在中國大陸，智慧手機能訴說一顆奇異果的履歷。

With a quick scan of a code, shoppers can look up the fruit’s 1,600-kilometer journey from the upper Yangtze River to a bin in a Beijing supermarket. The smartphone feature, which also details soil and water tests from the farm, is intended to ensure that the kiwi has not been contaminated anywhere along the way.

消費者用手機快速掃描代碼，就能查詢這顆奇異果從長江上游到來北京超市箱子裡，這1600公里的旅程。這個用於智慧手機的特色功能也能顯示農場土壤和水質測試的詳細結果，目的是確保奇異果在途中沒受汙染。

圖擷自紐約時報

“I have scanned some electronic products before, but never any food,” said Xu Guilin. “We pay lots of attention to food safety. Most families with young kids would.”

購物者徐桂林說：「我掃描過一些電子產品，但從沒掃描食物。我們很注重食品安全，有幼兒的家庭大都這樣。」

Controlling China’s sprawling food supply chain has proved a frustrating. Government regulators and state-owned agriculture companies have tried increasing factory inspections, conducting mass laboratory tests, enhancing enforcement procedures – but food safety scandals still emerge too often.

管理大陸龐雜的食物供應鏈並不容易。政府監管單位和國營農業公司試著增加查廠次數，進行大規模的實驗室檢驗並加強執法，但食安醜聞仍層出不窮。

Chinese technology companies believe they can do it better. From the farm to the table, the country’s biggest players are looking to upgrade archaic systems with data collection, smartphone apps, online marketplaces and fancy gadgetry.

大陸科技公司自認能把這件事做得更好。從農場到餐桌，大陸最大的幾家科技公司正在透過資料收集、智慧手機應用程式、網路商城和酷炫裝置，讓老舊體系升級。

The founder of the computer maker Lenovo started Joyvio, which tracks fruit from planting to delivery. Internet giant Alibaba connects consumers with farmers via an online produce-delivery service. And Baidu, the country’s leading search engine, is developing a “smart” chopstick that tests whether food is contaminated.

電腦製造商「聯想」創辦人創設「佳沃」集團，追蹤水果種植運銷的過程。網路巨擘阿里巴巴透過線上產銷服務，把消費者與農民連結起來。大陸最大搜尋引擎百度則正在研發智慧筷子，能測出食物是否受汙染。

“In the food production and agriculture industry, transparency is fundamental,” said Chen Shaopeng of Joyvio. “But in China this is not the case.”

佳沃總裁陳紹鵬說：「在食品生產和農業領域，透明是基本要求，在中國卻不是這樣。」

Technology companies will still have to earn customers’ trust. A shopper at one Beijing supermarket tested the trackable kiwi and was intrigued, although not enough to buy it.

科技公司仍須爭取顧客信賴。北京超市一位消費者用手機掃描奇異果後覺得新奇，但這不足以讓她購買。

“This looks impressive,” said Ms. Jiang, who declined to give her full name. “But the thing is, I don’t really trust any certificate.”

這位江太太（她不願透露名字）說：「看起來讓人印象深刻，問題是，我不相信任何認證。」

With more than a billion mouths to feed, China has one of the world’s most complex food chains. At almost every link, there have been problems.

大陸要吃東西的人超過十億，有世上最複雜的食品供應鏈，幾乎每個環節都有問題。

In one of the biggest food scares, in 2008 dairy producers sold milk formula laced with melamine, which put 300,000 babies in the hospital and killed six. Chefs often cook with waste oil from fryers and sewers, a toxic ingredient known as gutter oil that generally goes unnoticed until diners get sick.

2008年大陸爆發極嚴重的食安醜聞，乳品業者販售的奶粉摻了三聚氰胺，30萬嬰兒送醫，其中6人死亡。廚師烹調時常使用油炸鍋和下水道的廢油，這種稱為「地溝油」的有毒成分在饕客吃出病之前，通常沒人會發現。

Such food scandals have shaken consumer trust and spurred protests. The cynicism is so visceral that jokes about food contamination are standard fare on social media and online video shows.

這些食安醜聞動搖消費者的信心並引發抗議聲浪。憤世嫉俗的情緒如此深入人心，以致食品汙染成了社群網站和網路影片的熱門笑話。

Baidu’s smart chopsticks were supposed to be a joke for April Fools’ Day. It published a fake advertisement for a set of chopsticks that would determine whether food had been cooked with gutter oil. The ad went viral on Chinese social media. With such a strong response, Baidu decided to create a real product. Embedded with sensors, the chopsticks test for gutter oil, but they also indicate pH levels and temperature.

