Crawfish Bouquet: Can You Eat It Once It Arrives? Precautions Before Eating

What pairs best with a summer night? The answer, of course, is crawfish and beer! Gather a few good friends, order two servings of spicy crawfish, and enjoy the cool summer evening breeze - just thinking about it feels lovely~

There are many ways to eat crawfish. You've seen them braised, dry-pot style, spicy, garlic-flavored... but Shaoyao dares to bet you've never seen crawfish made into a bouquet.

That's right - today Shaoyao is introducing you to a "remarkable woman" who moved fragrant crawfish from the dining table into flowers, making a whole crowd drool...

Pale Blue Eyes

 NYC Man

Lou Reed 

00:00/05:39

{Shaoyao Girl Vol.852 }

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Zhang Shuyang and WaaFlora

Shaoyao has many florist friends, and their floral styles are all different. Some are full of French romantic charm, some take a minimalist, cool and aloof route, and each one's flowers have a different character.

But the flowers that Shaoyao could never forget after one glance come from a Beijing girl -Zhang Shuyang. Her works are alternative, bizarre, and wildly imaginative, completely overturning your idea of floral art.

Shuyang describes her works like this:If flowers were people, my flowers would not be the beauties everyone pictures, with long flowing hair, sweet and cute, but rather a stubborn, rebellious girl full of personality.

First, let's talk about the one mentioned at the beginning,the crawfish bouquet.

There is probably no second person in this world who could think of it:

fresh, fragrant, and spicy crawfish can not only satisfy your cravings, but also serve as floral material.

Fiery red crawfish paired with blooming flowers,

the color scheme is passionate and bold,

showing you what truly means "beauty you can feast on."

For the Dragon Boat Festival, Shuyang found inspiration in zongzi,

using zongzi leaves as floral material and a steamer as the vase,

and using chrysanthemums, peonies, and moth orchids, which symbolize completeness,

to create a festive atmosphere that is gorgeous yet not vulgar.

On Qixi Festival, while everyone else was creating a romantic atmosphere,

Shuyang boldly used black feathers

to form a strong contrast with blood-red roses,

creating a mysterious, dark style that stands out on its own.

Shuyang's studio is as full of personality as her works,

located in an art park converted from old warehouses.

Gray bricks, old trees, an iron gate,

with a few chairs scattered at the entrance, as if still warm,

its wild character clashes with the imperial capital's forest of high-rises.

Stepping inside, you discover another world.

The rough, primitive brick walls are painted white,

and there is a skylight overhead,

where sunlight pours down and forms wondrous patterns of light and shadow.

If not for the flowers placed all around the corners,

Shaoyao would mistakenly think she had walked into some art exhibition.

The atmosphere here is completely different from an ordinary flower shop.

For example, you'll find flowers placed in test tubes and beakers.

Tin boxes picked up from flea markets,

vases that look as if they were just dug out of the soil,

holding a few withered flowers.

This unique and unconventional space is Zhang Shuyang's studio, the base of WaaFlora. Every corner of the room embodies her hard work and reveals her distinctive personality.

In daily life, Shuyang is a girl who loves adventure, loves extreme sports, and constantly challenges herself.

She calls herself a "wild child", loves flying around the world to travel, and compared with fashionable New York and Paris, she prefers the untouched environments of Nepal and Tibet.

She said she lacked endurance, so she went to the Czech Republic and ran a full marathon; she said she was afraid of water, so she made a special trip to the Philippines to learn diving.

She constantly explores her limits and keeps life feeling fresh. This is also the fundamental reason she later quit a stable job and stepped into the floral world.

At the time, she worked at an advertising company, working more than 15 hours a day. When things got busy, she had to handle phone calls, WeChat, QQ, and emails all at once, frantic as an ant on a hot pan.

This kind of life left her in mental anxiety, and her health also broke down. She seemed to drift further and further from the self who loved flowers, loved beauty, and longed for freedom and ease.

In 2015, the wave of internet entrepreneurship swept in, and a company doing a fresh flower supply chain extended an olive branch to Shuyang.

This girl was tempted; she did not want to keep burning up her youth in the advertising industry,so she steeled herself, gritted her teeth, quit the advertising company, and threw herself into the fresh flower industry she had never entered but deeply longed for.

She was not sure whether she could handle the job, but just like diving, if you never put on a wetsuit and jump into the sea, you will never know how beautiful the underwater world is.

She told herself,inner fear cannot be escaped; I choose to face it directly.

In the new environment, she worked desperately hard in ways ordinary people could hardly understand, and some even gossiped behind her back for no reason. In fact, she simply wanted to be worthy of her own passion.

At the same time, her love for flowers did not stop there. As someone who loves adventure and wants to try everything, she gradually developed the idea of starting her own business.

So she rented this room in the art district as a studio, founded the WaaFlora brand, and with solitary courage and empty hands, began a period of fighting alone.

