Lamma Island, 11:31AM – Overcast.

Entry 71

The men around the village all look sharp. They have had their hair cut. The woman around the village all stand up straight. They have had their willow catkins cut.

Everywhere you look there is red, though it could have been there all along. Everyone looks content, goals in reach, errands with endings. Grannies and aunties drag wheelie-carts crammed full of who knows what. Lots of spring onions peeking out.

Shops will be closed for about four days. It’s not so much a rest as it is an obligation to eat. Here, to eat someone’s cooking is to accept someone’s embrace. I can’t imagine not hugging my grandmother though she was not much of a cook. Is a distended stomach here then equivalent to a bone-crunching embrace? Shoulders tensed, I panic buy four cans of black beans, two packs of fresh spinach, and one tube of tomato paste.

On the way home, an old man walks ahead of me up the hill. The loudest fart I have ever heard. The Year of the Tiger approaches. Not quite silent and hopefully not quite deadly.