百度的智慧筷子本來是愚人節玩笑。百度發出一則假廣告，說有一種筷子能測出食物是不是用地溝油烹調，在大陸社群網站暴紅。由於反應熱烈，百度決定創造真實的產品。這種裝有感測器的筷子主要用於檢測地溝油，也能顯示酸鹼值和溫度。

Baidu is manufacturing a batch of prototypes for testing. It has not yet decided when to release the product or how much it will cost.

百度正在製造一批原型筷用來測試，還沒決定上市時間和售價。

“With Baidu smart chopsticks, I don’t have to worry about gutter oil any more,” one person wrote on Weibo, a Chinese microblog. “I will definitely buy one once it is on shelves.”

大陸微型部落格「微博」網友寫道：「有了百度智能筷，我再也不用擔心吃進地溝油，只要它上市我一定買。」

City dwellers can buy directly from farmers through Jutudi, a pilot program created by Alibaba that has about 10,000 users. It lets users buy vegetables and fruits from farms across China.

透過阿里巴巴試辦的「聚土地」計畫，城市居民可以直接向農民購買產品。約有一萬人使用這個計畫，直接跟大陸各地農場購買蔬果。

Jiang Hui, a 27-year-old web editor, goes online to buy just about everything, so produce was an easy next step.

27歲的網頁編輯江慧幾乎每樣東西都上網買，農產品自然也成網購目標。

“The increasing number of food scandals is turning everyone into a food safety expert,” said Ms. Jiang, who lives with her parents in Beijing. “The more we read, the more scared we are and the more careful we are.”

住北京的她說：「食品醜聞越來越多，每個人都成了食安專家。我們讀得越多就越害怕、越小心。」

Joyvio has focused on acquiring technology and know-how to build its business. The company also bought farms in Chile and Australia and partnered with two large Chilean fruit companies.

佳沃集團致力取得技術和核心知識以建立事業版圖，還買下智利、澳洲的農場，並與智利兩家大型水果公司合作。

“We’ve leveraged our global capacity to bring a lot of new technology to China,” Mr. Chen said. “We continue to eye buying companies or farms in other countries, and also in China to give more scale to our ability to provide high-quality products and goods.”

佳沃總裁陳紹鵬說：「我們利用在全球的實力，把大量新技術引進中國。我們會繼續著眼於收購其他國家和中國的公司或農場，增進我們提供優質產品和商品的能力。」

從雨後春筍般冒出的電影、電視節目和書籍判斷，夏洛克．福爾摩斯熱潮正席捲西方世界，倫敦博物館趕搭順風車，推出引人入勝的展覽。

The show, “Sherlock Holmes: The Man Who Never Lived and Will Never Die,” does not focus on the stories about Holmes or his creator, Arthur Conan Doyle. “It’s about the character,” said Alex Werner, the lead curator, “and although I had a bit of trepidation about putting on an exhibition about a fictional being, we tried to set him firmly against the real city of London in which the stories take place.”

展覽名為「夏洛克．福爾摩斯：從未活過也永不會死的人」，並未把焦點擺在福爾摩斯的故事或作者柯南．道爾身上。主要策展人艾力克斯．維爾納說：「重點是角色。雖然我對辦一場以虛構人物為主角的展覽有些忐忑，我們仍然嘗試讓真實存在的故事發生地倫敦襯托他。」

圖擷自 Museum of London

The exhibition neatly demonstrates the way Holmes has become entwined with an idea of the city itself. From the detective’s rooms at 221B Baker Street to the mental map of the city that Holmes keeps in his head and its foggy, gaslamp-lighted streets, London is a palpable character, evoked through paintings, photographs and archival films.

展覽巧妙展現福爾摩斯如何與倫敦城的概念緊緊相連。從貝克街221號他的住所到他腦中的城市心智圖，以及倫敦霧濛濛、煤氣燈照明的街道，經由繪畫、照片和檔案影片，倫敦的角色顯而易見。

Monet’s 1902 “Pont de Londres” (Charing Cross Bridge, London) is on display, as are Whistler prints and other evocations of the late-19th-century city, along with a collection of smoky photogravures by the American photographer Alvin Langdon Coburn.

莫內1902年的畫作《倫敦查令十字大橋》在展示之列，還有惠斯勒的複製畫與其他能勾起19世紀晚期倫敦意象的作品，以及美國攝影師阿爾文．蘭登．柯本煙燻般的手工照相凹版印刷的照片選集。

There are rarely seen original illustrations by Sidney Paget, who gave the character the angular features and deerstalker cap, in the stories published in The Strand Magazine that made Conan Doyle and his characters famous.

