sparrows and loquats

[asakiyume]

It's cold today; the heater is chugging along, making my living space warm, and I feel so grateful. Outside, in the nearby city, the sparrows by the bus station are fluffed up like little feathered pokéballs. They're very tame; people feed them crumbs and things, either by accident or on purpose.

Around here people say "on accident," to go with "on purpose." How about the other way? By accident or by purpose.

Safe from the cold are these loquat trees I grew from seeds that 88greenthumb sent me. I've never eaten the fruit of the loquat--have any of you?





Their leaves are generously large and a rich green color, and apparently you can make a tea out of them, but I won't, because my trees are up against enough difficulties, growing in pots and kept indoors for half the year, without having their leaves plucked.

In China, and then by extension in Japan, the tree is called pipa (biwa in Japanese), like the instrument--maybe because the fruit look like it?

a pipa (source)

Comments

[yamamanama.livejournal.com]

I've never eaten a loquat fruit.

I've heard a pipa, though.

[zenicurean.livejournal.com]

I don't recall having even heard of a loquat before just now. Fantastic!

[slobbit.livejournal.com]

Traditionally, loquat is one of the woods our practice naginata are supposed to be made from.

[heliopausa.livejournal.com]

I grew up next to a loquat tree - that is, in a house next to house in whose yard was a loquat tree - one grown more as an ornamental than as a fruit tree, I guess, since as far as I know no-one but us kids ate the fruit. Summer days, neighbourhood of kids, plucking and eating at will the fruits warm from the tree, and admiring the big, glossy seeds. I always wanted to keep them, and make necklaces from them, but they always dried, and lost their gloss and the brown skin fell off.
More recently, a friend shared some loquat bounty from a tree-of-a-friend and I discovered that they are even better not sun-warm, but cold from the fridge (though still against the background of a warm summer's day).

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

I've noticed these prepositional shifts. Odd.

The plant looks so pretty in that striped light.

[pameladean]

I've never eaten a loquat fruit, but those are very pretty leaves indeed.

You've given me an idea of how to convey a different dialect in a fantasy novel, swapping pronouns in common phrases like that.

P.

[nipernaadiagain.livejournal.com]

As, thanks to trips to Vietnam, I have eaten things that I do not know names off, I had to look at the picture to be sure that, no, I have not eaten loquat.

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

I've tried them, but I'm not really a fan. It makes me wonder if people ever grow tame loquat trees by (on) accident as well. For some reason "by purpose" sounds more logical to me than "on accident".

[amaebi.livejournal.com]

I have had tinned loquats, though not recently. I liked them a lot. But maybe I wouldn't now - I feel unsure.

[amaebi.livejournal.com]

Those loquats look splendid-- congratulations!

How old are they?

[xjenavivex.livejournal.com]

So are they mostly tropical in nature?

[wakanomori.livejournal.com]

According to Digital Daijisen's entry on the biwa/loquat tree, the wood is used for haircombs as well as for practice swords -- so it must be quite finegrained and hard?

They also give an example of a family crest (mon) using loquat leaves -- the pattern's called "three biwa leaves" 三つ枇杷の葉. Now I know what they look like, it's unmistakeable!

[sovay]

I've never eaten the fruit of the loquat--have any of you?

I want to say yes, but I have no hard memory evidence—maybe I'm thinking of the longan, which is easy to buy around here. You can get them both fresh and canned, like lychee and rambutan.

The loquat trees are beautiful in the slatted light.

[pdlloyd.livejournal.com]

I say "by accident" and "on purpose." My knee jerk reaction is that the phrasing suggests that accidents simply happen, not having been deliberately caused, while deliberate intent is required to make something purposeful occur. But, I'm not at all certain, as I think about it, that this interpretation has anything at all to do with the pronouns involved, but is, instead, a result of mere long-term association.

I think I've tried a loquat, but I can't be sure. We often try interesting fruit, both fresh and canned, from international markets, and we don't always know the English name for what we try.

loquats

[light_of_summer]

Looking back at some of your older posts, I found this one about loquats. I can vouch for them growing in California--I see them, here and there, in the East Bay, in people's yards.

I've eaten the fresh fruit several times, and liked it--better when they were actually cultivated and not underwatered as part of landscaping enduring a drought. They sometimes show up in farmers' markets or specialty markets, here, for a brief period in late Spring or early Summer.

I've also had loquat cough syrup, which I remember as being both tasty and effective. Unfortunately, the packaging was Chinese, so I never learned the name, and describing the "three green spots" that decorated the package didn't help my acupuncturist recognize it, when I asked in later years. (Overlapping ovals of different shades of green, with the long axes vertical.)