When I went to the gate of the school to pick up my food delivery, I noticed the beautiful bougainvillea by the river, and I paused to take a picture. The bougainvillea have been blooming for several weeks now, and I love it. Most of the ones on campus are pink, and they line the river so beautifully.
We’ve been blessed with a lot of sun this spring, as compared to last spring when it rained nearly every day for four months! I love the bright colors of the blue sky with the bright pink flowers.
The flowers are so beautiful that most of the times when I pass the river, especially in the afternoon and evening, I see people taking pictures. Sometimes there are older ladies posing beside the flowers. Sometimes college girls take turns taking pictures of each other, and once or twice, I have even seen a few guys posing in front of the flowers.
One day last week, I was riding my bike past some of the flowers, when someone called my name. I stopped and turned around. One of my students that I’m teaching for the second time this semester stood with her friend. The two girls had dressed up to take pictures with the beautiful flowers, and they asked me to take a couple of pictures with them on their polaroid camera. I looked down at my clothes. I was on my way home from playing soccer, but since I’d also had dinner, at least the sweat had dried, haha.
“Sorry, I’m not really dressed for pictures.”
“It’s ok, please join us!”
I caved to the peer pressure. At least I had a denim jacket on, since I went straight from class to play soccer. They weren’t even deterred by the night since their camera had a flash.
Another day, I was walking on one of my favorite paths through campus and noticed that the trees were in full bloom. I wasn’t able to identify the type of tree, but again, I paused to take a picture, enjoying the beauty of my campus.
That road is nice because it’s lined with little villas and cute little gardens. I’m not sure exactly who lives in the villas—I’ve heard maybe retired teachers who bought them long ago, or maybe important people in the school. But I love walking by and seeing the pretty flowers in the gardens.
One day, I saw a beautiful iris called the butterfly flower. I learned that from a website called Pl@ntNet. Another day, I noticed a sign warning passersby that the plant next to the sign was poisonous. I didn’t touch it!
One of my favorite flowers at this time of year is the Kapok flower, or in Chinese, 木棉花. It’s bright red and blooms on tall trees. When it’s in the tree, I don’t think it looks quite so nice because the trees aren’t full of leaves, just covered in flowers. But it’s kind of cool.
But when the flowers fall onto the ground, they cover the street with a nice red carpet. Local Cantonese people sometimes collect the flowers, dry them, and use them to make soup. I often see older ladies collecting the fallen flowers in a bag.
My roommate, Kendra, is from the US, but she’s very interested in Chinese medicine, so she also decided to collect some of the flowers because a friend of hers said that if my Kendra collected them and dried them, then this other friend would teach her how to make the soup.
Kendra took a bucket outside, and our friendly Chinese neighbor, an older lady who asked us to call her, Yaya went with her and guided her about which blooms would be good. Yaya is incredibly precious, and I met her when her granddaughter and I both joined a piano performance several years ago, and now we like to chat when we see each other outside.
After Kendra had collected the flowers, she put them out on the balcony to dry. Unfortunately, some of them got a little bit moldy, but a friend of mine stayed with me one night (also a Cantonese), and she suggested first drying them in the oven and then finishing the drying process outside so they wouldn’t get moldy. Kendra got some more and tried again with much better results.
The flowers have now been properly dried, but we’ll see if Kendra is able to meet up with the other friend and learn how to make the soup. I’m a very curious observer of this entire ordeal!
Guangzhou has beautiful flowers in every season, but the flowers in the past month or so have been especially beautiful, and I’m so thankful that I can live in such a beautiful city!