Wen/Yanke
Duanwu is approaching, the scent of mugwort is wafting, and we are eating zongzi (rice dumplings), wearing scented pouches, inserting mugwort, and smearing xionghuang ...... I was reading a book in my studio, and when I looked up, I suddenly saw the handmade scented sachets hanging on the Pokou shelf, which a Filipino friend and I made together during the National Expatriate Teachers in 2014. Thoughts drifted, I couldn't help but miss that Dragon Boat Festival spent in a foreign country, beautiful Baguio, and the girl who made the scented sachets with me. She was a local girl about my age who loved dancing, traveling, crafts, and poetry. She owned a cafe and I knew her at first sight, and after we got acquainted, I gave her a Chinese name--Du Mei, which she loved.
On the Dragon Boat Festival that year, I told her stories about the Chinese Dragon Boat Festival, and she taught me how to make small crafts with wool winding. She even made me a little earring that looked like a dumpling with the wool winding, and I taught her and the people in her café to weave Chinese knots, make scented sachets, and share with her the dumplings we were given by the Chinese school where I was teaching. We sat around drinking coffee, communicating in my not so fluent English, and from time to time also need a cell phone translation, maybe not allowed, but does not affect our **** the same love, in front of the eyes of the incense sachets on the Bo Gu Shelf as if there is still a faint smell of mugwort, I do not know if this year's Dragon Boat Festival she will do again incense buns, will not eat rice dumplings, will not think of me.
Since March 2015 from Baguio back, now more than two thousand days. Every time I recall the word "Baguio", it is very warm. Baguio everything as if yesterday, in front of ...... the cicadas outside the window to pull me back to reality: Dangangang summer is particularly hot, as if it is going to rain, more than a week did not rain, the sky is dry, dry, travel back, flower pots in the flowers are dry dead. Suddenly especially miss Baguio summer, although also hot, but a moment of rain, a moment of sunshine, the air is fresh and moist, a variety of tropical plants in the rain after the wash looks particularly colorful. Baguio's colors are strong, I like Baguio's summer, always clear skies, the sky blue like a brush of blue paint, white clouds low as if within reach.
Baguio's early morning like just woke up the girl, there is a pure and lazy beauty, the sunrise sprinkled in the park, the lake rose up the fog, there are swimmers canoeing on the lake, such as the line in the fairyland in general. Sometimes just after the rain, the sky will have a rainbow, it is more beautiful. 6 o'clock, there are not too many people and traffic, the sun from the east side of the hill, inch by inch, the darkness and the light is so a line of distance, the night receded, the sunshine of all the vitality. After returning home for a morning run, I felt that the sun in Dancing Steel was slowly waking up the small town; while the sun in Baguio, as if it had just jumped out of the horizon, as soon as it crossed the mountains, like a spotlight, separating the bright part of the mountains from the dark part of the mountains in sharp relief. The small, patchwork houses on the mountain also lifted its veil, and all kinds of different colors jumped up. The cabaret of the night has just come to an end, and the elves of the day come out one after another. The backlit parts of trees or buildings are still a bit gloomy, and everything under the sun is already stirring. Sweat evaporated instantly from the toned arms of the man leading the dance in the square, and the rising mist looked like immortality.
I was on my morning run in the campus playground and remembered that when I worked in Baguio, across the street from Patriotic High School was Banham Park. Running in the park, flowers bloom in all seasons, and my favorite time is when the sunflowers are in full bloom, as if every flower is showing its smile for you. The park was full of people, everyone got into their respective squares early and danced different square dances. The square dances in Baguio are different from the square dances in our hometown - the grandparents slapping their bodies in a slow rhythm, and the young people dancing twenty-four steps to the music. Every dance group in Baguio in the morning is like a fashionable street dance, with that kind of vigor, both the young people and the old people danced exceptionally well, and I practiced for quite a long time before I could barely keep up with their dance steps! I practiced for a long time before I could barely keep up with them. There is no charge, and each troupe puts a box next to the leader, as if by convention, and people will throw 10 or 20 pesos (equivalent to one or two yuan) into it at will, sometimes forgetting to do so, and that's OK.
