How many of you have bathed with those little yellow rubber ducks floating in your bathtub when you were a child? Maybe some of you still do secretly. Oh, you didn’t have a bathtub? But you did splash some water in your bucket? And you never let your sister touch that rubber toy for fear of it getting dirty. Do you miss the duck? Or any other toy you held close to your heart in childhood?

Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman has attempted to bring back that lost childhood. How? See for yourself. You see that giant duck floating in the water? Yes, that is for real (I mean not real real). The six-storey tall duck floated into Hong Kong harbour on Thursday amidst a lot of cheer, laughter, and chuckles from the locals who gathered in thousands to witness this sweet blast from the past. A brass band and lots of shutterbugs welcomed our little childhood darling.

Boo!

What it is? Why it is?

This is an art installation-made of rubber and with air filled inside it. The artist has a noble purpose behind it-which is to make us feel young again! Hofman knows there is a child inside each one of us (Dil toh bachcha hai ji). He sees it as something that would remind us of our stressfree childhood, when we did not have to worry about paying the rent (and groceries, and shopping, and beer, and food…! Bah! Give me the bloody duck!)  Hofman says:

“I see it as an adult thing. It makes you feel young again […] If it makes you smile, then that’s OK, but maybe it makes you cry because of the urban environment. ”

And really, Hofman’s point was made when the duck brought much laughter and gaping at the Hong Kong port. All work came to a stop in offices facing the sea. No incident of nostalgic crying or howling has been reported yet though.

What next?

This is a temporary halt for the duck. It will go sailing somewhere in the Unites States now. Hong Kong’s Victoria Harbour has time till June 6 to relive its innocent days. The duck has so far overwhelmed people in Osaka, Sydney, Sao Paolo and Amsterdam. Yeah, this duck has seen the world.

A tip: If you get all misty-eyed thinking about the duck-less baths you are having, or if the landlady decides to raise the rent, buy a little yellow duck on the sly and hide it in your bathroom.