14 DAY TRIAL // Teenagers in China resorted to taking cabbages for walkies as a way to fight depression and loneliness, recent reports have said.
Pictures of several vegetable walkers were taken at the Midi Music Festival in Beijing during the weekend, and it has been said that the practice of walking the undemanding green companion in leashes is the latest way of meeting someone new and starting a conversation with an unknown person.
“It's not about finding a boyfriend or girlfriend, just about having someone to talk to and share things with, a statement of youth isolated in the big cities,” Beijing University psychiatrist Wen Chao said, according to Austrian Times.
However, I should mention that this weird practice is not actually a new trend in China, but just a strange art performance that took place during Beijing's annual labor day music festival.
So, all those teens who were spotted dragging heads of cabbage on leashes were actually taking part in an art project designed by Chinese artist Han Bing.
It's unclear whether there really is any therapeutic benefit to the cabbage-walking, but Han has been doing it for 14 years.
The artist tried to explain why he chose the cabbage, and not another vegetable, by saying, “A quintessentially Chinese symbol of sustenance and comfort for poor Chinese turned upside down… For the poor and struggling, the realities of cabbage as a subsistence bottom line have not changed—what's changed is the value structure that dictates what—and who—is valuable or worthless in Chinese society.”
People who participated in this performance art explained that they agreed to do it because they believe people have become lonely slaves and they wanted to reflect that aspect of today’s society.