The 16.5-metre-tall inflatable rubber duck is seen at Hong Kong's Victoria Harbour on May 2, 2013. Hong Kong has joyfully welcomed the return of a giant inflatable rubber duck, which drew tens of thousands of visitors before it was abruptly deflated for maintenance for almost a week. [Photo/Xinhua]

We always talk about cultural consciousness and cultural confidence; however, the question is where the consciousness and confidence come from? One thing is for sure - they do not come from blindly following suit.

This rubber duck with "healing" function has drawn much attention and discussion since it arrived at the Victoria Harbour.

However, in the era of the 3D print technology, the "only one" or "out of print" hardly exists. The popular yellow rubber duck soon had many "identical twin brothers", which are comfortably swimming in the water of Tianjin, Wuhan, Hangzhou and other cities and appearing in countless digital photos with tourists' smiling faces.

For Hofman, the designer of the rubber duck, plenty of meanings are embedded in this work: the culture publicity, childhood memory of many people, relatively pure art and the idea of refusing commercialization. It carries these marks of the designer, appearing in a flash at many places in the world. People can go and have a look, but they cannot make it their own collection; advertisers can dream advertising on it, but they cannot make that happen.

A visitor to Hengdian World Studios in Dongyang, Zhejiang province, takes photos of an inflatable rubber duck. Bao Kangxuan / for China Daily

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