還有相當罕見的插畫，是席尼．派吉特當年為柯南道爾的福爾摩斯探案在《岸邊》雜誌連載所畫。派吉特筆下的福爾摩斯五官有稜有角，戴著獵鹿帽。（譯註：柯南道爾1887年首度發表福爾摩斯小說，直到1891年起在《岸邊》雜誌連載短篇小說才算是聲名大噪。）

Paget produced some 350 illustrations of the detective between 1891 and 1904, but only 27 are known to have survived. Eight are on view in the exhibition, which continues until April 12.

1891至1904年間，派吉特大約為福爾摩斯探案畫了350幅插畫，但已知僅27幅流傳至今。這次展出8幅，到4月12日結束。

“I doubt very much there will ever be so many original illustrations and documents together again,” said Roger Johnson of the journal for the Sherlock Holmes Society of London, a club founded in 1951 that now has 1,200 members worldwide.

倫敦福爾摩斯學會雜誌的羅傑．強森說：「我非常懷疑以後還能讓這麼多原版插畫與資料齊聚一堂。」學會創於1951年，在全球有1,200名會員。

Conan Doyle, whose first Sherlock Holmes tale, “A Study in Scarlet,” was published in 1887, was amazed by its success. He might be even more surprised by the renewed attention.

1887年出刊的《血字的研究》是柯南．道爾的首部福爾摩斯小說，所獲成功讓他大吃一驚。如今重新獲得注意，他也許會更吃驚。

“Mr. Holmes” had its premiere at the Berlin International Film Festival last month and stars Ian McKellen as the detective, now elderly; and there were the Sherlock Holmes movies starring Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law (as Doctor Watson); and two television series – the BBC’s “Sherlock” and CBS’s “Elementary” – that set Holmes and Watson in a contemporary context. Anthony Horowitz gained official sanction by the Conan Doyle Estate to write a Holmes novel. “The House of Silk” (2011), and his “Moriarty” was published in December. He said he thought Sherlock Holmes was the father of all modern detective fiction.

上個月在柏林影展首映的《福爾摩斯先生》，由伊恩麥克連主演年事已高的偵探；還有小勞勃道尼和裘德洛（飾華生醫師）主演的《福爾摩斯》，和兩部電視影集：英國廣播公司的《新世紀福爾摩斯》和哥倫比亞廣播公司的《福爾摩斯與華生》，讓福爾摩斯和華生處在當代的背景。安東尼．霍洛維茲獲得柯南．道爾遺產管理人的正式批准，撰寫福爾摩斯小說。《絲之屋》在2011年出版，《莫里亞蒂》在去年12月發表。他認為福爾摩斯是現代偵探小說的始祖。

“Every single detective story you read has the same structure: mystery, investigation, solution,” he said. “And the tradition of the detective’s sidekick comes from there – Poirot has Hastings, Morse has Lewis,” he added, referring to the well-known characters in novels by Agatha Christie and Colin Dexter.

「你讀的每一篇偵探小說都有相同的架構：謎團、調查、破案，」霍洛維茲又說：「偵探助手的傳統也源於此，波洛有黑斯廷斯，摩斯探長有路易斯。他指的是阿嘉莎．克莉絲蒂和柯林．德克斯特小說裡面的名探。

“He also embodies an idea of Englishness,” Mr. Horowitz said. “If you were to ask for 10 things that define this country, I’d say Sherlock Holmes is one of them.” (Some others? “The queen, Yorkshire pudding, marmalade,” Mr. Horowitz answered promptly.)

「他也是所謂英國味的一個具體代表，」霍洛維茲說：「假如你要找十樣代表英國的事物，我會說少不了福爾摩斯。」（其他呢？女王、約克夏的布丁、橘子果醬，霍洛維茲的反應很快。）

Conan Doyle wrote four Sherlock Holmes novels and 56 short stories about the detective between 1887 and 1927, and they have provided material for radio personalities, directors, writers and obsessed fans ever since.

柯南．道爾從1887到1927年共寫了有關福爾摩斯的四本長篇和56篇短篇小說，一直為廣播節目主持人、導演、編劇提供題材，並令讀者著迷。

“The fascination with him today is really a bit special,” Mr. Werner said. “There are parallels between our modern lives and late-19th-century London, when I think people were struggling to make sense of a changing world. There was the telegraph, films, life was speeding up, and I think we have a similar thing going on now. We have too much to assimilate, and here you have a character who can see through things more clearly than we can.”

「今天的風靡程度還真有點特別，」維爾納說：「我們現在的生活和19世紀末的倫敦頗有幾分相似，我想人們都努力去理解變動中的世界，當時有電報、電影，生活步調加速，我認為類似的事情也發生在現在。我們有太多東西需要吸收消化，又有這樣一號人物對事情看得比我們更透徹。」