orchid streetcorner

In Hong Kong, Bangkok and other places around Asia, these flowers are sold on the street in little bunches. Some people put them in their hair. Drivers might hang them from rear view mirrors. I call them by their Cantonese name 'bat lan', not 'white orchid'. Sometimes, I buy a bunch and hide a bloom on each of my colleagues' keyboards. When the Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish died, we put one on everyone's chair - the whole room abloom.
Photo: For sale from a sidewalk, Bangkok