Funny Soap

This thick piece of soap looks very much like a piece of mixed ham. Its variation in colour is more interesting than those cakes of ordinary soap for cleansing in the bath-room. One of its edges is round and the others are straight. I guess it must have been cut out from a large piece. It is totally wrapped up with opaque waterproof paper with a label telling customers what it is.

Last September when I was in Vancouver, I came before a shop selling soap. I found soap placed in various buckets and they had different colours and shapes, more or less like rock sugar. The immediate thought to me was that the soap here must be sold by weight, not by piece.

In the old days, rice was sold in the same way. One may buy a certain amount of rice. The shop-keeper would weigh the rice according to the demand and shovel it into a bag made of jute, unlike nowadays rice are normally sold in 5, 8 or 10 kg plastic bags.

The colour and shapes of soap nowadays are in revolution. Recently we use several pieces of soap with different smells and colours. I remember that we have used one which has a lemon smell and one with honey (one edge seems to be part of honeycomb). How interesting it will be to me if it has the smell of mango or chocolate!

I can tell you that the piece of soap here does not have the smell of ham.