【英文原文】
A Mermaid in Shanghai
Denmark's Little Mermaid traveled abroad for the first time to spend six months in Shanghai, where she made her debut Sunday at the World Expo.
The surprisingly small 96-year-old statue--just 5 feet, or 1.5 meters tall--is the centerpiece of the Denmark Pavilion. It sits in a pool of water, also lugged all the way from Copenhagen.
The statue, created by Danish sculptor Edvard Eriksen after the fairytale by Hans Christian Andersen, is Denmark's most popular tourist attraction, and while she is in Shanghai, a video installation by Chinese artist Ai Weiwei is replacing her at her home perch in Copenhagen's harbor.
While she is revered in Denmark, the Little Mermaid has seen her share of domestic violence and has been the subject of repeated attacks by vandals. She has been decapitated, had her arm cut off, been painted as well as blown off her rock. A few years ago, she was draped in a burqa.
In addition, replicas of her have popped up across the world, including in Greenville, Michigan, where it forms part of the town's annual Danish Festival, along with a statue of Andersen--made of Lego pieces, a product that originated in Denmark.
Xinhua news agency reported that Denmark's Minister of Taxation Troels Lund Poulsen said at a ceremony to unveil the statue Sunday that the mermaid had been brought to Shanghai to show his country's dedication to China.
Although the ceremony was a closed event, hundreds of Chinese visitors crowded outside the Danish Pavilion, though they could only see the statue's back.
Yue Yufei, 10, from Jiangsu province, told Xinhua that she has read the Hans Christian Andersen fairytale, and also saw a picture of the statue taken by her mother, who visited Denmark in 2005.
'It's so exciting to see it with my own eyes. I've been longing for that since I saw the picture and it's great that I can see it without going abroad,' she said, according to Xinhua. Her mother, Chen Xiaolan, said they may come back to visit the 'Little Mermaid' again after the World Expo opens on May 1.
Bjarke Ingels, chief architect of the Danish Pavilion, said, 'It's almost like a piece of Danish culture being integrated into Chinese culture,' Xinhua reported.
Andersen's works were introduced to China in the early 1900s and are still widely read by Chinese children. In his tale, as in the 1989 Walt Disney movie, the mermaid is a sea king's daughter who falls in love with a human prince. But unlike the movie, the Andersen tale has no singing crab and, worse, the mermaid's Faustian bargain to trade her fishtail for legs doesn't quite work out as planned.
【中文译文】
丹麦的小美人鱼雕像第一次到海外旅行。周日，她在上海世博园举行了揭幕仪式，并将在这里展出六个月。
小美人鱼雕像在上海世博园丹麦馆展出这个已有96年历史的雕像是丹麦馆的核心展品。她出奇得小，仅1.5米高，她的周围环绕着不远万里从哥本哈根运来的一池碧波。
这尊雕像由丹麦雕刻家艾瑞克森(Edvard Eriksen)根据安徒生(Hans Christian Andersen)的童话创作，是丹麦最受欢迎的旅游景点。小美人鱼雕像在上海展出期间，中国艺术家艾未未的一件影像装置作品将在哥本哈根的海港中代替她迎接游人的目光。
尽管小美人鱼雕像在丹麦受人尊敬，但也见证了国内的暴力并多次受到破坏。她的头和胳膊曾被人砍落，曾被人涂上颜色，也曾被从雕像底座的岩石上吹落。几年前，她还被蒙上了伊斯兰服饰布卡。
此外，她的复制品出现在世界各地。在美国密歇根州格林维尔镇一年一度的丹麦节上，小美人鱼雕像的复制品和由乐高积木（Lego）搭成的安徒生雕像相伴出现。乐高积木同样原产于丹麦。
新华社报道称，丹麦税务部部长波尔森(Troels Lund Poulsen)在周日的揭幕仪式上表示，把小美人鱼雕像带到上海是为了表达丹麦对中国的尊敬。
虽然揭幕仪式不对公众开放，仍有数百名中国游客围在丹麦馆外观望，尽管他们只能看到这尊雕像的背面。
10岁的岳雨菲来自江苏省，她告诉新华社记者她读过《安徒生童话》，而且母亲2005年去过丹麦，因此她从照片上看到过小美人鱼雕像。
据新华社报道，岳雨菲说，能亲眼见到她我特别开心。见到照片之后我一直盼着这一天，今天不用出国就能见到她太好了。岳雨菲的妈妈陈晓兰说，等上海世博会5月1日正式开幕后，她们或许会再来参观小美人鱼雕像。
新华社报道称，丹麦馆的总建筑师英厄尔斯(Bjarke Ingels)说，这几乎像是把一部分丹麦文化融入到了中国文化之中。
安徒生的作品于上世纪初传入中国，中国儿童至今仍在广泛阅读。正如1989年迪斯尼的电影中所述，小美人鱼是海的女儿，却爱上了人类的王子。但与电影不同的是，在安徒生的童话中没有会唱歌的螃蟹，而且更糟糕的是，小美人鱼用鱼尾换人腿的浮士德式交易最终并未取得计划中的成功。