The Street Fair Returns!
Last year, there was a street fair just outside of campus around Christmastime. They stayed awhile, then left.It was actually quite a nice fair. Thad told us that last year they came in May, but then it was so hot that they moved up the time to December. There were quite a few people from Pakistan or India or one of those places, selling jade. Yau Neih tried to find out one of the prices and ended up with a "hard sell" approach.
Anyway, the street fair returned a few days ago. Actually, I shouldn't say "returned", because this was a different fair, from a European country. Why they were in Southern Yunnan I'll never know, but they were definitely European, speaking fluent Chinese and English as well as their native tongue.
Anyway, Ian, a new lao wai whom I haven't mentioned before, happened to know somebody at the fair. At least I think he did. He came up to us as we were going to one of the "Well Markets", and asked us if we were happening to head to the street fair.
We said we were, as it was on the way home. He asked us if we would do him a favor, kind of like guang xi, and, since we're going to be Chinese about this, and he recently took us out to dinner, we said, "sure".
He told us that his ex-girlfriend was one of the street fair people. She sold spices. They were still kind of edgy with each other, so this request was twofold. First of all, he needed us to get some parsley for his garlic salad, some sage for his stuffing (he eats turkey on Easter), some rosemary for his depression, and some thyme for his asthma. We said we'd get them all.
The next part of the task, he said, was to explain that he was ready to patch things up, if she'd do some stuff for him. What was it, we asked, and he told us, that first, he really needed a cambric shirt, but seams really bothered him. So, the first thing was that she had to make a cambric shirt without any seam or needlework.
The next thing was that he needed the shirt washed. Unfortunately, water really irritates him, so she had to do it in a dry well. We know of one on campus, and we agreed to assist her in finding it. She had to dry the shirt on a dry thorn. Ga Dai spoke up and said she'd found a cactus with a bunch of thorns. That was exactly what Ian wanted, because, see, cactus juice makes him feel really chipper.
Now, he had a real task. If they were to patch things up, they might get married and his apartment's really teeny. So, he wanted her to get him an acre of land. Now, he likes the beach so much, but he hates sand. So this had to be between the sand and the ocean, so he could have his beach and his house, sand-free.
He wanted a head start on crops, too. So he wanted her to plow it, but with a ram's horn to save time and economize. Also to economize, he needed her to sow it all over with one peppercorn. Those are easy to obtain, and one big pack will last you a lifetime if you sow like that. He also had some leather running around; he wanted her to reap it with that. Peacock's feathers look really pretty binding up pepper plants, so he wanted her to bind it up with one.
Anyway, so he wanted her to do those things, and we agreed to help her. So we went to the fair and quickly located the spice seller. We bought parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme and then told her about the tasks. She made a funny face and said "No!"
So we gave the herbs to Ian and informed him that he'd have to find another girlfriend. It was a weird day.
posted by John @ 5:50 AM
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