。
"There
is a place to go on every floor, in every hole in the wall -- see Brickhouse (a
popular taco place hidden in the back alley), which really is in a hole but it
lures people."
Bimonthly
street carnivals help draw in more crowds, but Zeman says LKF owes its success
largely to its maze-like physical environment.
他說：「這是一個沒有你到不了的地方，每個樓層，甚至是牆裡的每個洞。你看，像是Brickhouse(隱身在暗巷裡的人氣墨西哥餐廳)是真的開設在牆洞裡，但卻吸引大批人潮。」
兩個月一次的街頭嘉年華也協助吸引大批人潮，但是盛智文表示，蘭桂坊的成功，主要是因為它迷宮一般的地理環境。
"Because
it's on a slope and in a narrow space, it creates and compresses a lot of
energy into one space," he says. "If the street was much wider, it'd
be hard to have such an energy."
In addition
to making bar crawling easier, the narrow streets enable another popular
activity -- gawping.
他說：「也就是因為它位於狹窄的斜坡上，才能創造及濃縮大量的活力在這個地方，如果這個街道很寬敞的話，就很難有如此的活力了。」
除了能更輕易地接連光顧好幾家酒吧之外，這狹窄的街道也衍生了另一種熱門活動─注視彼此。
"One
thing I've learned over the years is people love to watch people," says
Zeman.
"LKF's
a great people-watching place because you can see from the straight nice people
to the crazies.
"You
can bump into tourists from everywhere in the world taking a drink.
"And
there are different changing crowds -- from lunch to happy hours to dinner to
club."
盛智文說：「這些年我所學到的是，人們很愛注視彼此，而蘭桂坊正是一個互相注視的好地方，因為你可以看到形形色色的人們，有直率的好人，也有瘋子，在你小酌一杯的時候，你可能會碰見來自世界各地的旅客，而且這裡從午餐時間到午茶時間、從晚餐時間到狂歡時間，人潮都不斷地在改變，不盡相同。」
Expansion to China
擴展到中國
Sometimes your hair just wants to party harder than you do.
有時候你的頭髮玩得比你還瘋
Another
crucial development for LKF during the last five years is expansion into China.
"I get
a call every single day, from almost every city you can name in China,"
says Zeman.
Chengdu, in
Sichuan province, was the first "LKF" project outside Hong Kong.
在後期的五年，另一項對蘭桂坊來說，具有挑戰性的發展，則是拓展到中國。
盛智文說：「我每天都接到來自中國的電話，幾乎你叫得出來的每個城市都會打來。」
四川省成都，是蘭桂坊第一個香港以外的據點。
"The
government built 19 blocks there and originally they were doing retail, but
they had problems," says Zeman.
"So
they came to see me. At that time, I was thinking -- 'Chengdu?' It didn't sound
so exciting to me, but I thought I would go and take a look."
He fell in
love with the place and Lan Kwai Fong Chengdu opened in 2010, a move he says
earned kudos for local leaders.
盛智文說：「政府在那裡建了19區，原先他們是想在那裡做零售商，但是碰到了一些問題，所以他們來找我，那時候我在想：成都？我聽起來一點也不感興趣，但我還是去那裡看看。」
結果他愛上那個地方，而成都蘭桂坊也在2010年開幕，他所說的推進為當地領導者贏得了榮譽。
"The
government of course was very proud," he says.
"For
the government, it's 'big face' to attract the real LKF -- there are so many
copycat LKFs in China."
But, he
adds, rebuilding something so organic isn't simple.
他說：「政府當然非常引以為傲，對他們來說吸引到真正的蘭桂坊為他們帶來很大的面子，在中國有太多冒牌的蘭桂坊了。」
但是，他也補充到，要重建有系統的東西，不是一件容易的事。
"As I
always say: people make the party, people make the place," says Zeman.
The group
now tweaks its formula in response the location and its people.
"For
example in Chengdu people like spicy food. So when a famous U.S. rib place
opened there, it didn't do well because its food wasn't spicy enough. You've
got to identify each of the cities and its people."
目前團隊正在針對這個地點以及這裡的人們，修改專案，盛智文說：「就像我一直在強調的：因為有人，才有派對；因為有人，才有蘭桂坊，舉例來說，成都的人們喜歡吃辣，所以當有名的美國肋排餐廳在這開幕的話，生意一定做不起來，因為食物不夠辣啊，因此，你必須去辨別每一個城市和居民。」
LKF now has
an outpost in Shanghai, partnered with DreamWorks animation studio.
It also
operates a hotel in Phuket as well as other residential properties.
目前蘭桂坊在上海有和夢工場攜手合作的前哨站，而在普吉島也有度假村及其他住宅區。
'Nine lives'
如同貓一樣有九條命
Ambitious, perhaps, but Zeman is a
bold operator who has already branched out into virtually all corners of the
entertainment industry.
Until 2014, he served a successful
11-year stint as a chairman of Ocean Park, Hong Kong's homegrown theme park.
或許是野心，但是盛智文是一位大膽的經營者，他事實上已經遍及娛樂業的任何一個角落了。
到2014年為止，他已經擔任香港當地海洋主題公園的主席滿11年了。
During his tenure, the park became the
first and only theme park in Asia to be given the Applause Award (an
international amusement park accolade).
Zeman was also called "the mouse
killer" by Forbes for his ability to triumph over the then newly opened
Disneyland Hong Kong.
在他任職期間，香港海洋公園是亞洲第一間，也是唯一一間獲得「全球最佳主題公園」大獎(Applause Award)，盛智文也因打敗當時新開幕的香港迪士尼，而被富比士雜誌喻為「米老鼠殺手」。
"I'm like a cat that has nine
lives," says Zeman, who has lived in Hong Kong for 47 years and renounced
his Canadian passport to become a Chinese Hong Kong citizen seven years ago.
"I think my mission in life is to make
people happy," says Zeman.
"When I was in the fashion
business, my goal was to make people look beautiful.
"Later, I am able to take the
beautiful people and feed them and party them.
"And so it's every part of my
life is to make people happy."
盛智文在香港居住47年，七年前，他放棄加拿大國籍，成為中國香港公民，他說：「我就像貓一樣有九條命，我認為使人們快樂是我的使命，當我在時尚流行業的時候，我的目標是使人們看起來漂亮，爾後，我帶著這些光鮮亮麗的人們，滿足他們，娛樂他們，因此，我生命的每一個部份都是在使人們快樂。」
So how does the nightlife guru party
nowadays?
"I drink water," says Zeman.
"Believe it or not -- 'father of LKF' never drinks."
那這位夜生活的領袖現今又是如何狂歡呢？
盛智文說：「我只喝水，蘭桂坊之父從不喝酒，信不信由你！」
