Sunflower Seeds

There was a sunflower seller on the corner most of the day. His customers try before they buy or try and don’t buy. After they have gone I see him replace the stolen seeds with others.

I missed both breakfast and lunch due to “stomach problems” “pooh poohing too much” “making too much pooh pooh”. My Chinese guides sympathize but eating they assure me is the only way to get well, preferably something greasy and chilli hot, just another example of difference in east and west thinking. I suggest steamed rice they offer spitting hot chilli chicken. I decline but after six hours I begin to eye the sunflower seed heads. It is the season and everyone is doing it, picking the seeds, cracking them between their teeth, spitting the husk to the ground and chewing the sunflower seed flesh. But I am too lazy to go outside to buy and the whole transaction me no Chinese and seller no English takes a lot of energy. So I am lying on the bed reading when I have a strange dizzy feeling. God! I must be really hungry if I am dizzy lying down I thought and there it is was again, I hear the fooyans screaming and I realise with a shock it was not hunger but an earthquake, by a stroke of luck I have my boots on and my passport around my neck. I snatch up my back pack and I run to the door and I am half way down the hall before I hear it slam behind me. Outside the streets are crowded everyone is looking up but nothing seems to be shaking.

Now that I am out and about I decide to buy some food. I see the sunflower seed seller is still across the road from the hotel. I approach and choose what is the best looking sunflower head try to ask how much, a crowd is gathering - a loe eye is going to buy something always good entertainment. A woman comes by she picks up a head and pays one yuan. The sunflower seed seller is cracking open a seed with his totally black hands, fingers and nails. I wonder if they have ever been washed in his life and dismiss the idea that I am probably adding to my “stomach problems” by accepting the offered white kernels. But I eat the two offered seeds pay one yuan. He takes my chosen sunflower head and replaces it with another. How can I argue? This is often done in China, you choose what you want and the seller replaces it with what they want you to have. Anyway I leave, everyone is happy.

Now I am determined to discover the pleasure of picking, cracking, spitting and eating fresh sunflower seeds. I eat some on the street but just can’t bring myself to spit the husks on the footpath despite there being two street sweepers to every block and an entire population spitting husks. People passing are amused by my sunflower cracking. I stand near a bin but the smell of rotting garbage drives me to my room. So far everyone else seems to be getting more out of this than me. Inside I sit on the window ledge open the window and stare into the middle distance as I have seen the locals do and pick, crack, spit, chew, pick, crack, spit, chew. I get into the meditative rhythm of eating sunflower seeds. Round and round my picking fingers go levering out the black and white seeds, discarding the unformed and cracking the fat seeds between my teeth, using my tongue to discard the husk and chewing the milky flesh. Soon I have created a little bare patch on the surface of the seed head and I become determined eat the lot. I want it all. I won’t move until I have finished the pile of husks grows and over flows the ash tray, spills onto the window ledge. I feel like a cockatoo at her seed tray pick up bite roll the husk around with my little round tongue. I am hypnotised. Pick, crack, spit, chew I notice the sap from the seed head is turning my fingers brown. No wonder the seller’s hands were black. Up at dawn to cut the seeds heads, remove the petals, brush any dirt away, pile them in the cart, haul cart to town, keep the seed heads in order all day by replacing any seeds sampled by customers, spend all day rearranging the heads in his cart . Black hands just a hazard of the job. Looking down from my perch three stories above the street I see as I pick, crack, spit, chew the flow of people below.

the boy who pushes, shoves, tugs his mother who has stopped to talk to a friend, hit, tug, whine, shout
the father holding out a baby to piss in the gutter rewards her with kisses
pick, crack, spit, chew
two young girls heads together giggle share an icy pole, pick, crack, spit, chew
a family on a motorbike Dad in control two year old on the petrol tank and a breastfeeding mum on the back
pick, crack, spit, chew
old men play cards under the trees surrounded by observers
pick, crack, spit, chew
three policemen at the intersection chat and smoke
pick, crack, spit, chew
an old woman strolls hand in hand with her grandchild
pick, crack, spit, chew
a woman carries strings of garlic over her shoulders
pick, crack, spit, chew
the watermelon sellers push barrows up the street
pick, crack, spit, chew
a front end loader toots its way through town
pick, crack, spit, chew
dogs hot on the trail of a bitch on heat,
pick, crack, spit, chew,
a herder drives his cow through traffic beats her with a knotted rope when she falters
pick, crack, spit, chew
the old bag man bent over adds another bottle to his plastic collection
pick, crack, spit, chew
putt putt’s cruise the street for a late evening fare
pick, crack, spit, chew
shiny black Mercedes with darkened windows blasts through traffic honk! honk!
pick, crack, spit, chew
the police use their loud hailer to scare pedestrians off the road
pick, crack, spit, chew
men smoke and ride motorbikes
smoke and ride bicycles
smoke and walk
men smoke
pick, crack, spit, chew
women pull their empty hand carts home tiredness written on dusty faces,
pick, crack, spit, chew
dedicated followers of fashion totter on glittering high heels
pick, crack, spit, chew
a man squats to eat his meal from a plastic bag chopsticks fly to his hungry mouth

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