Why do ancient literati and poets like to use "cardamom" as a metaphor for girls? Does it have anything to do with cardamom?

The ancients paid more attention to the division of age than we do now, unlike the phrase "little sister" when people go to the empty building now. In fact, the time of cardamom generally refers to a girl of thirteen or fourteen, and when she was fifteen, it was Du Mu's poem.

Cardamom is actually a kind of herb, similar in appearance to bananas, but with light yellow flowers and spherical fruit like pomegranate. At that time, Du Mu had a poem, "Flowers are more than thirteen, and cardamom is in early February." It means that a girl of thirteen or fourteen years old is like a cardamom just sprouting in spring, and the tender green buds on it are beautiful.

As we all know, there is a technique in ancient poetry called Hua Yong, that is, you can borrow the poems of your predecessors. For example, Chairman Mao's "Sit on the floor and travel 80,000 Li a day" is actually a translation of Li Shangyin's poem "Eight Horses Travel Three Days in Wan Li". Therefore, as a famous poet in the Tang Dynasty, Li Shangyin's poems were used by many literati and poets, and the word cardamom was recognized by more and more people and became synonymous with girls.

In Li Shangyin's original poem, girls are the buds of February cardamom, so they refer to teenage girls. However, after more people use it, the pronoun of this age is extended, and cardamom can be used until the age of 20.

As time goes by, women are more and more sensitive to age, and more and more people think that they will always be eighteen, so cardamom can't be used exclusively for teenage girls. Anyway, as long as you are thick-skinned, no matter whether you are a girl or a young woman, you can use the word cardamom.