Zen Buddhism

The down-to-earth and simple common sense of some of the illustrations in Zen Comics put a nice twist on traditional outlooks. So to share a few that most humored me:

simple thinking ... and yet very profound!



 

 
Yep, silence is still golden :)

Silk Riders: On the Trail of Marco Polo

Silk Riders: Jo and Gareth Morgan's Incredible Journey on the Trail of Marco Polo was an interesting read. Jo and Gareth were avid motorbikers, and as they were finishing a ride high in the Indian Himalaya they started thinking of their future tours. A fellow rider tossed out the silk road and Jo and Gareth really liked the idea. The trip took two years to organize. In that time they had to figure out political details, travel logistics, cultural awareness issues, get and curry sponsorship, and of course figure out who among their friends could join them on their trip. BMW only provided at large discount 7 bikes and so the trip was limited to 7. 

The 7 were kiwis, but their trip would begin at the BMW factory in Munich where the new bikes recently broken in in the Australian outback and imported into Germany to begin the trip would get a total tuning in readiness for the multi-thousand-kilometer journey.

Then in 2005 the trip began. They were waved off in Munich by a single person, an English motorcyclist who journeyed from Yorkshire to Bavaria to see them off, and off they went through the lower reaches of Germany, into Austria, to the foothills of the Alps, and onward to Venice, the family home of Marco Polo. Despite the Polo family being one of the most prominent families of Venice and despite the since fame of the explorer, the 7 were surprised at the few memorials commemorating one of the city's most famous past residents. There is a library where Marco's last will and testament is held and the San Lorenzo church, in the yard of which he was buried in 1324. Near the site of his homestead is an area of little courts called 'Il Milione', which was Marco's nickname, 'the teller of a million tales'. 

Then off to the Balkans they sped. Few people are aware that Marco Polo was not a Venetian by birth but rather a Croatian. Marco was born on Korcula, an island of what is now Croatia. Of course the 7 had to go to the island, ferrying one of the bikes over for a picture with the iconic bike in front of what is said to be the house of Marco Polo's birth. 

To Serbia, Bulgaria, then Gallipolli, Turkey, which was very significant to the Kiwis as they recalled the Kiwis who died trying to claim the cliffs of Gallipolli. Onward to Istanbul where Jo started to having trouble as women were not to be seen in public, certainly not on a motorbike, and even though as she progressed further into Iran, the chador she wore just wasn't quite enough because it outlined her provocative bottom as she sped along. 

A disappointment to me in the book was the little attention given to following the trail of Marco Polo, as far as information on what they discovered in relation to Marco. Instead, the intent of the book was just to skim over the countries the 7 sped through and give mostly motorcycle commentation on the road conditions or visa issues. There were tidbits on culture but obviously the book was about a mad dash across Asia following a trail and not really picking up that many culturally rich experiences. 

That said, the highlight of the Iranian segment of the trip was the visit to the Valley of the Assassins, of which Marco wrote. The fortress of Alamut still remains, and as legend goes, an 11th century Hashish-iyun sect, basically an Islamic mercenary group led by a fanatical imam, had an unusual method for training young men to fight unconditionally. He would dose them with hashish and then turn them loose in a five-star pleasure garden stocked with milk and honey and virgins--all accouterments of paradise. After a couple of weeks, he removed them and cut off their narcotic supply. Finding themselves in a military camp they were told that they had been to paradise and if they hoped to live again in the style they had experienced in paradise, they would need to distinguish themselves in battle, and the imam of course provided that. These feared, driven warriors were known as Hashish-iyun, and the word 'assassin' derives from this group.

The Silk Riders only did the overland route from Venice to Xanadu (now Yuanshangdu) and down to Beijing. They didn't even attempt to follow Marco's route of 20+ years. 

To Tehran (the city that couldn't possibly have worse traffic, and motorcycles were forbidden in them for fear of drive-by motorcycle gunners) so their motorcycles were transported via truck. Lots of problems but eventually they were allowed to proceed onward to Turkmenistan, perched on the edge of the Karakum Desert across which they would have to travel. 

Then to Uzbekistan, the country that is the world's largest silk producer, and the country that was the half-way point of the 7 bikers' trip. Onward to Kyrgyzstan and most notably to Kara-Kul in the northwest where there are soaring mountains, alpine meadows and cooler temperatures. Close is the beautiful Lade Issyk-Kul, the second highest navigable alpine lake in the world after Lake Titicaca in Peru. Jo had swum in Lake Titicaca two years previous on another tour, and she attempted to take a dip in Lake Issyk-Kul in memory of her previous swim.

Of course they had chances to try the many exotic foods on the regions they passed through. In Kyrgyzstan is was the kumys, the fermented mare's milk popular among the nomads and which Marco had reported favorably that the drink tasted like white wine. The 7 heartily disagreed!

