Over twenty years ago, I remember running to my mother for money and then over to a tiny, open stand over which hunched an old, wizened man. His eyes were nearly hidden in folds of loose skin and his knuckles were swollen and knobbly, but his hands were deft and careless in their mastery. In the time it took me to check that the stand was there and to run to my mother and then back, he would have a fresh box made and sealed, red print dragons wrapped around its corners and silently snarling the contents in square characters down the lid's center.
I would hand him the money, and he would give me a gap-toothed grin with a little nod and a wheezing chuckle. I would reach carefully for the top of the pristine white boxes stacked like bricks, and before I had even turned to search for my mother again, the shallow box would be open...six pillowy white bundles, like sleeping caterpillers in their silk cocoons; filling the small space perfectly. (Not long after, down to five - then, too soon, none).
The stand is long gone, and even the Chinese market it had stood before is no more. I half-heartedly searched for the confection in the last decade while I was in San Francisco, and told my mother who lived near such Asian centers as Los Angeles, Monterey Park and Rowland Heights; to keep an eye and ear out for it. One time I found a website offering it for online orders - the only one I could find (at least, that I could read, being functionally illiterate in Chinese). But the candy should be eaten fresh, the sugars tending to harden and congeal within even a small handful of hours of its making; I didn't want to risk spending premium money for a high potential of disappointment. I thought that it would forever remain just one of those nostalgic moments of childhood that will never be repeated except in memory.
Today, while I was visiting my brother for the week in North Carolina, he took me to the only Asian market in the immediate area. It was filled with the reassuring sing-song dialects of Chinese, the shelves stocked with familiar clutter and ingredients. For a moment, I forgot that I was not back in California, shopping in one of the plentiful Chinese market chains that dot its coast.
And then we turned a corner, nearly walked into a post, and in dodging around it, almost walked into an isolated table tucked between canned goods and dried foodstuffs. A thin man stood behind it; hair still lack, but liver spots dotting his hands. His fingers combed rhythmically through a shallow tray of flour, spider-silk strands multiplying with each pass, a smile on his weathered face as he nodded to us.
The boxes were different, but twenty years later and the width of a continent away, the Dragon Beard Candy was still just as delicately sweet as memory. So if you ever find yourself in Cary, North Carolina, and have some time to visit a market, drop by the Grand Asian Market - and don't forget to tip the confectioner for his hard work.
(This also marks my first post composed on a mobile device - which had been a pain where proofreading and typing is concerned, but nothing beats the instant gratification when the writing bug hits! Unfortunately, the iPhone mail interface has no method of adding a picture after beginning an e-mail, so I'll have to add that manually later.)
Sent from my iPhone
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