Beautiful strong and elegant atmosphere

I love good scents that I meet and love while traveling.

I like the high-end taste that diffuses in star hotels. Smells peaceful. But if I want to say that there is one scent that impresses me deeply and even unforgettable, I think it is the scent of lily that I kept smelling during several trips to Taiwan.

I remember many years ago, as a media person, I participated in a literary event held at National Taiwan University. The full name of the event is the Taipei Poetry Festival. At that time, Mu Yan, Shi Yuetan, and Yang Jiaxian were drinking Taiwan beer and chatting outside the Church of Light in National Taiwan University.

What did we say that night? I had forgotten it long ago, but I could faintly smell the breath of lilies in the air. In fact, there is no need to search, because the flower baskets sent by the local publishing house and the organizer are right at the door, and the fragrance of lily floats in bursts. For the next few days, my nostrils are filled with the fragrance of lily.

***

But what really made me happy was chatting with an assistant teacher who had studied in Germany in the small classroom of the Chinese Department. At the time, we were all waiting for the start of the next event, and I was hanging around in the Faculty of Letters at National Taiwan University. The assistant teacher asked me to sit in the classroom. At first, we were embarrassed to talk about the weather and food. But you know, this kind of topic is often the beginning, and if it's not very enthusiastic, this topic quickly fades like a flash in the pan.

After the polite conversation between me and the assistant teacher ended, I fell into a dead silence in an instant.

At this moment, a faint scent of lily came. I said curiously, "Is there a kind of lily in the College of Literature? There is a good smell of lily in the air!"

The assistant teacher smiled, pointed to the flower basket on the podium and said, "The smell of lilies you talked about is there!" She pointed to the podium. I looked and saw that there were indeed lilies, but not all white ones, but pink ones. I couldn't help but put my nose into the lily, and when I smelled it recently, the scent of the lily was not as pleasant as the one that wafted in by chance.

I told the assistant teacher about this idea. I told her about the lily incense I smelled outside the Church of Light, and told her the anecdotes about the Taiwanese literary world that I talked to Mu Yan, Shi Yuetan, and Yang Jiaxian. When it comes to literature, our topic is opened. At that time, we chatted from all over the world. Tell the story of Kubin. It tells the story of a scholar here who studied with Kubin, but for various reasons, she never got a doctorate. There was once a time when the author of "The King of Shanghai" Hong Ying was said by Ku Bin that her works were garbage in the literary world and gossip...

***

This conversation is an open-minded literary conversation. In the environment surrounded by the fragrance of lilies, we talked about several collections of Chen Yingzhen's novels, as well as the attitude of the Taipei literary world towards him after he settled in Beijing; in addition, Huang Chunming, and his son Huang Guojun and his untimely death There are some rumors about talented female writers and scholars, and they also say a lot about the personnel affairs of Taiwan's local literature and modern literature. The assistant teacher was very surprised. As a person from the equator, I know so much about Taiwan?

I told her that I still know Hu Defu, Luo Dayou, and the Yelily student movement back then, and I also saw "Is Ah Bian wrong?" through YouTube. After Du Zhengsheng, a very powerful scholar, became Taiwan's Minister of Education, Several are criticized, such as the vulgar allusions of "The Three Little Pigs".

In that afternoon's exchange, we spoke freely and vividly. Even many years later, when I came back to the Faculty of Arts at National Taiwan University, I would linger outside the classroom. Although there was no lily flower basket on the pulpit, the scent of lilies that afternoon in my memory would be called out, faintly in my nostrils. freed.

***

Two years ago, at the invitation of the Taipei Tourism Bureau, I went to Taipei again for a business trip.

This time, I was with three other media people. After the tour guide picked us up at the airport, before driving from Taoyuan Airport to the hotel in Taipei City, he asked the four of us a question: "What's your impression of the smell of Taipei?"

Because it was a food trip, the three colleagues shared their impressions of the smell of Taipei, which of course were all food. I mentioned three kinds of scents—lily incense, incense, and the indescribable, slightly complex scent in the air that only Taipei has. This smell is sometimes the smell of pasta, sometimes it is very strong animal smell, but more often it is the smell of grass walking in the small block, and the occasional smell of lilies when passing the palace.

If you ask me, what is the best breath in my memory?

If you go to Taiwan, it must be lily, which is the most charming and unforgettable scent of Formosa for me. As long as I have this breath, every time I go to Taiwan, I can always meet people I can talk to and good things.