Office workers are going bananas to relieve anxiety

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."

Wang also invited her colleagues to "adopt" bananas by writing their names on the peel before sharing the ripened fruit.

"It was a novel and fun experience for me and increased my interactions with fellow workers," she said.

Data released by Pinduoduo shows that searches for desktop banana kits jumped 70 percent week-on-week in mid-April, with the number of orders increasing by about 30 percent. Buyers were concentrated in first-tier cities such as Shanghai and Beijing, and the provinces of Jiangsu and Zhejiang.

Lin Wenhai, an e-commerce entrepreneur in Zhangzhou, Fujian province, was one of the earliest sellers to associate green bananas with connotations of anxiety. His product now comes with a glass container and two paper cards attached to the branch, reading "no worries" and "just relax".

"I was baffled at the beginning when many customers requested bananas that come with a stem," he said on his account on Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, last month. "Now, the monthly number of banana orders has reached nearly 2 million.

"I think young customers these days are looking for fun and interesting elements in products. Our product is also a channel for them to release their anxious feelings."

Zhang Ying, a 45-year-old Beijing resident, said she bought a bunch of green bananas on a whim and had fun watching it ripen.

"I was browsing on Xiaohongshu (a social e-commerce app) and came across a livestreaming session selling green bananas," she said. "A bunch only cost around 30 yuan, so I thought I'd give it a try."

Zhang kept the fruit at home, but shared pictures of it ripening and her tasting a banana on her social media account.

"Many of my friends saw the post and were very interested, and asked me where to get it," she said.

Meanwhile, fruits that can be grown hydroponically in pots are gaining popularity among office workers for their phonetic similarity to auspicious words. For instance, the cultivation of raspberries — known as meiguo in Chinese, with mei meaning "no" — is now linked to fostering a carefree attitude. Growing lettuce, or shengcai, which sounds like a phrase in Chinese that means "to make a fortune", has also become popular.

Bai Wenxi, vice-chairman of China Enterprise Capital Union, told Consumption Daily that products that leverage puns to appeal to customers are not new to the market, but the popularity of green bananas points to a shift toward making purchases that have emotional value.

Vendors have also made use of social media to connect with consumers, launch marketing campaigns and tailor their products to the lifestyles and habits of young consumers, he added.

wangxiaoyu@chinadaily.com.cn