BEIJING: Ripening bananas in containers of water on their desks has become popular among young Chinese looking to tackle anxiety and chase away boredom at work.
The fad has gone viral across social media platforms over the past couple of months, with online retailers reporting a surge in orders for green bananas and office workers sharing photos of the fruit in vases of water on their desks.
The idea plays upon a pun that turns the fruit into a symbol of stress in daily life because in Mandarin, green bananas, or jiao lyu, sounds like anxiety. Raw bananas ripening to shed greenness and turning golden yellow is then interpreted as alleviating stress in daily lives. The desktop ritual culminates in the eating of the sweet bananas — carrying the wish of eliminating anxiety.
Wang Jiaqian, a 28-year-old in Wuxi, Jiangsu province, bought a bunch of bananas from the discount shopping app Pinduoduo for about 75 yuan ($10.40) and took it to her office. “I waited for about 20 days for them to fully ripen,” she said. “I checked on it every day when I came into the office and observed how it changed little by little.” –The Daily Mail-China Daily news exchange item
