Another Perspective on Orchid Appreciation: Appreciating Orchids from a Different Angle

Viewpoints and points of appreciation are extremely broad in the realm of art. Everyone has their own preferences, everyone has their own tastes. As long as they are healthy, there is no need to elevate one and disparage another; let each person have freedom of spirit. Orchid buds break through the soil, sturdy, pure, full of vitality, like pearls and jade, truly intoxicating. Orchid buds have their own qualities worth appreciating.

    Some orchid buds look like ivory carvings, some like pearls, some like agate tips, some like emerald jade. Most give people a feeling of purity, jade-like smoothness, sturdiness and elegant simplicity. Pure and elegant like these "pearls and jade," flourishing with vitality -- beautiful indeed, orchid buds.

    The purest orchid buds, those containing no stray color whatsoever, not even the slightest trace, often produce plain-colored flowers -- that is, flowers of a single pure color, with no stray spots, patches or lines on the lip, whether white plain flowers, or red plain, yellow plain, light green plain and so on; in short, flowers of pure color. The bud color often resembles the flower color: red buds open red flowers, white buds open white flowers. But there are also red buds that open plain white flowers, as in Zhongshan City, Guangdong, where there is a red-bud plain orchid. Things always have exceptions, orchids included.

    Orchid buds are either blunt or pointed; some look like knife tips, some like peanut kernels. Orchid growers often prefer to select and plant those whose buds look like peanut kernels, believing they may later produce large flowers, either lotus-type or plum-type, more beautiful than ordinary orchids. So examining the color and shape of orchid buds is also one of the secrets of orchid selection and breeding. Orchid growers have done much research on this. Every spring, when mountain orchids come to market, the stalls are filled with all kinds of newly collected mountain orchids. Buyers often fix their eyes on the orchid buds, some even carefully examining them with a magnifying glass, hoping to make a discovery, to foresee something. Nothing about orchid buds attracts more attention than this. But apart from a very few orchid growers who can judge accurately and predict very well, buying at a cheap price seedlings that will later produce superb flowers, most people still cannot judge accurately: they think the buds are excellent, yet the flowers that later open are merely ordinary. In this examining, hoping and anticipating, in shrewd foresight and careless misjudgment, there is also abundant philosophy of life -- it is even more painstaking than choosing a "successor" or choosing a romantic partner. The way orchid buds mislead people is sometimes more dramatic than the way people mislead others in interpersonal relationships.

    The ancients said: "Newborn things are ugly." I think this is only an observation of animals. Look at those kittens and puppies: some have not yet opened their eyes, some are all wrinkled, squeaking, so ugly. Wait until they grow to maturity -- young men and women, handsome boys and pretty girls -- then they are beautiful. But with plants it is otherwise: new buds and tender shoots, when they break through the shell or stem, are often pearl-like and jade-smooth, so beautiful. For plants, one could say "newborn things are beautiful."

    Although plants and animals both belong to living things, their expressions are often entirely different. Newborn animals are often ugly; newborn plants are often beautiful. That is one point. Furthermore, animals often keep their reproductive organs (whether female or male) hidden, growing them in relatively concealed places. Plants are different: plants often display their reproductive organs (flowers, ovaries, pistils, stamens, fruits, etc.), growing them in the most conspicuous places or presenting them in the most conspicuous forms. Plants are far more sexual in their ecology than animals. We do not go to appreciate animals' reproductive organs, yet we all go to appreciate plants' reproductive organs -- admiring their flowers, their pistils, stamens and so on. Is that not strange?

    One of the viewpoints for appreciating orchids can also be appreciating orchid buds. In terms of the ecological characteristics of plants, this is quite reasonable and can also become a consensus among orchid enthusiasts.