The Indian Laburnum or Cassia fistula is a medium sized tree with lovely pendulous racemes of yellow flowers. The ones in our apartment complex have been blooming since the end of last year. Now only one tree still has her golden trusses on, and it is dropping fast. The rest of the trees have already produced bunches of long bean pods.
The pendulous yellow flowers of Cassia fistula, the Indian Laburnum tree.
A native of southern Asia from India to Sri Lanka, it is now widespread throughout the tropics. Cassia fistula is naturally distributed in dry deciduous forest at lower altitudes. It is the state flower of the state of Kerala in India, called Kanikonna (where it is native) and is also the national flower emblem of Thailand, called Ratchaphruek. Many parts of this tree have been used in traditional medicine, especially in Ayurvedic medicine. The roots are known to have a very strong purgative effect, hence it is also known as purging Cassia.
Hanging trusses of pretty Cassia fistula blooms.
A close-up on the flower showing the stamens (yellow in colour with darker yellow anthers on the ends) and the pistil (green in colour).
The seed pods look like yard-long beans on steroids - thicker and longer. They start off being green in colour and mature to a brownish black colour. In their native habitat, they usually commence blooming from March to May, and have an importance during the Vishu festival in April. However, the difference in the dry season over here and the changes in weather patterns had made the trees bloom very much earlier. I wonder when the trees will bloom again... Perhaps after another dry spell.
Green and ripened pods of the Indian Laburnum tree.
I was walking along the mall, when I had a chance to seize upon the other Victoria's secret. Though I have gotten up close and personal with her in Adelaide last summer (where she had a palatial glass house mansion all to herself), I was not privy to her secrets then (wrong timing, too early in the season). However, there were notices by her private pool, warning passersby of the depraved sexual rituals associated with her.
Now this Victoria's secret is far more sordid than that of the other Victoria, the one that she is named after. No, not Victoria's Secrets the lingerie; that is a no secret as all her goods are on display throughout the world. I mean that of Queen Victoria; just look at the number of articles/shows regarding her affairs with two Prime Ministers and a servant.
Anyway, back to this Victoria's secret. Now this Victoria is one feisty lady. From her humble origin in the parasite riddled, insect infested backwaters of South America, she can now proudly say that she is represented in almost every continent in the world.
Victoria, whenever she gets herself firmly established, would soon open a 'house of pleasure'! Typical of her, she starts by slowly but surely taking control of her neighbourhood, pushing competitors away and taking charge of as much area as possible, rather like a very bad gangster. When she has taken enough space, and the time is right, she sets up her signature 'pleasure of the night' club.
From afar, it looks like just another joint in the area, not too seedy, but more than enough to warn off those who would rather avoid such 'houses of pleasure'. If you do get closer, you begin to wonder if she is running the kinky sort, as hers is decorated with nasty spikes that scream 'Mistress Victoria' right away. Then again it could just be a security measure to ensure that her club does not get trashed before opening night.
The immaculately white walls and entrance belies the true nature of Victoria's joint. Around 5pm the evening, wafts of sweet and seductive scents were released to entice passersby to patronise her establishment. Drawn by the seductive scents and the hypnotic appearance of her house, patrons come, literally flying into her establishment. It is as if they were hypnotised or possessed by an unseen force, making even the most reluctant patron to give her place a try.
Once inside, they also discover that this club is a little strange, with many parts of the interior deco being edible, somewhat akin to the witch's house in Hansel and Gretel. Choosing to ignore the dark, foreboding nature of such edible houses, her guests enjoy themselves in the club. By 8pm, her guest (the males outnumbering the females) were already drinking, eating and dancing away. This soon progresses into an all night orgy by 10pm. Victoria turns up the heat in her place by as much as 10oC higher. The hot and steamy room allows her guest to enjoy the party and sex all night without burning up too much energy.
When dawn breaks, some of the satiated guests try to leave, but alas, the exit could not be found. Victoria had closed the doors, trapping all of her guests inside! She is one weird character. With no exit and nothing else to do, her guests resumes the orgy that would put Caligula to shame. The mistress of the place then gets a little kinky and begins to give them a dusty golden shower. Even though this is not what most of her guest are into, they nevertheless are not bothered with it. Some even enjoy eating the golden shower!