In Baguio's parks, people of different colors and languages meet while jogging or dancing in the morning. When you look at each other, you smile, and you don't need words. Smiles have no borders, and no one will look at you differently because you have a different skin color or a different look. I remember once, I was also dancing with a random troupe and met the mom of one of our kindergarteners who was a black child with even darker skin, typical exploding hair and dreadlocks. She had a very big smile, showing her white teeth, and besides smiling at me, she spoke a lot of English as if she was meeting some other acquaintance, which I didn't understand, but it didn't stop us from hugging. We danced together, she gave me a thumbs up and I gave her a thumbs up.
I taught kindergarten for one year at Patriotic Middle School in Baguio, Philippines. What I remember most is that once I met a white mom with a very pretty little yellow-haired girl in a supermarket. The little girl looked at me again and again. As if reading the child's expression, her mom squatted down and said something to the child, while the little girl ran over to me and shook my hand, and then mischievously ran away, and I returned a kind smile. At that moment, I saw the innocence of the little girl. After all, to her, I was a foreigner who looked different from them. Nowadays, my 5-year-old daughter also casts curious glances when she meets a foreigner on the street: why does he have yellow hair, blue eyes and white skin? The child is in the same mood.
When I was in Baguio, after work, I loved walking in the park in the early morning, looking at the trees and flowers stretching and waking up to the sun, and listening to the passers-by saying "hello" with a smile on their faces, which was very enjoyable. Early risers also began a day of labor in the sound of birdsong, walking to work seems to be stepping on the beat of music, sweeping the floor of the rhythm as if also with the melody of the dance. Vendors open their doors to welcome customers, picking a stretcher of goods shouting, blooming flowers hanging dewdrops, shy and charming, emitting fragrance. The red plum tree spilled petals all over the ground, you can imagine: last night, they had what kind of carnival? Tired, sleep and turn into spring mud. The newborn flower on the branch, drawing on the power of the sun, bloomed brilliantly, spitting out stamens, chasing bees and butterflies, regardless of the wind and moon. I slowed down my steps, and then slowed down again, I want to stay in the morning light of Baguio.
Tired of walking, sitting next to a flower pool, watching the passing men and women, watching the story of the light. The square dance has a big mom and a little fresh meat, there are men and women, but also human sirens. Powerful music and enthusiastic steps, laughter and shouts make them a landscape in the park, and the unique atmosphere of Baguio Philippines. Fathers playing with their children, girls in school uniform skirts walking by, young men in twos and threes playing with selfies and Tai Chi. There are also travelers walking by with huge bags, always leaving their backs to the world only. Early in the morning there were police patrols, real guns and bullets coupled with handsome police uniforms, making them a bright spot in the crowd, looking at them, so that I was in a foreign country at the time a little more sense of security.
I was quietly lost in the music, wanting to be so idle, and loved ones white head, let the years to the vicissitudes written on the face, stay in the remnants of the flowers, floating under the falling leaves, carved in the trees in the wheel of the year. Days in a circle of ripples in the round trip, passed away, no longer come back; walked through the road, and do not have to turn back. I want to live slowly, seriously read a book, read a paragraph, plant a small tree, wait for a fruit, sweep a piece of fallen leaves, bury a fallen flower.
When you finish your work in the daytime, read a book, write a paragraph, draw a picture, think of a person, think of a future. Or go to the sun, but also a healthy chocolate tan. In between, go traveling and see the world. I just walk by, pass by, read all the spring colors.
I also like Baguio at night, with more than a hint of mystery. The mountain lights, like dancing fireflies, dark and bright floating in the clouds, the stars and the moon as a companion. Close your eyes, the dream lingers around, there is a pine fragrance refreshing the heart, suddenly feel disillusioned with themselves, and Baguio night into one.
Bigelow, the small town that I've dreamed about countless times, are you okay? Baguio's good friends, how are you? May the Dragon Boat Festival be peaceful and healthy, and may the wormwood eliminate all viruses! After the epidemic is over, I want to go to Baguio to see my old friends and find some good memories. Come with me to Baguio! Maybe you can also see the book I wrote in Chinese and English from the Baguio Library - "Baguio Baguio", that is the road I traveled, in the form of words, to meet you!