To China. One of the most amazing highlight in China was in Dunhuang, known for the famous Mogao Grottoes, or the Caves of 1000 Buddhas, which is a structure carved into a rocky cliff-face at the edge of the Lop Nor Desert. The Buddhas trace back to the first which was carved in AD366 when a Buddhist monk carved one Buddha figure into a rock. Over the ensuing 1500 years, more Buddhas were added, but not only Buddhas as the name suggests, but also the life of the local people. In the 20th century a chamber was discovered containing thousands of manuscripts which had been sealed since the 11th century. Unfortunately, explorers from England, Germany, Russia and more countries pillaged the place, dispersing artifacts around the globe but leaving the caves as empty shells, but ones which continue to whisper the reminders of great secrets from Chinese antiquity.

Continuing onward out of the desert great mounds of packed earth started appearing ... remnants of the ancient Great Wall which ended in the desert and which in their entirety were built over a period of 1500 years. This amazing wall eventually was over 10,000 kilometers in distance, but despite the great expanse, the beacon towers could relay a message of attack, fire, emergency from the furthest-most tower in the desert back to Peking in less than 30 minutes! 

Of course they cycled to Xian, the capital of China until Kubla Khan (Marco's Great Khan), the man who shifted the reins of command to Peking in the 14th century. They viewed the 2000-year-old, life-sized warriors guarding the royal tomb that was discovered in 1974 by a farmer digging a well. The 7 reckoned 300,000 workers were needed in this construction that took over 35 years to build.

From Xian to Mongolia, the end of the road. They headed to Shangdu, known to Marco as Xanadu and which, according to Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Kubla Khan had his stately pleasure-dome. Once they got there, they were in trouble with the authorities as to their purpose in that town. And then they came to realize that Shangdu was not the old Xanadu but Yuanshangdu, 200 kilometers away, was. And off they sped to Yuanshangdu, where in 1275 Kublai Khan had received Niccolo and Maffeo Polo and Niccolo's boy, Marco. This was the town that marked the eastern limit of Kublai Khan's empire, which stretched right back the way they had come, to Hungary. This was the end of the Silk Riders enterprise. Since April, they had covered almost 20,000 kilometers, crossed two major deserts, dodged through a war zone, visited the three inland oceans of the Black Sea, the Caspian Sea and the Aral Sea, and traversed the entire distance from west to east of the Great Wall.

They saddled up and set off for Beijing, the city known as Khan-Balik, "the Lord's City", in Kublai Khan's day. Their journey culminated with a ceremonial banquet at the New Zealand embassy and well attended by members of the BMW owners' club. would be held in their honor for the completion of their journey.

For a 52:30 minute YouTube clip on their journey, watch "Silk Riders - Motorcycling tour in the footsteps of Marco Polo",  and their blog on their journey.

Foreign Food Mart, an International Experience

International Grocery Store Project: Foreign Food Mart

(identifying 5 import items and giving a historical background in addition to dietary needs/interests, religious interests, import/export standards, etc)

 

             Foreign Food Mart in Itaewon, the area in Seoul historically known for foreign housing and foreign food restaurants catering to the foreign residences, is my favorite place to shop. For my interests, it offers a wide variety of beans, legumes, spices, as well as a few fresh vegetables and fresh herbs that just can’t be found on the Korean market. As a gluten-free near vegan, here I can find quite the food variety to extend my diet, but even if I’m not extending the diet, I’m very curious to know what’s new on the shelf, especially as the shop, which opened in 2006, has expanded several times. The store most recently expanded around New Year’s, at which time they added another 30-40% floor space, and the imports now appearing on the shelves are getting even more interesting.

One of my old standby purchases is Rotary® Onion Crackers, a product of Indonesia. Its four ingredients are incredibly simple—tapioca flour, garlic, salt and coconut oil. The product carries the seal of Majelis Ulama Indonesia which has halal in both English and Arabic at its center. Majelis Ulama Indonesia was established in 1975 and is Indonesia’s top Muslim clerical body for producing fatwā, the giving of legal judgment according to Islamic law, and for advising the Muslim community on contemporary issues. With the Indonesian Ulema Council’s seal, this product is approved for religious dietary consumption by the 1.62 billion global Muslims, that is, 23% of the world’s population and with the largest population living in the country of the products manufacture. As the entire simple packaging is written in English with the exception of the dual-lingual ingredients and the seal itself, this product targets English speaking countries. It also meets USA market standards with a clearly labeled product, the ingredients easy to read, the manufacturer’s name, address and contact provided, and the nutrition facts label present. Although this product will attract the eyes of Muslims in foreign countries, it by its simplicity and a cracker with a flavor, onion, well-liked by Americans, will be well received in the US or by people with savory proclivities, and particularly so by the more health conscience label readers and those wishing to be gluten-free, not an issue in a country where gluten crops aren’t grown and so the need for gluten-free labeling isn’t regarded as necessary or economically gainful yet.