The trapped guests wanders round and round inside Victoria's dungeon of pleasure, hoping to find an escape. Only in the evening, does Victoria open her gates to let her 'prisoners' out. As if to disguise her 'dungeon', it is now painted a different colour to ensure that they cannot find it again. Her guests, all covered with her dusty golden shower, now leaves; the ones that were not too careful would again be ensnared by another of her pearly white club that she has set up nearby. So let me show you this Victoria's secret... (scroll down for the pictures, hehe)
Meet Victoria...
The Victoria amazonica at 1-Utama at night. The flower is white on the first night and pink on the second night of blooming. The flowers close during the day.
This Victoria is no other than the Amazon Giant Waterlily, Victoria amazonica. The white club is her flower, opening for the first night. Only the pistils (female reproductive parts) are receptive, the scent of the flowers, together with the white coloured petals draws scarab beetles from the genus Cyclocephala to her flowers. They can be carrying pollen from another Victoria amazonica released earlier that day. Once inside, they drink the nectar produced and sometimes eat the various parts of the flower inside.
The lily pond during daytime. A bud peeks out from the water surface.
Any pollen brought in has a chance of ending up on the receptive stigmatic surface of this flower. The flower is thermogenic but not thermoregulatory, producing about 1.4W of heat to raise the temperature up to 10oC from the ambient temperature. This allows the scarab beetles inside the flower to use only very little energy to keep themselves active and concentrate on their mating.
A bud all armed with spines - all the better to keep it from being eaten.
By dawn, the white flower closes and traps the beetles inside. Pollen from the stamens matures and showers down on the beetles. The trapped beetles become coated with this dust. On the evening of the second day, the lily opens for the second time. This time, the flower blushes pink, and is scentless. No longer attractive to the beetles, they fly away in search of another white flower.
A large lily pad that has not completely flattened out. They reddish in tinge and you can see the thorns on the upturned edges of the leaf. There is a white bud in the foreground and an opening pinkish flower in the background as this photo was taken in the evening.
This allows for the cross pollination of Victoria amazonica, giving rise to genetic variability, and hence offspring that might be better at surviving the harsh Amazonian environment. However, they are also self-fertile.
A withered flower (third day). The petals and sepals close back, with the thorny sepals offering the now fertilised flower some protection. Looks more like an alien from outer space.
The developing fruit pod, all armed with spines. There are baby plants in the pod too (the small pointed leaf).
A lily-pad that has almost fully expanded. Notice how water on the surface seems to be directed into specific 'channels' on the leaf surface.
The upturned leaf edge that is supposed to push away competitors. Those thorns will give you a nasty prick if you try to touch them.
If you are in the Klang Valley, you can catch a glimpse of this amazing waterlily at 1-Utama Shopping Centre. The Adelaide Botanic Garden in South Australia has a Victoria amazonica pond in a beautiful glasshouse.
For the Jade Emperor's Birthday celebration on the 9th day of the Chinese New Year, one of the symbolic offerings is the burning of joss paper for the Jade Emperor. The use of the large gold stamped joss paper know as the god of heaven's joss paper (天公金) has become a must for those who prays to the Jade Emperor on his birthday. This joss paper can be folded into different shapes and also stacked and crafted into beautiful joss paper pineapples; some of them so large and beautiful that you can't help but feel that it is a waste for the pineapple to end up in smoke at the end of the ceremony.
As a child, I have always enjoyed folding thnee kong kim. It is like the run-up to the Jade Emperor's Birthday celebration; gets you all hyped up for the big day. There are two basic design of joss gold ingot (金元宝) used as a symbolic offering to the Jade Emperor, one that looks like a boat-shaped ingot with a very long keel, which you open out and tuck the keel into one of the sides (though most people do not push the keel in) and another that you 'pull' open to make it look like the shape of a Chinese gold ingot. For the 'pulled' type gold ingots, smaller versions can be made from the same sized joss paper and are merely paper size reductions and variant folding methods.
The joss paper used is the large, somewhat squarish joss paper that has the three lucky stars - the God of Prosperity, Longevity and Authority in the middle and either a patch of gold in the center or like what I have gotten this year, the entire paper covered in gold-like foil. The back of the joss paper is plain, with nothing printed on it.
This joss paper offering, like the food offering, is symbolic. It is like a silent prayer to God of your heart's wishes without having to say it out loud. For example, offering tortoise buns is like saying "I wish for a long and peaceful life", and joss money says "Bless me with good fortune" as you cannot burn real money (firstly it is a waste, and secondly, money was made from metal in the olden days; you will need a kiln to melt it!). Be careful with burning a truckload of joss money for it might send the message that I am a greedy b@s†@rd to the Big Boss up there!!
