the conversation starter: 栀子

My teacher came to class carrying two bouquets, one for herself and another meant for me. Each was a small roughshod bouquet of white gardenias. They were jacketed in their own leaves and wrapped with grey plastic twine at the stems. The blossoms smelled of vanilla and rain and nighttime, and for an afternoon our classroom breathed that heady air.

When I left school I held the bouquet close so I could smell it as I walked. Only two of the blossoms were open: one wide and falling, the other fresh and strong. That night two more flowers unraveled from their buds, their petals at first twisted and spiraled, then later full and flat.

But before the flowers took up residence in their vase, Chengdu noticed me carrying them. I walked into a bakery for a loaf of anise bread and the women working there quickly noted their fragrance. Security guards nodded to the bouquet as I walked past. And the pair of parking lot attendants I see on my daily walk to and from school went out of their way to say something new.

In the a.m. they usually say, 上班了, “You’re going to work.” In the p.m. they say, 下班了, “You’re going home.” It’s the standard greeting and there’s not much more you can say in those brief moments. But on this day they switched it up and said something different. 

They said, “You have flowers.”

Yes, I responded, I have flowers. Then we all smiled and I kept walking.

And in the way that Chinese people believe greeting someone by stating the obvious is meant to make you feel closer, it seems for once it actually did.