Past Mong Ha, hidden by yellow bushes, the fertile plain reclaimed from the sea merges into dark, polished pebbles caressed by foamless, ashen waves.
The big "fan sun" (1), their leaden sails casting brown shadows on the still, blue waters of the Pearl River embracing Macau, are like seagulls poised on a wonderful scene which leads to heaven...
The fertile plain, with its dark houses, rises from the sea and comes to rest in the distant soil of a verdant bamboo grove laced with a thousand little leaves, a natural screen which shields the city from that forsaken corner full of endless work and pitiful misery.
The generous earth is covered in patches of all shades of green, speckled with the white and yellow of the sprouting cabbages which ripple. in sequence, bursting with the life and colour of a patchwork quilt.
Waves of muddy green yams, leaves slashed from sweet potatos lying close to the ground, bright green lettuces in their hotbeds, frilly carrot tops, "pak choi" (2) encased in the first yellow sprouts of the leaves, spikey young onion shoots and shallots cover the ground as far as the shabby shapeless huts.
Each little house is a dark stain of aged wood, corrugated zinc, bamboo and rotting mats. Some of them have small glistening windows next to sagging thatched hen-houses where a piglet, a russet hen or a cock with scarlet comb may peep through the bars of their prison grooming themselves in the sunlight.
In the distance other blackened huts rise on stilts out of the marshy ground as if they were lake dwellings.
And near them, along the dark soil ridges, men in shorts, worn tunics or tattered vests and straw hats to protect them from the heat cultivate the ground every day from sunrise.
The "kang tin lou" (3) go up and down the fields in a monotonous motion, their burnt skin reflecting the colour of the ground, their sandals attached to their dark feet with no more than a thin string, a bamboo rod over their shoulder holding two wooden watering cans with long tin pipes tipped with a rose. Once, twice, as many times as are necessary to keep the earth watered, they go down to the big wells hidden under the greenery in a dark corner of the fields and fill the cans on the bamboo poles, the pipes crossed over to help them keep balance.
In each patch, manure from several sources is piled up in dark heaps at the base of each plant. The crystal water tumbles like a rainbow over the thirsty little leaves.
Nearby, a couple of small children play with two old tin cans tied to a stick with string imitating the labours of the poverty-stricken Chinese.
A little further away, in a secluded corner, another child a little older devotes himself enthusiastically to gathering shoots.
Further into the distance, next to one of the poor houses, a red gladiola reaches up to the sky, its many blooms sticking out from the long green leaves.
Among the green lettuces shining with humidity, both the joy and the bread of the labourer, there are patches of colourful flowers, tended with just the same amount of loving care.
Great splashes of white, violet and yellow "kok fa" (4), their heads brushing against each other, sway in the sea breeze carrying the smell of the mud in the estuary.
Behind the fences and the bamboo groves there is a careless slope. The tar glistens and under the sun the languid city idles down to the isthmus...
"Fa ie!" (5) the singsong voice of the streetcaller calls every day through the heat under the mild blue sky of a January morning.
Released into the air "Fa ie!" is poetry, perfume...
The delicate, small flower seller, dressed in baggy black trousers and a greyish patched tunic over her hips, winds her way slowly down the promenade, balancing the two big, uncovered straw baskets filled with spikey yellow and white chrysanthemum flowers.
The baskets swing in and out of time to the unshod step of the Chinese vendor, walking and calling out her wares.
The dark, weathered skin, the high cheekbones and the slit eyes contrast light and shade under the purplish cloth, embroidered in white, which is tied in a thick knot below her copper-coloured pert chin at the low collar of her tunic.
Large, white teeth, some of them crowned with gold, shine at each metallic call of the flower girl. There she goes, small and light, a dark stain amongst the colourful flowers. A seller of dreams...
In contrast to her shoddy, cotton, black clothes, she wears on one of her wrists a jade bangle turned green with age and yellow with the air. It sits, green, like the leaves round a cabbage stalk.
The flowers, sprinkled with dew and piled up and over the brim of one of the baskets, swing at each step, waiting for a pitcher or a simple glass of water to keep them alive.
In the other basket, hanging from the humble black rod which rests on a faded old rag on the flower girl's skinny shoulder, flower heads, stripped from their stalks, stick out from the foliage like water lilies on a still lake.
The colour and freshness of the flowers attract glances and the flower seller stops here and there to tie up bunches of various shades and take the few tinny coins which tinkle happily together at the bottom of the pocket in her white under tunic.
The chrysanthemums go to homes where they sit, like small suns radiating not heat but colour, in typical polichrome vases on round carved teak tables or next to the joss sticks in the recessed altars.
And the flower seller goes round the corners, up the steep streets, down the stone steps calling out and selling her beautiful flowers.
"Fa ie!" The baskets lose their colour, the coins accumulate and the pitiless sun dries out the crystal dewdrops which rest on the "kok fa" blooms at the top of each basket like white and golden drops of sweat on bowls of rice.
Translated by Arminda Baldo
NOTES
(1) fa sun - sailing boat
(2) pak choi - Chinese cabbage
(3) kang tin lou - farmer
(4) kok fa - chrysanthemum
(5) Fa ie! - street cry of the flower sellers
* Lecturer in the Faculty of Social Sciences in the New University of Lisbon; anthropologist and researcher.
start p. 71
end p.