Jian Guo Holiday Flower Market (建國假日花市): Where Fuming Desires Metamorphose into Fragrance

Urban apartments are modular prisons where we incarcerate ourselves for most of our lives. In search of livelihood, a roof over our heads, a sense of security and a bed to fall asleep on, there is much that a city-zen gives up. When our homes lack a window into the world, a balcony that sits somewhere on the edges of inside and outside, and the glimpses of trees whose branches dapple with light and sway in trance with the dance of the breeze, our sense of incarceration produces a queer agony of alienation.

Encased by walls and trapped within doors that close on ourselves, a city that rejects us in the hours of night, we yearn for ways to bring a little of something we lost on the long road to urbanization. In the city, we leave the country behind, and leaving the country means saying goodbye to open fields, swaying trees, a brook, or a herd of sprawling animals.

John Berger writes that something changes fundamentally in our relationship with animals when we leave the country behind to build a city. The recognition between ourselves and animals, which used to be mutual, between independent animated beings, is now one-sided, lesser because our pets, dependent on us for their needs, and domesticated livestock, do not look back at us – gaze into our eyes – as equals.

It is no surprise then that our homes – their brick-and-mortar walls plastered and coated with paint; concrete, marble or wooden floors; glass windows and doors, impinge on us – send us spiraling down a bout of claustrophobia. We yearn for light that is not tungsten or fluorescent; a pet whose furry embrace tells us that something alive dwells within these barren walls besides us who are dying by the day; a fish tank to bring something of the river in shapes of fish that swim in the world; some pots and plants, anything at all that will soothe our isolation even by the slightest.

Every weekend, an under-bridge parking lot across from Da’an Park undergoes a metamorphosis and becomes a flower market. Dead metal bodies radiating heat and fuming with the scent of gasoline mixed with rubber disappear, and a fragrance of lilies, orchids, roses, and chrysanthemums takes over.

Jian Guo Holiday Flower Market is a landmark of our longings that fester over the week and impel us to be relieved every weekend. Facing the flower market, separated by a road that runs between them, is the jade market. We turn our backs on the jade for now.

A long-bearded, kurta-clad man sells halal chicken and vegetarian chickpea rolls. Two decades ago, he left his land of birth in Pakistan and landed in Taipei. He is reticent in speech, circumspect in manners, but some kindred fellow feeling adds a special zest to the roll he prepares for us. The corner of his eyes wrinkle with a barely perceptible smile as he hands me the roll, pockets the red hundred kuai bill and returns the change.

Biting into the roll, we enter the market, keeping an eye open for the couple-friends we are supposed to meet with. Leisurely, we stroll past stall after stall, glancing at a log of wood (is it some herb in Chinese medicine?), an earthen pot that looks so heavy it will require a pickup truck, and pause before a flower shop.

We run our fingers by the stems poking out in bundles out of pots stringed to a metal frame. Bringing our noses close to the petals, we take a whiff and pick a flower. In my friend’s imagination, a flower arrangement begins to unfold as she chooses a couple of yellow lilies, a green shrub, some tulips and a flower I cannot name. Such aesthetic blindness is one of the many pitfalls of an impoverished education that was more about incarceration in a classroom and passing an exam than running wild in the fields and smelling a flower.

Our friends spot us, and I see they have already purchased a few plastic pots, the type that hang from the ceiling. Among those who opened their homes and hearts to me in Taipei, they are a quiet couple, a few years senior to me in age, and it shows occasionally in my immaturity and their patient indulgence.

Besides the greetings, we do not say much to each other. Neither feels any need to do so. Two strolling amidst the fragrance become four, that is all. My friend walks up to the fish tank stand. She has been convinced for some time that the filter at home is not working well and the fish are suffering because of it. She inquires after a few options, and finding one she deems okay, makes a purchase. Kids try to scoop tiny fish in small nets, minuscule turtles bask in the tubs divided between a sandy shore and a wet sea. They are flat-earthers.

As the afternoon approaches and lingers, the crowds grow thin and shopkeepers relax. Tucked away in the corner between two green walls, a man leans back on his picnic chair and dozes off. A few stalls further, a husband and wife sit opposite each other, grabbing a bite.

As relief measures against the humid summer heat of Taipei, sprinklers are installed overhead, and every few minutes or so, they send a shower of sprayed mist our way. Oh, how slowly it lingers in the air, droplets so minute they smelt like snowflakes on our skin. Yet, they cool our bodies and calm our minds.

With our little purchase of fragrance, flowers, and plants, we go our separate ways home, promising to meet over dinner. Back at the apartment, my friend squats in the balcony, snipping stems into a flower arrangement. I am unfamiliar with its delicate laws, a miniature order of nature in a vase filled with a few inches of water.

As the flowers sit on the table, dappling with diffused afternoon light streaming in through open balcony doors and glazed windowpanes, she begins operation fishtank. The guppies are scooped into a small mug, and the fish tank is emptied of water. New rocks and aquatic plants adorn the fresh aquascape, a new filter is installed and runs for hours before she deems the water safe for re-entry of the scared school of guppies. Their bulbous orange bellies tell her that some guppies are pregnant. Right in time, she says to me, satisfied with her foresight. She feeds the fish and invites me to sit next to her, and we

One evening, when we visit our friends at their home for dinner, I go straight to their balcony. It is a small botanical garden with three kinds of basil he gathered on his many hiking trips through the Taipei Grand Trail. I lean and take a whiff of each kind, detecting some subtle but unnameable difference. His workmanship with soil and seed induces something of a discipleship within. Her shelf of pottery reminds me of a Saramago novel and some myth about the creation of man and breathing life through nostrils.