中国吃货疯狂砸钱东南亚，买的东西让外媒很不解

High up in the lush green mountains of Raub, you can smell them before you see them. The pungent waft in the morning breeze comes as quickly as it goes, but there is no mistaking: this part of Malaysia is the land of the durian.

在劳勿茂密的绿色山地，你在目睹这些东西之前就能先闻到它们的味道。那种刺鼻的气味在晨风中迅速传播，你肯定不会闻错：马来西亚的这一带是种榴莲的。

Called the “king of fruits” by 19th-century British naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace, durian’s overpowering smell – fragrant to some noses, putrid to others – has led it to be banned from hotels and public transport across Asia, and has even prompted evacuations from airports and hospitals.

这种水果被十九世纪的英国博物学家Alfred Russel Wallace称为“水果之王”。榴莲这种强烈的气息对一些人来说是香甜，对另一些人来说则是恶臭，这让它在亚洲很多国家的交通工具和酒店里都被禁止携带，甚至曾经在机场和医院引发全员疏散的后果。

However, in China something of a cultish national obsession with durian has grown in the past few years, particularly around the Musang King variety, grown almost entirely in Malaysia.

不过，这些年中国人对榴莲发展出一种邪教般的迷恋，他们尤其喜欢猫山王榴莲的各种品种，而这种榴莲几乎只长在马来西亚。

And where there is Chinese appetite, there is money. In the highlands of Raub, and all across the south-east Asian country, farmers and landowners are tearing up traditional rubber and palm oil crops to harvest this mutant-looking native fruit instead.

而中国人的喜欢吃什么，什么就赚钱。在劳勿的高地，以及在东南亚的各个国家，农民和地主们把以前那些用来产橡胶和棕榈油的作物都给铲掉了，转而种这种看着像变异体的本地水果。

“When I started out, people all told me there was no money in durian, but that couldn’t be more different now,” said Lindsay Gasik, who has written a book on the fruit and runs durian tours across Asia.

Lindsay Gasik专门写了一本关于这种水果的书，并且在亚洲运营着榴莲之旅的活动，她说：“我刚开始做这些的时候，人们都跟我说榴莲不赚钱，但现在看来显然不是这么一回事。”

“I treat durian like a wine because it is like a wine – it is a living organism that changes and ferments over its lifespan, so you can really do a lot with the flavour. I think that’s what makes people so obsessive over it.”

“我像对待葡萄酒一样对待榴莲，因为它确实就像葡萄酒，它是一种一生都在变化、发酵的生命体，你能在它的味道上做出很多门道来。我想这就是为何人们那么迷恋它。”

Durian’s distinctive smell is infamous, but its flavour – at once sweet and savoury – adds to its divisiveness. Wallace described it as a “rich custard highly flavoured with almonds”. Feet, butterscotch pudding, ice cream and rotting eggs have also been used as comparisons.

榴莲的气味可以说是臭名昭著，而它的味道得到的评价也两极分化，虽然其中有一部分香甜可口的感觉。Wallace曾经将其形容为“充满杏仁味的醇厚奶冻”，有人说它像牛油糖布丁或者冰激凌，但也有人说它像脚臭或者臭鸡蛋。