Why Green Hats Are Bad News

I share this recent video from our animating Taiwanese friends not so much because there is anything groundbreaking about it-although the way they mimic scratched and aging film for the events set in the past is a nice touch-but to introduce you to a cultural reference with which you may be unfamiliar. Here’s how the folks at Next Media Animation explain it.

Our viewers outside of Taiwan might not understand the reference to green hats in the animation. In Chinese, to say that someone is “wearing a green hat” means calling him a cuckold. This is derived from an old Yuan dynasty custom where prostitutes’ families are punished by being made to wear green head scarves in public. The scarves became hats, and the term “wearer of green hats” now describes men whose wives have strayed.

The more you etc!