頭頂上的時尚

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保抗議或者某些圈子里流行的玩笑。不管它是什么，這股風潮可是繁榮了一項產業呢。

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，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查性文章，我得下工夫好好研究這個神奇的發夾，于是我去了798藝術區。

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.

美國某網站則給出了不同的解釋：這種發夾受一個日本卡通表情啟發而來。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.

豆芽發夾越受關注，它的銷量越好。據《中國日報》報道，某淘寶賣家一個月賣出了28，850個這種發夾。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。或許這種發夾就是可愛、童趣的“萌”文化代表，抑或是向超現實主義和卡通致敬。

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，關注彼此，然后在心里想：“你頭上戴的到底是什么啊？”