The seller of "gardenia, white orchids" is mostly a stooped old woman with a small bench, a bamboo basket at her feet, and two layers of white or indigo handkerchiefs, with white flowers on them.
All of this is like a clock that is about to stop, being behind the years, half a beat slower, but still the same.
When I was a child, I saw the stalls selling gardenias and white orchids, and I always longed for one. But this kind of envy is must be hard to hide in the bottom of the heart. Because from a young age, I was warned that girls should not be greedy to dress up. But my mom would occasionally ask as she passed by the stall, "Would you like to take one to wear?" When I heard these words, my heart burst with joy, as if countless little worms of desire were stirring. But on his face, he still had to make a hesitant face, slightly nodded "yes" - just afraid that the amplitude of the movement is too large, accidentally laugh out loud.
The white orchid is a slender flower with a natural elegance and subtlety. A group of two, twisted together with fine lead wire, elaborate, and then in the center of a small violet adorned. In the summer, when I bought flowers, I would ask for a pin to attach them to my chest. This kind of decoration seems to be very incompatible with the elegant fragrance of flowers. But today, looking back, but also seems to be very suitable for that era, love of beauty, but also do not trim, occasionally delicate but often branded with a strong brand of the times.
The white orchid is only worn when you go out, and when you get home, you have to take it off in a hurry, and wrap it up with a small handkerchief moistened with water, put it on the sink, and then wear it again the next day when you go out. If it is well maintained, the flower itself is robust, a flower can be worn for about three days. Watching it from the initial bright jade white, slowly yellowing, and finally turned into a heavy brown. The scent of the flowers was also wet and sweet at first, with a dewy freshness, and then slowly became condensed, as if it had a quality, closer to the texture of a balm.
White orchids, as if the Shanghai lane in the small family, delicate, but also inevitably with some small family, but this kind of small family is not annoying the kind, but let a person out of the intimacy of the intention. But also because of this small family, her reputation is not far. The north does not know "white orchid", often mistaken for it is magnolia. One year, I went to Beijing to see a play, the opera "Never Fade Away". On the stage, the Shanghai street flower seller shouted "gardenia, white orchid", from the bamboo basket out of a fat magnolia. I glanced down at the orchid on my chest and laughed.
The "gardenia" or "juju flower" in the voice of the hawkers, I never dare to confirm. But the bamboo basket lying, indeed is not yet in full bloom jasmine. A tightly wrapped ball of flowers like a pearl, but also seems to be carved into a lotus-shaped jade fan pendant beads. They are usually five or six in a group, by the thin lead wire twisted into the shape of a Kun fan. Sharp lead wires are stuck into the soft center of the flower, reminiscent of an offering of beauty. I've never bought jasmine like this, not because of the slightly cruel association, but because the fragrance is more ethereal and difficult to sustain than that of white orchids.
The scent of jasmine is a slightly bitter, medicinal scent. Sometimes I would buy a handful of them on my way home from work. Last year the price was still around 10 dollars, I don't know how it will be this year. But it also seems to be just to slightly soothe the heart of the obsession. Jasmine's scent is only strong for about as long as it takes me to carefully carry the flowers home. Soon she would dissipate into nothingness, as ungraspable as the wind. Then, it was just a matter of watching a tiny ball of blossoms zero in on the desk. Or, hanging tenaciously on a branch, turning from white to maroon.
Jasmine, rather like a story of the banishment - not the general story, but a thrilling big change, left to the mortal world is only powerless and sad a wisp of ghost, for people to hang on.
Finally is the gardenia, if the call is indeed "gardenia", that is a bit of a misnomer, although there are occasionally large gardenia in the bamboo basket, but obviously not the main commodity. I read the middle school, gardenia tree is used as a street tree, so from childhood to her impression is stout and robust, as if the countryside wild wild growth of the girl. May and June of yellow plum days, if it rains, early in the morning into the campus, the gardenia fragrance will be like a huge wave to you, overbearing, incense to make people slightly dizzy. Such a strong scent, although good, but it seems to be not very suitable for indoor clear offerings - one or two may be OK, but then lost her true nature.
In recent times, I have fallen in love with incense. Tried jasmine, gardenia, but the flavor is always wrong. Hopscotch has a long history in China, what goose pear tent incense, what two Su old bureau, complicated, many stories. Only the simplest floral, always not like that. Perfume is the same, and then the big names of perfume fragrance, restore jasmine flower scent and five or six points similar, only this gardenia, white orchid, always a tiny bit, fallacy.
Perhaps, this aroma, just the years through the yellow plum rain dense, accidental "borrowed body and soul" it. With this indistinct, difficult to grasp the aroma, steaming out of the crone gully face, once the color of the bottom of the red face. That wisp of aroma, seduced the deep alley cheongsam woman leaning on the door, hazy in the rain.
Just like the crone who sells "gardenias and orchids", they are at the entrance of the road, the subway, toilets under the neon bustle of the reading of poetry, is half a beat slower than the existence of the times, but stubbornly adhere to their own clocks. At this time of the year, you do not know when they appear, not to mention the day suddenly disappeared.
It is only by chance that we meet.