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.

当我走在北京后海街头，一抹绿色吸引了我的眼球。它看起来就像疯狂的真菌感染。豆芽、蘑菇和花开在人们头顶上，就像额前立起了一绺不听话的乱毛。

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，我来到中国。我期盼的是这儿疯狂的都市生活。行人头上狂长草？这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.

我想这一定是某种环保抗议或者某些圈子里流行的玩笑。不管它是什么，这股风潮可是繁荣了一项产业呢。

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.

街角的小贩兜售着各种塑料蘑菇和树枝。豆芽三元一个，五元一对。顾客们把买来的发夹别在头上然后就走了，留下豆芽摇曳的背影。

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.

它本该像其他奇异的亚洲潮流一样昙花一现，西方人对此早就见怪不怪了。不过鉴于这是一篇有深度的调查性文章，我得下工夫好好研究这个神奇的发夹，于是我去了798艺术区。

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“头上长草”的游客，一个店家告诉我是因为电影《捉妖记》。这部电影里有一只像面团一样的小妖精，它的头上有一片苔藓。

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.

美国某网站则给出了不同的解释：这种发夹受一个日本卡通表情启发而来。一个笑脸的脑门上长出了一对绿叶子。

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.

且不说它究竟起源何处，这股风潮变得全球瞩目了。诸如《华尔街日报》《每日电讯报》这样的主流媒体都对这种奇怪的现象百思不得其解。

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.

豆芽发夹越受关注，它的销量越好。据《中国日报》报道，某淘宝卖家一个月卖出了28，850个这种发夹。在北京戴豆芽、金钱草和蘑菇就像在迪士尼乐园戴米老鼠耳朵一样。

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.

人们总是急于给潮流分门别类，好让它们辨识度高又容易被理解。或许这种发夹就是可爱、童趣的“萌”文化代表，抑或是向超现实主义和卡通致敬。

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，坦白说，我们也并不想知道。毕竟，美是个玄乎其玄的东西。在一个有2000万人口的城市，一些塑料植物足以让我们驻足一下，关注彼此，然后在心里想：“你头上戴的到底是什么啊？”