This evening something amazing happened.
The Tiger-Lady agreed to train me how to make lotus flowers and daffodils out of carrots. Tomorrow I will learn how to carve a pink and white rose from a radish. It is uncertain how long this craft has been in China, but it is likely quite an ancient practice. The Tiger-Lady learned it from her husband, and other employees have asked to be able to sculpt these pieces and have been refused. I am indeed most fortunate as these little babies sell for a fiver a go, and if I managed to sell 60 a week to various restaurants, I could make as much as I would in forty hours working as an unskilled labourer.
I consider this a major turning-point in my life and I am extremely grateful for the Tiger-Lady taking me on as her apprentice. I intend to master it (she makes it look so easy, and it is in-fact very difficult to do). Like anything worth doing, it is no cake-walk. This week I shall be ploughing through several bags of carrots in an attempt to get up to her standard. There, at the restaurant, is much to learn. Next I should like her to teach me how to make fishes. I prefer the daffodil to the lotus, it is slightly harder to sculpt but looks much more pretty. Besides, it is my mothers favourite flower. Beyond mere material benefits and making a decent living out of such a skill, it has another benefit as beautiful as the flowers themselves. Say I was at a dinner, much like I was at Christmas this year. I offered to help mother peel the spuds and carrots and did so at break-neck speed, because it has been my living for such a long time now. I could quite easily just chop off a chunk of carrot and carve a beautiful daffodil for my mother. That means so much to me. It is something so simple: to make something really quite beautiful out of something banal and ugly looking.
In all my life I have only seen one other work of art similar. In Switzerland they make musical instruments made out of carrots, recorders and piccolos. They play well, and of course, after the session they eat them.
Of all the things I have done in my life, I am most proud of being her apprentice, more so than passing A397, more so than mastering the pianoforte or the guitar. Honest labour teaches us all things. I am beaming with pride today.
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