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)保抗議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??？”