牲口
东方花香调
前调:甜橙百里香
中调:鼠尾草月桂
后调:海狸香愈创木克什米尔木
Top: Sweet orange, thyme
Middle: Sage, aurel, beef tallow
Base: Castoreum, Guaiacum,Kashmir
沙堤是我的故乡，时隔多年后我回来了。 从县里五块钱拉一趟的黑面包车下来之后，走几步就到村口。村口有一头拴着的黄牛。眼睛很大，很亮，嘴里没嚼东西，分辨不出年纪。 我摸它，它怕。我摸它，它躲。我还是摸它，它躲不开。我闻我手上的味道，闻着像牲口。 当晚老家人给我安排了接风宴，福建兴吃牛与海鲜，害于，我碗里鲜有虾蟹，都是油浓酱黄的闽风牛肉和汤羹。 饭后积食，抱着一嘴一肘的油腻在村里溜达。晃到一处胡同，看到一个村夫牵着村口那头黄牛穿行过去。 农村没灯，夜里路黑。蹄声很沉，很响。
Shadi is my hometown. After years away, I have finally come home.
I got off the unlicensed black van that charged five yuan per ride from the county seat. A few steps, and I was at the village entrance. An ox was tethered there. Its eyes were large, bright. It wasn’t chewing its cud, so I couldn’t tell how old it was.
I reached to touch it, and it flinched, afraid. I tried again, it pulled back. I reached out once more, and it had nowhere left to run. I smelled my hand. It smelled of livestock.
That night, my folks back home threw me a homecoming feast. Fujian folk are fond of beef and seafood, yet in my bowl, there were barely any shrimp or crab. All I had was rich, amber-sauced Fujian-style beef and warm broths.
Stuffed after the meal, grease lingering on my lips and staining my sleeves, I wandered the village. I drifted into a narrow alley, and saw a local villager leading that same ox from the entrance, walking past.
The countryside had no streetlights. The road was pitch-black at night. The hooves fell heavy, loud against the dirt.
古厝
东方果木调
前调:紫罗兰黑醋栗花椒
中调:荔枝依兰依兰丁香
后调:香根草藏红花
Top: Violet, Blackcurrant
Middle: Lychee, ylang-ylang, clove bud
Base notes: Vetiver, saffron, Soy sauce
二十多年后再一次跨进祖房，已经租过他人。
陌生的面孔在熟悉的地方过着熟悉的生活。
湿衣服散发着便宜洗衣皂的气味被晾在天井，咸菜刚洗过水摊在案板，神台上新鲜摆上的蜜饯果脯和隔了一晚上渴了一半的三个红色塑料酒杯。木房墩柱上沾染着香火和厨房油哈喇子的包浆。
我小时候坐在祠堂门槛上吃棒棒糖，明白神事之后就忌了。
租客是外地来的打工人，哈着腰问我是不是拆迁改建来考察的，我说这儿是古厝，不拆。
老房子还是老房子，样子不是老样子了。
Stepping into my ancestral house again after over two decades, I found it had long been rented out to others.
Strangers, in this place I knew so well, were living the same familiar, mundane daily life.
Wet clothes, reeking of cheap laundry soap, hung to dry in the central courtyard. Pickled vegetables, just rinsed clean, were spread across the chopping board. On the ancestral altar sat freshly laid candied fruits, and three red plastic wine cups, half-empty after a night. The wooden pillars of the old house were coated in a patina, stained with years of incense smoke and kitchen grease.
When I was little, I used to sit on the threshold of the ancestral hall eating lollipops—once I grew old enough to understand the sacred ancestral rites, I stopped doing that, out of taboos.
The tenant was a migrant worker from out of town. Hunched slightly, he asked me nervously if I was here to inspect the place for demolition and renovation. I told him this was a Gucuo, it wouldn’t be torn down.
The old house was still itself, but it was no longer the old house I remembered.
掷茭
东方焚香调
前调:杏仁柠檬
中调:广藿香焚香
后调:安息香丝柏
Top: Almond, lemon, Hay
Middle: Patchouli, incense,Redwood
Base: Benzoin, Cypress, Juniper
这是每一个福建人都知道的拜神仪式。
它是一种半月形的成对木片，闭眼对神念叨心里所望，抛之，若是一阴一阳，叫圣菱，则是神它答应了，
每年家里会拜两次，神桌上的祭品有鸡鱼猪，蜜饯果脯，茶酒零食和米饭面条，而这对木头，就放在中间。
燃香，跪拜，上香，等烟雾把心里的欲望往上带一会后，就可以掷茭了，
我请了些金纸和大香，贡了公妈厅里的祖宗和神明，双手合着茭杯叨念了心中的念想，抛之，两阳面，笑菱。一瘸腿老人指点我，添多两叠金纸，就好势了，好势闽南语意为搞定。
添上，合十，抛之。
是圣菱，答应了。
This is a god-worshipping ritual familiar to every Fujian local.
It centers on a pair of crescent-shaped divination blocks. You close your eyes, murmur your wish to the gods, then toss them onto the ground. If one lands face up and the other face down, it’s called sheng liao—a holy cast, meaning the gods have granted your request.
We hold this worship twice a year at home. The offerings on the altar table include chicken, fish, pork, candied fruits, tea, wine, snacks, rice and noodles. And that pair of wooden blocks sits right in the center of it all.
You light the incense, kneel to pay homage, place the sticks in the burner. You wait for the smoke to carry your wishes up to the heavens for a while, then it’s time to toss the blocks.
I bought some joss paper and large incense sticks, made offerings to the ancestors and household gods in the gongma hall—the family hall for ancestral worship. Cupping the divination blocks in my hands, I murmured my innermost wish, then tossed them. Both landed face up: two yang sides. It was xiao liao, a laughing cast. An elderly man with a limp pulled me aside to advise me: add two more stacks of joss paper, and it’ll be hao shi. Hao shi, in Minnan dialect, means “it’ll all be sorted, done”.
I added the paper, pressed my palms together in prayer, and tossed them again.
It was sheng liao. The gods had said yes.
老河
东方水生调
前调:白松香肉豆蔻
中调:醛玫瑰蒲草
后调:鸢尾藏红花
Top: galbanum, nutmeg, Dry moss
Middle: Aldehyde, Rose, Cattail
Base: Iris, saffron
古厝后面有条河，以前是河，现在已经是溪了。
小时候去玩，可以漫过我的膝盖。
河水很臭，水很凉很清澈，有蝌蚪，我很喜欢去玩。
这次回去，它只漫过我的鞋底。
还是很清澈，但是没有蝌蚪了，也不臭了，
这条河老了。
Behind the Gucuo there was a river. Or at least it used to be a river—now it’s shrunk to little more than a stream.
When I was little and played there, the water would reach my knees.
The water smelled a little foul back then, but it was cold and clear, teeming with tadpoles. I loved going there to play.
This time when I came back, it only reached the soles of my shoes.
It was still clear, but there were no tadpoles left. And it didn’t smell foul anymore.
The river has grown old.
Source: Damnfool Perfume