As I walked through Beijings Houhai neighborhood, a flash of green caught my eye. It looked like a fungal infection gone berserk. Sprouts, mushrooms and flowers were emerging from peoples heads, standing straight up like an untamed cowlick.
當(dāng)我走在北京后海街頭,一抹綠色吸引了我的眼球。它看起來就像瘋狂的真菌感染。豆芽、蘑菇和花開在人們頭頂上,就像額前立起了一綹不聽話的亂毛。
It was early August, and I had freshly arrived in China. The craziness of city life, I expected. The weeds flourishing in the hair of passersby? It was not in my imagination.
八月上旬,我來到中國。我期盼的是這兒瘋狂的都市生活。行人頭上狂長草?這可不在我的想象之中。
Surely this was some kind of environmental protest or an inside joke, I thought. Whatever it was, the trend was fueling a thriving business.
我想這一定是某種環(huán)??棺h或者某些圈子里流行的玩笑。不管它是什么,這股風(fēng)潮可是繁榮了一項產(chǎn)業(yè)呢。
Merchants stood on street corners hawking all kinds of plastic fungi and shrubs. Three yuan for one sprout, five for a pair. Customers clipped their purchases onto their heads and walked off, the sprouts flickering.
街角的小販兜售著各種塑料蘑菇和樹枝。豆芽三元一個,五元一對。顧客們把買來的發(fā)夾別在頭上然后就走了,留下豆芽搖曳的背影。
It would have been easy to brush this off as another bizarre Asian trend, a stereotype common in the West. But this being a hard-hitting, investigative article, I had to find out what was behind the mysterious hairpins. I went to the 798 Art District to research.
它本該像其他奇異的亞洲潮流一樣曇花一現(xiàn),西方人對此早就見怪不怪了。不過鑒于這是一篇有深度的調(diào)查性文章,我得下工夫好好研究這個神奇的發(fā)夾,于是我去了798藝術(shù)區(qū)。
Sure enough, there was a bumper crop of sprout-headed tourists, and a shopkeeper told me that it was because of the film Monster Hunt. The movie featured a doughy little monster with a patch of moss atop his head.
不出所料,798有大批“頭上長草”的游客,一個店家告訴我是因為電影《捉妖記》。這部電影里有一只像面團一樣的小妖精,它的頭上有一片苔蘚。
An American website reported a different theory: that the hairpins were inspired by a Japanese emoticon. One smiley face has a pair of green leaves growing on its noggin.
美國某網(wǎng)站則給出了不同的解釋:這種發(fā)夾受一個日本卡通表情啟發(fā)而來。一個笑臉的腦門上長出了一對綠葉子。
Whatever its origins, the fad was raising some international eyebrows. Major newspapers like The Wall Street Journal and The Daily Telegraph puzzled over the strange display.
且不說它究竟起源何處,這股風(fēng)潮變得全球矚目了。諸如《華爾街日報》《每日電訊報》這樣的主流媒體都對這種奇怪的現(xiàn)象百思不得其解。
The more attention the sprouts got, the more sales surged. China Daily reported that one Taobao retailer sold 28,850 hairclips in a month. Bean sprouts, dollar weeds and mushrooms were becoming the Beijing equivalent of Mickey Mouse ears at Disney World.
豆芽發(fā)夾越受關(guān)注,它的銷量越好。據(jù)《中國日報》報道,某淘寶賣家一個月賣出了28,850個這種發(fā)夾。在北京戴豆芽、金錢草和蘑菇就像在迪士尼樂園戴米老鼠耳朵一樣。
Theres always a rush to categorize trends, to make them discrete and understandable. Perhaps the hairpins were a symbol of the cute and childlike “meng” culture. Or perhaps they were a nod to surrealism or cartoons or both.
人們總是急于給潮流分門別類,好讓它們辨識度高又容易被理解?;蛟S這種發(fā)夾就是可愛、童趣的“萌”文化代表,抑或是向超現(xiàn)實主義和卡通致敬。
Who knows? And frankly, who cares? After all, theres a kind of beauty to the mystery. In a city of 20 million people, a few plastic plants made us all stop and take notice of one another. And together, we all wondered what the heck is on your head?
答案不得而知,坦白說,我們也并不想知道。畢竟,美是個玄乎其玄的東西。在一個有2000萬人口的城市,一些塑料植物足以讓我們駐足一下,關(guān)注彼此,然后在心里想:“你頭上戴的到底是什么?。俊?/p>