Old Film, New Fire

But this time was different. She was not just making a film. She was doing something for him that maybe no one else would do. The first person to arrive was Aunt Fang. She complained that her shabby stall was not worth filming, yet still wiped down the freezer three times and changed into an apron with no sauce stains on it. In front of the camera, she ladled mung bean dessert and talked about how she had moved the stall from the intersection to its present spot when she was young, how she had watched Hawthorn Street grow from a back road on the edge of town into an old district, and how every summer it brought new people to eat dessert and old residents through another season of endurance.