So an American fund manager, a British darts champion and a Japanese grandmother go into a Tokyo bar.

有一天，一个美国基金经理，一个英国飞镖冠军，和一个日本老奶奶走进了东京一家酒吧。

There’s no punchline, the bar is fictional and the characters never actually meet — but the people are real enough. Each of them just sits there for ages chatting slightly tediously about gold, embodying a growing obsession with the metal.

没有笑话包袱，东京的酒吧是虚构的，三位主人公实际上永远不会碰面，但这三个人是真实存在的。他们都坐在那儿长久地、有点儿乏味地聊着黄金的话题，体现了对这种金属与日俱增的痴迷。

One of them likes UK gold sovereigns; one prefers the maple leaf, a Canadian gold coin known for its purity; one is saving up the $140,000-odd required for a 100oz slab of bullion. One has bought a home safe, another has rented a deposit box in a bank and the third has looked into buying space in a Swiss vault. All three check their phones for live gold prices the way others check for Pokémon.

其中一人喜欢英国金镑，一人偏好加拿大枫叶金币（以高纯度闻名），还有一人正在积蓄14万美元，以便买下一根100盎司金条。一人买了个家用保险箱，另一人在银行租了个保险箱，第三人正在考虑购买瑞士某个金库的空间。三人都不停地在手机上查看实时金价，就像其他人查看精灵宝可梦(Pokémon)一样。

What’s behind the obsession? In January, as part of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s floundering attempts to stimulate the Japanese economy, negative interest rates were introduced. In a country with high savings levels, that has proved alarming. Meanwhile, the policy has driven down the yields on sovereign bonds, beloved of Japanese savers — to the point where 80 per cent are trading on negative yields. The UK’s Brexit vote two months ago is also taking a toll.

这种痴迷的背后是什么呢？今年1月日本央行推出负利率政策，这是日本首相安倍晋三(Shinzo Abe)为刺激经济作出的艰难尝试的一部分。在一个高储蓄水平的国家，此举被证明是令人震惊的。同时，该政策还拉低了深受日本储户喜爱的主权债券的收益率，以至于现在80%的主权债券都以负收益率交易。两个月前的英国退欧公投也产生了影响。

So gold has emerged as a kind of shiny financial aspirin for a new generation of gold bugs: a natural-sounding painkiller for unnatural times. As recently as last year, the fund manager delighted in pointing out that if you type “why gold bugs...” into Google, it auto-completes the sentence with “...are wrong”. His position has reversed; he will now explain, at length, why he is building a store of gold eagles for his two young daughters.

因此对于新一代“金甲虫”，黄金已成为一片闪闪发亮的金融“阿司匹林”——不正常的时代里一种听上去正常的止痛药。就在去年那位基金经理还乐呵呵地指出，如果你在谷歌(Google)输入“为什么金甲虫……”，它就会自动蹦出结尾“……是错的”。现在他的立场已经扭转了，他会详细地解释为什么自己会为两个年幼的女儿存下大量鹰金币。

Japan has been called the region’s “star performer” by the World Gold Council, which noted in its most recent report that for the first time in a decade the country has clocked its fourth consecutive quarter of positive net investment in the metal.

世界黄金协会(World Gold Council)已把日本称作亚洲的“明星”，该协会在最近的报告中指出，日本已连续第四个季度对黄金作出正的净投资，这是10年来的首次。

For those of us whose route home takes us past a small, bustling gold dealership, this is no surprise. Chie Igarashi, the grandmother from Tokyo, is part of a growing band of people aged 50-70 who have decided to express their scepticism over Mr Abe’s economic vision not at the ballot box (where the prime minister received resounding support at last month’s upper house election) but at their nearest bullion dealer.

在我们这些回家途中会经过一间热闹的小金铺的人看来，这毫不奇怪。上文中提到的那位东京老奶奶名叫五十岚千绘(Chie Igarashi)，她代表一个不断壮大的群体，他们年龄在50岁至70岁之间，对安倍经济学表示怀疑，但他们表达怀疑的方式并不是通过投票箱——这位日本首相在上月参议院选举中赢得了压倒性胜利——而是离家最近的金条经销店。

Since the start of 2016, Mrs Igarashi, aged 66, has bought four gold coins — which at about $1,340 an ounce are worth roughly Y520,000. The surge in the yen since the June 23 Brexit referendum, which has taken it to a near three-year high against the dollar, has sharpened her appetite for more.

从2016年初至今，66岁的五十岚已经购买了4枚金币，以每盎司1340美元左右来算，总价值大概在52万日元。自6月23日英国脱欧公投以来，日元兑美元汇率已飙升至近三年高点，加大了五十岚对黄金的胃口。

She is not alone. Sales at Japan’s largest gold retailer, Tanaka Kikinzoku, tripled from normal levels on June 24 and its overall sales of gold in the first quarter of 2016 were 35 per cent higher than the same period a year earlier. Every time a new element of uncertainty hits households, Tanaka Kikinzoku registers a rise in applications for its “pure gold accumulation plan” — an investment scheme where a reassuring nugget is set aside monthly.

五十岚并不是个案。6月24日（英国退欧公投次日——译者注），日本最大黄金零售商田中贵金属工业株式会社(Tanaka Kikinzoku)的销售比日常水平提高了两倍，而今年第一季度黄金总销量比去年同期高出35%。每当家家户户遇到一个新的不确定元素，田中贵金属“纯金积存计划”——一个投资方案，每月买下一小块让人安心的黄金——的申购者就会增多。

The darts player, who is among the world’s top eight and was in the Japanese capital last month for the Tokyo Masters, like Mrs Igarashi modestly describes himself as a “total beginner” to gold, while displaying a stunningly intricate knowledge of prices (to two decimal places), purities (to three decimal places) and currency arbitrage opportunities.

那位飞镖选手在全球排名前八，上月前往东京参加“东京大师”赛。像五十岚一样，他也谦逊地自称是黄金的“完全新手”，却展现了对价格（精确到小数点后两位）、纯度（到小数点后三位）以及货币套利机会的惊人细致的了解。

He is fascinated by Tokyo; less by its traditional charms than by the lessons its despairing savers can offer the world. He is a sportsman whose winnings are primarily earned in the boozy, Brexity roar of clubs and halls across the UK: more even than the prospect of political turmoil in Britain, he fears falling interest rates and the appropriate destination for his considerable prize money.

他被东京迷住了，但吸引他的不是日本的传统魅力，而是其绝望的储蓄者给世界带来的教益。身为一个飞镖运动员，他的奖金主要是在英国各地醉醺醺、退欧情绪强烈的俱乐部和娱乐大厅中赢得的。他对不断下降的利率，以及自己的可观奖金应该投在什么地方的担忧，甚至超过了对英国政局动荡前景的担忧。

Japan, he declares in the green room immediately after losing a semi-final and checking his phone for the gold price, offers a sobering example to him and other stars of bar room sports of what happens when a leading economy moves to negative interest rates. More gold, he decides after cross-examining me expertly on the behaviour of Japanese grandmothers, must be the wisest choice.

输掉半决赛后，他在手机上查看了金价，然后在休息室里表示，对于他自己以及其他酒吧运动明星来说，日本提供了一个发人深省的例子，让人们看到当一个领先经济体走向负利率时会发生什么。他老练地盘问了我日本老奶奶们的表现，然后做出了决定：购买更多黄金必定是最明智的选择。