"You don't know until you shine a light, and once you do, it's a shock."
Under the beam of my flashlight, the roadside was all bamboo forests.
Every bamboo blossomed, the pale-white flowers resembling countless dead people's skulls, hanging atop the trees.
In my arms was a robust rooster, born under the sign of fire.
Now enveloped by Yin energy, it was fearfully tucking its head under its wings.
"Good heavens, this is so... ominous, so many bamboos flowering," Chen Ahmao shivered all over, his teeth chattering louder.
My heart pounded wildly, but I calmly comforted Chen Ahmao, "It's natural for bamboo to flower when it reaches the end of its life."
In many parts of the south, one would never see bamboos flowering.
Only when bamboos approach death do they bloom countless white flowers that hang from their treetops.
People consider it an ominous sign, foreboding disaster.
Near flowering bamboos, one would often find an unending series of funerary events.
