NIGHT QUEEN

There are many buds in the Bakawali plant which I saw at the temple in Ayer Tawar.  To the Chinese, the blooming of the flowers would mean great auspice.  In Chinese this plant is known Tan Hua and Night Queen in English (Epiphyllum oxypetalum).  It is so called because the flowers (symbolic of female) bloom only at night.
The Chinese chengyu (four character idiom) 曇花一現 (tan hua yi xian) uses this flower (tan-hua; 曇花) to describe someone who has an impressive but very brief moment of glory, like a "flash in a pan", since the flower can take a year to bloom and only blooms over a single night. Therefore someone described as "曇花一現" is generally understood to be a person who shows off or unexpectedly gains some achievement and is thought to be an exception or only lucky. The flower also has a rich history in Japan, where it is known as the 月下美人 (Gekka Bijin) or "Beauty under the Moon".

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