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| A curious tourist tries a couple of little water chestnut puddings.(China Daily/Pauline D. Loh) |
Here, though, there is no sign of any legal cacophony, but a serene calm guarded by a solitary bored shop girl examining her nails with abnormal interest.
Further on, there is a little shop selling local products, including local olives pickled in licorice, wrapped in twists of paper. They used to be called "jet plane olives" because they were tossed up to the first floor balustrades after money was dropped for the itinerant vendor.
The musical cries of the olive vendors are now silenced forever and the olives themselves, grounded at the back of the shop, are sought out only by nostalgia buffs who have heard or read about these little snacks.
Feng Zhimin was a businessman enjoying the economic prosperity of his native Guangzhou, but when he hit middle-age, he decided his next investment would be in nostalgia.
That is why he has opened a shop selling products made from the five treasures of Pan Tang, an old farming region on Lychee Bay.
"The mud in the swamp was a deep, rich black. We had lotus roots, water caltrop, water chestnuts, water asparagus and arrowhead bulbs.
"They were so abundant and many Pan Tang food specialties were made from them," Feng says wistfully, handing me my order of a water chestnut drink, a syrupy broth thickened with water chestnut starch, with crisp sweet water chestnut pieces suspended in the solution.
It is a refreshing drink that brightens our eyes and quenches our thirst. As we heaped praise on Feng, he gets into stride and persuades us to try the water chestnut cakes set in little clay pudding pots.
They are equally delicious.
Before we leave his shop, we buy packets of little chicken biscuits, a box of water chestnut starch, and two more discs of water chestnut puddings. Feng shared his memories of Lychee Bay for free.
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