For Christmas I received a "lucky bamboo" cutting. The giver explained that its three stalks would bring happiness. I missed the whole feng shi phenomenon, oblivious to the language of the stalks:
Three stalks for happiness; five stalks for wealth; six stalks for health. Four stalks, however, are always avoided since the word "four" in Chinese sounds too similar to the Chinese word for "death"!
It sounds a lot like the language of the sidewalk that I learned in kindergarten:
Two's company; three's a crowd; four on the sidewalk is never allowed.
I had a lot more to learn about my lucky bamboo. Interesting to find it isn't bamboo at all, but Dracaena, "a resilient member of the lily family that grows in the dark, tropical rainforests of Southeast Asia and Africa." Sounded just like the upstairs of my condo when my sons were home taking multiple showers and heaping stuff all over the bedroom floors.
Now it's more of a desert up there, so I brought the bamboo back downstairs. I wouldn't want it to be lonely, just sitting up there plotting some sort of curse.
What I really need is a bamboo that brings luck to my Buick. How many stalks should I plant in the cupholder?
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