Lamma Island, 9:14AM – Cold.

Entry 144

I never thought I’d get so worked up about a tree. After a showdown at the breakfast hour in our island’s only open-air dim sum restaurant, in which my landlady jumps up to stamp her feet and I laugh her off like Glenda the Good Witch of the North.

After all she has no power here, she’s only just admitted the land is not hers, also I tower above her, and after all I am the Good Tenant, and lo we reach an agreement. No one is going to drop a house on anyone, nor a tree.

I mispronounce “clean” in Cantonese and a smallish auntie off table-left stage whispers the right word to me. 

I want to glean the plot of land around —

Ha? Glean?

Clean!

Clean.

I want to clean the plot of land around —

Wah, look his Cantonese is so good. Were you born here?

I continue.

I want to clean the plot of land around the tree you had felled. It’s ugly and full of trash. Maybe I will plant bamboo. For privacy and greenery.

(I actually know how to say privacy and greenery).

When my landlady speaks she resembles an upset schnauzer. Everyone is watching us of course.

Oh no you won’t! Not bamboo! Aiya! You’ve seen the storms in our village. If that bamboo comes crashing down it will hit my house and whose responsibility is that? The tree I felled was rotted to the core - don’t you dare plant any bamboo. It’ll grow as high as the sky! I’m against bamboo! 

Against bamboo?

Against it.

Fine. I’ll clean the land still.

I realize I am saying clean because I don’t know how to say clear. The only word for clear I know is just for vision or the mind. Could I say sweep maybe? But the landlady is scrappy and no idiot. She gets it. 

Fine. 

Thank you. 

You can plant flowers. Short ones. 

Okay flowers. Great. Thank you.

No bamboo. I’m against bamboo.

Okay no bamboo. You’re against bamboo. Just flowers.

Short ones.

I’m going to catch the ferry now.

Bye-bye!

Bye-bye.

Applause.