Trees

Chow Mo-wan: In the old days, if someone had a secret they didn't want to share... you know what they did?
Ah Ping: Have no idea.
Chow Mo-wan: They went up a mountain, found a tree, carved a hole in it, and whispered the secret into the hole. Then they covered it with mud. And leave the secret there forever.
Ah Ping: What a pain! I'd just go to get laid.
Chow Mo-wan: Not everyone's like you.

*******************************************************************************

One particularly unforgettable scene from In the Mood for Love was the part where Tony Leung treks all the way to Angkor Wat to confess how fiercely he loved Maggie Cheung to a hole he carved in a solitary tree. He then covered up the hole with mud to protect this fragile secret.

So moving was this scene that it compelled me to make a personal sojourn to Cambodia late last year. While other tourists were traipsing around in more glamorous locales, I was eager to discover the mystique of exotic Angkor Wat. More than anything, I was keenly enthusiastic to take in the sight of hundreds of trees in Siem Reap which guarded a host of ancient secrets.

In this lifetime, a limited few would have the privilege to entrust their most intimate sentiments to other humans. There is an unspoken understanding for the confidante to take these secrets to their grave. But in the course of things, one may lose such human trees. Kindred friends part ways to become trees to other people, while holding on to vestiges of past confessions and revelations. Separately, they bury these shreds of each other's souls in layers of mud and struggle to relegate them to the deep abyss of oblivion, hoping to make way for new secrets.