Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2024 July 1

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July 1

Paper flowers that grow when you put them in water

When I was little, there was a popular novelty item or toy made of colored paper that came as a little lump which unfolded to a pretty flower when you put it in water. Do we have an article about them? ◅ Sebastian Helm 🗨 14:25, 1 July 2024 (UTC)

Blooming paper flowers is the most common name. Evidently, there is no article (yet). You are more than welcome to try creating one! --136.54.106.120 (talk) 17:37, 1 July 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the name. Unfortunately, I don't know much more than what I wrote above. When I search for that name online, I find some how-to instructions, but no encyclopedic information. ◅ Sebastian Helm 🗨 12:28, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

In the 1996 book The Japanese Contributions to the English Language: An Historical Dictionary I find:^[1]

paper flower, n. (1935) Paper [Loose transl. of suichūka < suichū underwater + -ka flower, all < MChin)] JAPANESE FLOWER, an imitation paper flower that unfolds in water. O (at paper, sb. 12a) [2]

(Indeed a loose translation.) In Kanji, suichūka is 水中花, which appears to also be the Chinese orthography – it is the title of an album of Hong Kong singer Alan Tam.^[2] The Japanese Wikipedia has an article 水中花, which states (courtesy Google Translate):

They are thought to have been introduced to Japan from China during the Edo period. During the Enpo era, it became popular to float them in sake cups as a pastime at drinking parties, and so they were also called "sakechūka" (flowers in sake) or "haichūka" (flowers in a cup). During the Meiwa era, they became popular as souvenirs at toothpick shops in Asakusa, and were often sold at festivals.

In the past, they were made by compressing the stems of the Japanese laurel tree, the cores of the elm tree, and wood chips, but modern ones are made from synthetic fibers (silki). Corn stalks have also been used. It is also considered a summer seasonal word.

The article also reveals that they are mentioned in Marcel Proust's Swann's Way, the first volume of In Search of Lost Time, written in 1913:^[3]

And just as the Japanese amuse themselves by filling a porcelain bowl with water and steeping in it little crumbs of paper which until then are without character or form, but, the moment they become wet, stretch themselves and bend, take on colour and distinctive shape, become flowers or houses or people, permanent and recognisable, so in that moment all the flowers in our garden and in M. Swann's park, and the water-lilies on the Vivonne and the good folk of the village and their little dwellings and the parish church and the whole of Combray and of its surroundings, taking their proper shapes and growing solid, sprang into being, town and gardens alike, from my cup of tea.

 --Lambiam 10:30, 7 July 2024 (UTC)