She had thought that with her previous experience and connections, the road to entrepreneurship would not be too difficult, but Shuyang was still doused with a basin of cold water by reality.

In the early days after the studio was set up, the capital investment was large, but unfortunately customers were few and far between, and the studio once fell into a situation where expenses exceeded income.

And funding was not the most fatal problem. After truly entering the floral industry, Shuyang discovered that the peers around her were far more outstanding than she was, and the gap between them often left her discouraged.

Sometimes, looking at her own floral arrangements, she would mercilessly mock herself, "So ugly!" In her heart, she often questioned whether she had any talent for flowers.

In days when she was lost and hesitant, she would think of the self who had run a full marathon.

In Prague, Czech Republic, during a full 42 km marathon, she got a stitch after only a few steps and endured the pain for 7 or 8 km.

By the midpoint, she could not help but keep crying, her calves kept cramping, and her knees, hips, and shoulders ached sharply, but she gritted her teeth and persisted.

If she had endured even this kind of pain, what did this little difficulty in front of her amount to?

The experiences of marathon running, diving, skydiving, and other extreme sports taught this girl bravery.

For her,entrepreneurship is like running a marathon or diving: it requires perseverance beyond that of ordinary people, as well as the courage to face the unknown, in order to cut through obstacles and persist to the end.

Of course,the process of entrepreneurship is not all hardship and tears; there are also many touching moments that make her feel she is doing something extraordinarily meaningful.

In order to design unique works, for every customer who comes to buy flowers, she is willing to listen to the story behind it and create a distinctive bouquet for them according to different emotional needs.

One day, a friend came to her, hoping to customize a bouquet for his wife's birthday. Shuyang asked, do you two have any special story?

The other person pondered for a moment, looking troubled, "We are just an ordinary couple, living plain days, with no earth-shattering story..."

Shuyang did not give up and continued to ask, so what does she usually like to do? The customer gradually sank into memory and said that they met while photographing the starry sky together. His wife likes the starry sky, and he likes diving...

Based on her friend's story, Shuyang was inspired and designed a bouquet like this:

The main color tone is blue-purple, symbolizing the vast sky and the deep ocean, surrounded by sea sand, shells, and coral.

The most ingenious part is that she specially bought genuine sea pearls and dotted them in this sea of flowers, shining like stars in the night sky, creating a dreamy fairy-tale atmosphere.

This bouquet is not only full of design sense, but also hides a love story belonging only to the two of them behind it, far more thoughtful than any gift.

What Shuyang is doing goes far beyond the meaning of a flower shop. She says that in fact everyone has a touching story, only it has been diluted by day after day of life.

She uses flowers to build a bridge that extends to the softest place in everyone's heart, reminding people to step out of numb daily life, rediscover the loveliness of the people around them, and cherish every hard-won connection.

Rather than making her business bigger and stronger, she hopes even more that she is doing something valuable, something people will feel happy when they think of it.

Shuyang has one principle in making flowers: refuse to produce copies, refuse uniformity. Bouquets mass-produced on an assembly line can bring the greatest profit, but that is not the original intention of her floral art.

"In an era when everything is rapidly replicated, I want to make something different and bring everyone surprise."

So Shuyang named her brand "Waa," a homophone of the interjection "wow." Her intention is simple and lovely: she hopes everyone, after seeing her works, will let out a surprised "Wow!"

Now Zhang Shuyang seems one step closer to her dream. WaaFlora has already won a group of loyal customers and, with its novel creativity, has attracted cross-industry collaborations with many brands, constantly exploring on the path of creative floral art.

On one occasion,WaaFlora collaborated with the little yellow bike，

Shuyang tied large branches into the shape of a tornado,

decorated with colorful small flowers in between,

and placed a wild, playful floral arrangement on the front of the bike,

as if you could feel the little yellow bike speeding through the wind,

and it also hinted at the little yellow bike's position sweeping through the industry.

The flowers were covered with glow-in-the-dark paint,

letting them bloom with wondrous brilliance at night.

At the "

Cotton Candy and Daydreams" immersive art exhibition，

tropical-style green plants hung in the air,

echoing the brilliant neon lights,

creating a dreamlike hanging garden.

She tries to break through the limits of space and form,

constantly exploring new ways to play with flowers.

From quitting her job to starting a business, from work to life, this adventure-loving girl has never stopped her steps. If love for flowers is the starting point of everything, thenthe constant exploration of the unknown and of herself is the true driving force supporting her forward.

Life is an unknown adventure.

You do not know whether the road beneath your feet leads to a garden or thorns,

whether tomorrow will be clear skies for thousands of miles or dark clouds gathering.

But do not be afraid; with an exploring heart,

walk bravely forward.

Even if the road is long and the wind and rain beat down,

you will eventually see a rainbow at the end,

that is the medal of honor fate gives you.

Official Weibo: WaaFlora

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The images in this article are officially authorized.