            Crown Farms Vegetable Samosa is a product I’ve tried in the past, and is indeed very tasty and very spicy, as are most foods associated with Bangladesh, where it is manufactured. Eurasia Food Processing in Bangladesh manufactures the product but Euro Foods Group of England imports and distributes it, by all accounts for reasons of providing exotic food items to the more northern United Kingdom and also for boosting the growing Bangladeshi economy. This is definitely an export item, and not for sale in Bangladesh as the only Arabic word on the box is halal. The product is marketed toward Muslims or, more specifically, people in English, French or Italian speaking countries, as the ingredient list and preparation instructions are in those languages. The ingredients are whole foods with the filling containing mixed vegetables, salt, sugar, spices (onion, garlic, ginger, cumin powder, coriander powder, turmeric powder), vegetable oil and water, and the pastry is a composition of wheat flour, water, vegetable oil and salt. I couldn’t find evidence of this product being sold in the US which makes sense as, according to the FDA, all ingredients must be labeled in their descending order as based on weight, and this product doesn’t seem in compliance with that regulation, e.g. salt couldn’t possibly be the ingredient second in weight; the product would be sodium saturated and would far exceed the labeled sodium amount of less than 2,600 mg per serving, the single samosa. As for what the Food Standards Agency (FSA) of the UK requires on their labels, I wasn’t able to locate specifics but a FSA website did state that Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland had different standards than England. In any regard, samosas, a name of Persian origin, have become widespread across the southern regions of Asia, the Arabian Peninsula, the Mediterranean, and in various parts of Africa, not to mention the large ethnic groups who have migrated from these countries or the many people previously exposed to these countries. Samosas have great global popularity and their popularity is further growing, putting this product as high on the well-to-be-received list in a number of countries.

            One item in the mart that reminds me somewhat of baklava is Mo’pleez Soan Papdi, a product of India where it is a traditional dessert. Unlike Greek and Turkish baklava with the main ingredients being honey and/or sugar, wheat flour, cloves, cinnamon, frequently walnuts and typically phyllo, soan papdi typically contains sugar, gram flour, perhaps wheat flour, ghee, cardamom and often pistachios. Influences between the desserts may exist, but obvious regionalism from accessible ingredients influence the overall products. Although soan papdi also is a dessert, it is more savory than baklava. This particular soan papdi is packaged in three languages (English, Arabic and French) and is apparently for export. The packaging cites the ingredients sugar, refined peanut oil, chick pea flour, wheat flour, cardamom, almonds, pistachios and gluten. No preservatives or additives are included in this label, and by including the batch number, manufacturing date and expiration date, there seems careful concern in ensuring a quality product to a discriminating market. Though India homes the third largest population of Muslims in the world, no halal label is present on the packaging which perhaps unwittingly marginalizes the 177,291 Indian Muslims, or perhaps the target group, if the product is to be sold within country, is the vegetarian, the group (actually the majority of India) which traces its history back to 500 BC when India saw a rise in Buddhism and Jainism, the religions that practices ahimsa or “non-violence”. This product bears the symbol for “vegetarian”, a word only in existence since about 1847 and which was derived from the Latin vegetari, meaning “to enliven”; it was coined by Brits in reference to Britain’s colonial Indian vassals. Two other symbols include a recycling awareness, a larger concern in Western societies than in India, and a European Snack Association symbol, which is an organization that promotes savory snacks to the UK. Commerce between the England and India, England’s former colony, is expected to double by 2015, and this product will likely be included in promoting the trade connection.

             Lemnos Mediterranean Lifestyle Sun-dried Tomatoes were in refrigeration and were a product of, surprisingly, Australia. The concept of the Lemnos brand was conceived on an island in the Aegean Sea and now manufactures “premium quality Mediterranean style cheeses and dairy products” to about 40 countries. It even declares itself the number one dairy company in the world, and holds certifications for halal, Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP), Safe Quality Food (SQF), Dairy Safe, and organic. This particular product has no dairy which seems to be the focus of the brand, but the two kilogram pail is marketed towards the Muslim community within Australia and worldwide by its English and Arabic label of halal. No claims to this product being organic exist, nor does it seem to be aimed for the US market as measurements are limited to kilograms, unlike the onion crackers, samosas, and soan papdi already discussed. However, there is awareness of a growing population with gluten allergies, and included in the nutrition facts label is a label for gluten, a listing that is not typically seen and certainly not required on such labels. Certainly the FDA does not require it.
 

