
Chinese headwear fad grows like weeds - anigbrowl
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/08/world/asia/china-hair-trend-sprout-plant.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=mini-moth&region=top-stories-below&WT.nav=top-stories-below
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userbinator
_“Bean sprouts are still our most popular item,” said Zeng Wen_

 _The most common explanation on the streets was that the floral fascinators
just looked cute — “meng meng da,” in a cloying term made popular on the
Internet._

I suspect a pun here. The _meng_ character is 萌, which literally means
"sprout"[1], and is related to the Japanese "moe" concept[2].

[1]
[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E8%90%8C](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E8%90%8C)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moe_(slang)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moe_\(slang\))

~~~
thaumasiotes
Just to be clear, from what I can tell, 萌 means "sprout" as a verb, and has no
noun sense. "Sprout" the noun appears to be 芽 (yá); so 豆芽 (dòuyá) "bean
sprouts".

萌 meaning cute isn't just related, it's a direct borrowing from Japanese.

~~~
kazinator
"meng" also reminds me of the Aomori-ben dialect word "megoi" (alternative to
"kawaii") which almosts sounds like "mengoi" with the nasalized/velarized "g".

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FooBarWidget
I was in Shenyang last month. They sell this stuff in every corner. In every
shopping district where I saw young people, many of them wore these things. I
bought a few of them myself. People just think they're cute.

Interestingly, my elders tell me that wearing flowers or plants on your head
used to mean that you have been sold as a slave.

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clentaminator
“Nobody knows what it means, but we do it anyway.”

This one comment sums up pretty much the entirety of Internet "culture", see
for example neknominate, the ice-bucket challenge, etc.

~~~
MrJagil
Just because the reasons are not immediately obvious does not make them non-
existent. Rather, it makes them so much more interesting as they can reveal
emotions/thoughts/urges that have hither-to been hard to express, without an
appropriate medium or unacceptable socially.

Putting plants on your head might seem strange, but that's why it's
interesting to explore. It's a shame that we in this thread band together to
disregard this behaviour (like talking behind someones back, it is seemingly
to defend our own culture and behaviour. "our way is the right way").

~~~
SCHiM
Yeah, I rather liked the way some of the sprouts looked. I certainly won't be
the first to sport one of them, but I might be an early adopter if someone
with more guts tries it out first ^^

~~~
r-w
“early adopter”? It’s already a fad!

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s_kilk
I want to believe this idea came from Adventure Time

[http://adventuretime.wikia.com/wiki/Ancient_Sleeping_Magi_of...](http://adventuretime.wikia.com/wiki/Ancient_Sleeping_Magi_of_Life_Giving)

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stretchwithme
Perhaps its a reaction to all the pollution.

But is it actually weird? Tell me you've never seen a girl with a flower in
her hair in the West. Of course, you have.

~~~
hyperpallium
Once in ten years.

A more objectively verifiable guage of Western culture: when was the last
Hollywood movie featuring a young woman with a flower in her hair?

~~~
r-w
You’ve never seen a girl wearing a flower barrette?

~~~
hyperpallium
Judging from google images, that could be what I saw 10 years ago, though I
thought it was a real flower.

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Shivetya
Reminds me of the scene in WALL-E.

Perhaps people like the idea of new life (single sprout) in the concrete and
smog jungle

~~~
r-w
Isn’t it more of a recurring motif?

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mrb
I can confirm this is true. I saw many people sporting them when my wife and I
were visiting Beijing, Shanghai, and Suzhou a month ago. My wife even bought a
pair (antlers: [http://laurenandmarc.blogspot.com/2015/09/suzhou-
china.html](http://laurenandmarc.blogspot.com/2015/09/suzhou-china.html))
Mostly women wear them, but also some men. Street food vendor, young student,
worker, etc, everybody seems to like them.

~~~
vorg
Saw a pair of large antlers stuck to the top of a car yesterday.

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jerf
Did this book just make it over to China?
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daisy-
Head_Mayzie](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daisy-Head_Mayzie)

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debacle
I am reminded fondly of Life on Forbez.

I think it's a response to people feeling farther from nature than they ever
have.

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ck2
I like the idea people are finding some tie to nature endearing.

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eccstartup
When I noticed this, it was summer. Now, it is almost winter.

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istorical
The merchants are geniuses, the clip parts break if you barely touch them the
wrong way. Brush up against someone and it's time to drop a few yuan to get a
new one.

~~~
r-w
Don’t shoot the messenger.

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nsns
Looks like an outtake from Nathan Barley.

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x5n1
Seems a bit creepy to me, like something sprouting of a corpse.

~~~
FooBarWidget
It doesn't look so creepy when you are in the middle of a busy shopping
district and seeing tens of very much alive young people walking around with
such things.

I wore a few of them myself.

~~~
soylentcola
Yeah, it seems more like a harmless fashion/fad to me. Looks a little weird
since I've never seen it before but ultimately, it's not much different than
the thousands of other adornments people stick on themselves.

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joshkpeterson
Why is this on hacker news?

~~~
MrZongle2
I wondered that myself. The perennial answer seems to be a variation upon "if
it's of interest to the HN community, then it's a valid item". Given the
passion of many here to avoid "becoming Reddit", I find this free pass for
non-tech/non-startup content baffling.

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baus
Must be a slow news day.

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jister
Not really, it's just too weird for me

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smegel
When the West said Japan was weird, the Chinese took that as a challenge.

