The drawer of the tropical

My first impression of the Jardin des plantes in Paris: a sprouting and blooming carpet of spring rolling from the garden’s gate by the Seine all the way to its heart: the Grande galerie de l’évolution. Blooming are the tens of thousands of tulips, swinging on top of the tall stretching stems under the sun. They are meticulously grown by colors. On one end of the tapestry, the softest white; on the other, the thickest purple. A subtle increase of pigment in one row after another, paving your way into the rosy midst of ecstasy long before you reach the other end. It is a great pleasure to stroll across the garden. Here nature is conceptualized as a palace and you marvel at the master’s creation. You project pillars in giant sycamores, maze in thick bushes, dome in hummock, torches and chandeliers in twigs and tendrils, and sanctuaries in the rise and fall of branches. Life imitates art. You fall into a rhapsody of plants, right under the gaze of such a culture.

To the right side of the blooming carpet you found the Grandes Serres, two iron-and-glass structures that host guests from the tropics. They look adorable from a distance: nicely traced in green lines, with palmy shadows seen through the glazed surfaces. You come under its roof. The fine green lines turn out to be iron bars arching from high above your head all the way down. They have delineated a considerable amount of air. This air, sealed in by a height, width and depth, is for the cooking of a new climate—

Now you’re in the middle of it. The rainforest on the tip of your nose. And soon, as a cloud you swallow into your lung; a moist film sticky to your skin. Strange yet familiar. You might not be able to tell the soil or fern or moss or the luring scent of the carnivorous plant from this great fermentation jar, when everything is mixed together. But at this point, that old drawer which stores your memories lures you to pull it open. you follow the call. 

First comes the dizzying cement ground. The warm but too bright street scene in early summer seeped through by a cooling sweet aroma. The way to your grandma’s home. You know it comes from a bush of purple and white 「鴛鴦茉莉」next to the pavement, whose thin silky petals thrives despite the heat. Many more are coming. 「細葉紫薇」, a shrub growing by the clearing where you went roller skating with your childhood buddies. Its flowers are small. When the season comes they bloom in clusters like a display of fireworks in a color between pink and lilac. Its tiny shiny leaves also give a lot of grace. They change colors in time and you can make out of them a rainbow collection. Even more interesting is that its slender bouncy trunk and branches have an extremely smooth surface. You brush it on the trunk with your finger in the softest manner, and the whole crown will shake–not too much but perceptible to your eyes–as if expressing an itch. 

Then comes「大榕樹」, the big banyan under which the elders gather and exchange daily conversations. From the window of grandma’s kitchen on the fourth floor you see the top of the banyan’s crown at eye level. At dusk, the sun sets right behind it, so you see its giant shade darkening against a golden sky and allow yourself to be enveloped in that half-glooming, half-burning sensation. The day culminates in a final reprise. Flocks of birds come under the crown’s shelter, their hopping silhouettes merely visible in the tree, but their chirps adding up to a hustle-bustling wonderland within that spongy shadow. “Tac!”--the kitchen light is on. Another “tac!”--Grandma switches on the stove. In the dimming daylight a tongue of flame emerges. The wok is heating up. Oil simmers. As evening sets in, the air is soon infiltrated by the aroma of frying garlic and ginger. Grandma’s hand is calloused, reddish and steady. She grabs the chopped veggies, throws them into the wok, and churns with a turner. The vegetables make a cracking noise, joining the tinkles between the turner and wok. Grandma knows you’re coming and greets you, in a vibrant tone like color magenta. Maybe it’s because of the redness on her smiling cheeks, a radiance effectuated by time, the heat and sweat in the room, and a loving soul. Like a daily ritual, you count how many chopsticks and bowls you should bring from the cupboard, pass the dish plates to grandma, and moments later the whole long day will be settled like the warm delicious food placed onto the procelainwares’ flat surface circled by a ring of floral motifs. The dinner, just like the many other ones that grandma makes, dwells in a bigger universe. A sum of vivid scents, flavours, pigments and sounds as its recipe, configured by 「大榕樹」, 「鴛鴦茉莉」, 「細葉紫薇」, 「白蘭花」，「含笑」，「紫荊」，「痲楝」, 「柿樹」, 「...」, which are actually nowhere to be found in the serre. You realize that the drawer has opened for too long and come to a stop.