A BURST OF MADNESS

Chaos. When I walked into the bakery it was a scene of complete pandemonium. They were participating in the street party on Grant Avenue that evening, and rushing around doing the things that were necessary. How many Cantonese does it take to load up a handtruck? All of them. Four women who knew the owner lady because they used to work there. And an equal number of really old gentlemen who worked with exemplary efficiency. Plus seven or eight employees. A sister in law. An utterly adorable tyke (well, her task was sampling a slice of cake someone placed in front of her). The boss, his wife the boss lady, and my friend the bird-like old elf who used to work at a different place.

So after a few minutes I moved to a back table to be out of the way.


一個蛋撻同一杯港式奶茶。


In fairly short order, everything got done, and the now overloaded handtruck headed out. Things returned to normal. Ten minutes later one of the old gentlemen I meet at tea time some days arrived. then the other. By that time it was quiet again, and I had rearranged my groceries so that the pine skin oranges were on top. Those were for my downstairs neighbor the old Indonesian Chinese woman. Whom I'm not really friendly with, because Christians sometimes seriously irritate me, but who I do want to keep an eye on, because she's old, fragile, and has been a neighbor and part of my community for decades.

It's getting closer to New Year (春節 'chun jit'), and things are starting to happen. Two of the merchants I know are alread selling budding tree branches for decoration during the festival, three businesses have opened for business (good luck to do so before new Year), and the ingredients for new year cake (年糕 'nin gou') are abundant at the grocers.
Also, sugar cane is becoming available.


Pine skin oranges (松皮柑 'chung pei gam'), which I think are also called wrinkle skin orange or tangerine (皱皮柑 'jau pei gam') have a rather lovely fragrance. I have heard that they're a regional famous product in Hunan.

I'll probably buy some for myself sometime soon.



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