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Meet Chihira Junco, a tourist greeter at a shopping mall in Tokyo.
来见见地平Junco(Chihira Junco)吧，她是东京一个购物中心的游客迎宾员。
In her crisp blue button-down shirt, white blazer and pinstripe skirt, she stands in sensible pumps behind a counter in Aqua City Odaiba on Tokyo Bay, dispensing directions to local sites and shops in Japanese, Chinese and English.
她身穿湛蓝色前系扣衬衫、白色上衣和细条纹半身裙，脚踩实用的轻便鞋，站在东京湾台场海洋城(Aqua City Odaiba)的一个柜台后面，用日语、中文和英语分发当地景点和商店的指南。
She is not, however, human.
不过，她不是人。
Ms. Junco — if you can use an honorific for a machine — joins an incipient group of androids springing up around Japan.
Junco小姐——如果可以把敬语用在一个机器身上的话——是日本各地涌现的初代机器人中的一员。
There are also Yumeko, a receptionist at the Hen-na Hotel, a robot-operated boutique in Nagasaki, and Matsukoloid, who appears in a popular television variety show with her human doppelgänger, Matsuko Deluxe.
其他的机器人还有前台接待员梦子(Yumeko)和松子机器人(Matsukoloid)。梦子在位于长崎的精品酒店奇特酒店(Hen-na Hotel)工作，这家酒店由机器人运营；而松子机器人和她的人类分身松子Deluxe(Matsuko Deluxe)一起出现在一个热门电视综艺节目上。
Toshiba, the electronics company, developed Chihira Junco in collaboration with technology labs at several Japanese universities.
电子公司东芝(Toshiba)与日本几所大学的技术实验室合作开发了地平Junco。
She and four other androids cost ￥10 million (about $93,000) to produce, but only Ms. Junco — Chihira? — is currently out in public, while the others remain with their maker.
她和另外四名机器人的总造价为1000万日元（约合9.3万美元），不过目前只有Junco小姐——还是该叫她地平小姐？——公开亮相，其他机器人依然和制造者在一起。
The company said it planned to develop 1,000 more androids in 2017.
该公司表示，计划于2017年再开发1000个机器人。
By 2020, it hopes to make 10,000 a year.
到2020年时，希望每年制造1万个机器人。
At Aqua City, which is popular with tourists and where a small replica of the Statue of Liberty stands in a park near the mall entrance, visitors can tap on a screen to ask Chihira questions like Where are you from? (I was born in Mizuho-machi, Nishitama-gun in Tokyo.
在海洋城——这个购物中心很受游客欢迎，入口附近的公园里有一个自由女神像(Statue of Liberty)的小型复制品——游客们可以点击屏幕，向地平提问，比如你来自哪里？（我出生于东京西多摩郡瑞穗町。
I now live alone in the Minato ward) and What’s your favorite food? (I especially like watermelons and Japanese pears).
现在我独自住在港区）和你最喜欢的食物是什么？（我特别喜欢西瓜和日本梨）。
Up close, Chihara’s robotic arm movements give her away, as do her eyes, which blink only halfway.
从近处看，地平的机械臂的动作出卖了她，她的眼睛也让她露馅——她眨眼时，眼睛只闭一半。
When she talks, she looks more like someone chewing gum than speaking.
她说话的样子更像在嚼口香糖。
During a recent rendition of My Heart Will Go On, from the movie Titanic, her mouth barely moved and her gestures suggested a crossing guard directing traffic.
前不久她演唱《泰坦尼克号》(Titanic)的主题曲《我心依旧》(My Heart Will Go On)时，嘴巴几乎没动，手势像是一个交警在指挥交通。
For those visitors who still long for genuine human contact, two actual human greeters stand at an information counter about 20 feet away.
对于那些依然渴望与真正的人类交流的游客来说，约20英尺外的咨询台站着两名真正的人类迎宾员。