Here is a step by step guide to fold the 'pulled' type joss gold ingot. I will post a video of the steps when I get to editing the video.
Step 1
Fold the paper into two equal halves, making sure you divide the God of Prosperity into half lengthwise (his left eye touches his right eye when you fold the paper together). Do NOT fold him into half and make his head meet his crotch - this is the folding for the boat-type joss gold ingot. Fold each section again into halves, thus dividing the paper into four lengthwise sections with three creases.
This is a piece of thnee kong kim. Fold it in half right down the center by bringing the two sides together.
Then fold the paper again by bringing the edge to the center crease. Do the same for the other side.
Step 2
Fold the end corners into the paper, forming a pointed end. Do the same for the other end. You will end up with a rectangular shape with two triangular ends.
Fold the corners in up to the 'middle line'. You will get the blue coloured crease line as shown in the picture. Shown here is the 'inside' of the joss paper.
This is the same paper, but viewed from the 'exposed' side with the three lucky stars.
Step 3
Determine the 'exposed' side of the joss paper. This is the side with the three lucky stars - the God of Prosperity, Longevity and Authority. You now fold the paper in the middle, hiding the 'exposed' side. From this step on, you are working on the inner part of the joss gold ingot.
Shown here is the inside face of the joss paper. Make the two pointy ends meet by folding over to cover the 'exposed' side.
This is the 'exposed' side of the joss paper. When you bring the two pointy ends together, you will be 'hiding' this side for the time being and you should it looking like the next picture.
This is what you should get at the end of step 3. The blue lines are where you should fold in the flaps in the next step.
Step 4
Fold in one of the sides with a width of about 2cm. Do the same for the other side, making sure that the two folded flaps are as similar in terms of width as possible.
This is how the paper should look like after folding in the flaps on both sides.
Step 5
Now it gets a little trickier. Open the flap, and by pressing on the bottom tab to form a pocket, fold one side of the flap over. This holds the paper in the gold ingot shape when opened later. Do the same for the other side, making sure that the bottom pocket formed are leveled and you can draw an imaginary horizontal line across the top of the bottom pocket.
Press the 'bottom flap' open and fold the flaps over the side (light blue arrows), and tuck one flap on each side (facing side and back). Do the same for the other side (dark blue arrows).
When the side flaps are opened up, make sure that the top end of the 'bottom pocket' can form an imaginary horizontal line connecting the two pockets (broken green line).
Step 6
Fold the pointed end of the paper down, the crease is at the imaginary line made by the top end of the bottom pocket. Do the same for the other flap on the other side, making sure that the you have creased both the folds strongly.
Fold the pointy flap foward and downwards, making a crease (blue line) where the top part of the 'bottom pocket' was. Do the same for the other flap on the other side and make sure that the crease at the imaginary line is done clearly. You will need it to get a good gold ingot shape at the end of the process.
Make sure that both sides have strong creases at where the green broken line is. Once you have done that, fold over one of the flaps, and that would reveal the 'exposed' side as in the following picture.
Step 7
You are now working with the 'exposed' side on the outside, indicating that you are almost done. Fold the paper down the middle crease, which was the first one that was made in the folding process. Make sure both sides are aligned and the the two ends have pointed forms.
Fold the joss paper down along the center crease that was the first fold made in the very first step. Try to align the tips and make sure that both halves are like a mirror image of the other. Your joss paper should look like the next picture below.
Step 8
To open the joss paper into the ingot shape, either hold near to the center crease (but not locking onto the inner flap) and gently pull it apart and downwards or, place your fingers underneath and ease the two halves apart. With a few finishing strokes to make sure that the joss paper opens fully, you get you joss paper gold ingot.
Hold a the two ends (indicated by the blunt end of the blue arrow) and pull the two sides apart and downwards.
Gently ease the paper open to prevent the center section from tearing. You might still need to use your fingers and push the paper back along the creases and folds to ensure that it takes on the Chinese gold ingot shape.
And...voila! Now you can 'make money' lol!
Here's a video of me folding the Thnee Kong Kim. Thanks to Jessica Henshall for shooting it for me.
It is that simple to fold the joss paper gold ingot for the Jade Emperor. You can use plain, coloured paper or gold coloured paper to fold it and use it as a decoration (hint - make it smaller and fill plain glass bottles with it).
