I believe Leung Ping-kwan's poem 'Picking Cress' was based on this trip, since our experience of the place on that day matched that described in the poem: after finishing our food we went down to purchase some of the watercress which was growing in the waters of a stream just below the village. Just as in the poem itself a village woman picked the cress for us as we waited, placing it in bags. It was a fresh and beautiful morning, as in the poem, and she did indeed squat on a wooden plank to do the picking. Along with PK in the photo of the customers waiting for their cress to be gathered are (from left to right) Beijing artist Song Dong, curator Oscar Ho Hing-kay, Oscar’s wife Camen and PK’s wife Betty.
I discuss Leung's poetry in my essay ‘Poetry, time and place: in search of sources for the works of Leung Ping-kwan’, published in a Chinese translation (by Stephanie Cheung) in Hong Kong Literary (Xianggang Wenxue), 340, April 2013, p62-3.
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