More puzzling to me is that I don't remember (at least not with much clarity) any of the incidents where I scraped my knees, except one. I do remember that once when I was busy looking at the pearl-like seed inside a luan tree flower, I tripped and scraped my knees. I was with my brother, and we were on our way home from drawing class. I was picking up luan tree flowers from the ground. Perhaps in the children's mind, an injury resulting from an activity that may potentially constitute "loitering along the way home" would reveal the crime, so the two of us came to the conclusion that the incident would be best kept a secret. The exact rationale behind the decision is really no longer accessible to me, but what I do remember is the decision and the consequence of sneaking around my parents' room and having my brother put mentholatum (or was it red-medicinal solution?) on my injured knee.

I am not even sure if it was because of this that I became especially attached to the luan tree. All I know is that the seeds enclosed in the luan tree flower (fruits, botanically speaking) are the pearls of my childhood that my brother and I shared. So it was not ironic that when we went to Disney World as grown-ups, we should discover a big luan tree - topped with pale brown flower-like autumn fruits in the warm Florida December -- right outside of the entrance to Epcot. Beneath the tree, the little tag says, "Golden Rain Tree. Origin- Taiwan."

The discovery came as a surprise to me, because "Golden Rain Tree" or "Luan Tree", I have never seen one in North America. It had become in the immigrant child's eyes, the tree of childhood to be visited every summer, the tree whose autumn flowers were never yet available, the reason for visiting the old school playground, the photographed subject of nostalgia. You know, it really is a beautiful tree with a distinct look for each season even when the changes in climate are somewhat vague. But, does it surprise you that when I took this photograph in November 2000, I spent more time squatting on the ground picking up luan tree flower-like fruits than I did searching the perfect angle to capture the best view of the tree?