This is Randi Hacker with another Postcard from Abroad from the KU Center for East Asian Studies.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a middle class with a discretionary income can do terrible things to a culture. Witness the latest fad to grip China: plastic fruit, flowers and vegetables worn on the head. It seems almost Japanese in its youthful whimsicality, doesn’t it? Certainly not something you would expect to find in a country where a communist esthetic prevailed just a couple of decades ago. Where did the fad come from? Theories include the ancient Chinese teachings of harmony with nature, Japanese emoticons and Teletubbies. Whatever, all over the streets of Beijing, this hundred flowers movement is manifest in a way that Mao Zedong would totally disapprove of. He would also probably not approve of the very capitalistic supply/demand economic model that is being enacted here: One vendor moved 70 sets in a single day. Let 100 flowers bloom? Make that let 100 flowers sell.

From the KU Center for East Asian Studies, I’m Randi Hacker. Wish you were here.