On my first Sunday in China, my aunt invited me to pick figs and black grapes on a farm about 30 minutes from the city. After spending the first few days in the city, I was all too happy to leave it even if it’s only for a few hours. After living in the U.S. suburbs for more than half of my life, I am no longer used to the city even though when I left my hometown, it was technically still a suburb.
Anyway, I didn’t really have any desires to pick figs. I couldn’t even tell whether they were ripe. You can tell I’ve never seen or eaten freshly picked figs, right? The only figs I’ve eaten were dried ones. So while everyone else went searching for figs, I spent the time wandering among the aisles of figs and took pictures.
After a few moments, I heard my aunt ask, “Where is everyone?”
My other aunt replied, “They must had gone to pick grapes.”
Before I could take another picture, they went dashing toward the other direction. “Wait!” I shouted but they didn’t hear me. So holding my camera in my hand, I went running after them.
The area where the grapes are planted was slightly different than the place where the figs are planted. Instead of flat ground, there was a muddy trench in the middle and unless you wanted to get your shoes dirty, don’t step in the trench.
This trench is considered dry and thank goodness because by this point, my legs were exhausted from walking spread-eagled.
As we exited the grape area, I gave the corridor one last look – left goes to the figs, right to the grapes – as my aunts went to pay for the figs and grapes they picked while my uncle and his dad found a table to sit down for a cup of fig tea. It was a good Sunday.
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