Hong Kong Fragrance 1983

Photo by Ernesto Andrade, published on flickr


I noticed an odd smell in the kitchen. The bag of lychees my daughter bought lay open on the counter, and I was back in 1983 Hong Kong.

Closing my eyes, I felt the sweltering heat, saw the beauty of the lamplit barrows, the skinny arms of the fruit vendor as he thrust the flimsy paper bag of lychees into my hand.

Though I had just bought a Nikon camera, I took no photos on that last evening. Already nostalgic, I wanted nothing to mediate between me and the experience of the lamplit fruit carts that stood in the street with the early tropical night falling.

The smell of the lychees was intriguing, but eating them was like drinking perfume. Meeting their unique fragrance again after so many years quickly swept aside the curtain of time. I saw my younger self make her purchase and return to her single room in the YMCA Kowloon to peel the sticky fruit, a farewell taste of Hong Kong.