            The item at the Foreign Food Mart which most surprised me was the Tropiway™ Plantain Fufu Flour. Fufu flour is an African food, and yes, of late there is a very mixed African population in Korea, so there is a market here. Yet, this product is out of place. First of all, this mart seems to cater to Indians, Middle-Easterners of which the owner is one being from Bangladesh, to Thai, Filipinos, Vietnamese, among others, which include the very large and diverse English speaking expats in education and business. This item is the only identifiable African food in the mart; however, it’s only African by name when, in fact, it is an American manufacture. As Sudanese political refugees relocating to the US stated concerning the American packaged and processed food they encountered on the flight, “American food is not food”. They were used to whole and unprocessed foods, not highly processed pseudo-foods with flavor enhancers and chemical attributes. This fufu flour lists on its ingredients—plaintain, granular potato, cassava, mono and diglycerides, BHT (to protect flavor), sulphites (as preservatives), FD&C yellow #5. This list of non-food items might be accepted by Americans used to such ingredients, but why would this item be in this store? And, it must be asked, who would the market even be back in South Carolina where the 28.1% black population seems to be black Americans, not African Americans craving food memories from their mother country?

Bibliography

Compare Infobase Ltd. 24 Dec 2012. Top ten countries with largest Muslim population. Maps of the World. Retrieved from http://www.mapsofworld.com/world-top-ten/world-top-ten-countries-with-largest-muslim-populations-map.html.

Eurofoods Group Blog. 13 Jan 2011. Bangladesh: The new frontier in Eurofoods Group Blog. Retrieved from http://eurofoods.wordpress.com/2011/01/13/bangladesh-the-new-frontier/.

European Snacks Association. 2004. European Snacks Association. Retrieved from http://www.esa.org.uk/europe_statistics.php.

Food Standards Agency. 20 Dec 2005. Imports and food labeling. Food Standards Agency. Retrieved from http://www.food.gov.uk/business-industry/imports/importers/labelling.

IndiaChild. 2000. Vegetarianism in India. Retrieved from http://www.indianchild.com/vegetarianism_in_india.htm.

Lemnos. N.d. The lemnos story. Retrieved from http://www.lemnosfoods.com/the-lemnos-story/.

National Geographic. N.d God grew tired of us: Cultural differences. http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/movies/god-grew-tired/cultural-differences-ggtu/.

Price, Rabbi Gavriel. 2013. Food ingredients labels: A primer on regulations. Kashrut.com. Retrieved from http://www.kashrut.com/articles/LabelingLaw/.

PTI. 21 Feb 2013. Trade volume between UK, India set to double by 2015. Zee News Limited. Retrieved from http://zeenews.india.com/business/news/economy/trade-volume-between-uk-india-set-to-double-by-2015_70694.html.

US Census Bureau. 2011. South Carolina in State & County Quick Facts. US Department of Commerce. Retrieved from http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/45000.html.

US Food and Drug Administration. 30 Apr 2009. Inspections, Compliance, Enforcement, and Criminal Investigations. US Department of Health & Human Services. Retrieved from http://www.fda.gov/ICECI/Inspections/InspectionGuides/ucm074948.htm.

US Food and Drug Administration. 1 Mar 2013. General food labeling requirements in Food. US Department of Health & Human Services. Retrieved from http://www.fda.gov/Food/GuidanceRegulation/GuidanceDocumentsRegulatoryInformation/LabelingNutrition/ucm064866.htm.

Wikipedia (8 May 2013). Fatwā in Wikipedia. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatw%C4%81.

Wikipedia (10 Mar 2013). Indonesian Ulema Counsil in Wikipedia. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesian_Ulema_Council.

Wikipedia (20 May 2013). Samosas in Wikipedia. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samosa.

Vietnamese Barefoot Doctor

The book Fourth Uncle in the Mountain: The Remarkable Legacy of a Buddhist Itinerant Doctor in Vietnam is a story of magic, anguished history, a mesmerizing past enmeshed in the modern age. The story is of a baby, Quang, who was adopted by an aging itinerant doctor and who raised his son to be an accupuncturist, healer, and naturopath like himself. Quang additionally learned sleight of hand magic tricks, advanced levels of martial arts, magic spells and incantations, for which his aged and experienced father forbade, having already experimented the evil arts of magic himself and being nearly possessed by them.

The story is really about Quang's growing up and coming of age in Vietnam. He was born in 1950 and in his teen-aged years and early twenties experienced the ravishings of his country Vietnam in the French and American Wars in South Vietnam. Finally, in his early 30s he fled Vietnam on a boat with failing outboard motor to make it to Thailand, where he was confined in the Chambouri Refugee Camp in Pannatnikhom City, mainland Thailand, for two years before passing a refugee interview for going to the New Hampshire in the United States. In New Hampshire, Quang Van Nguyen eventually met Marjorie Pivar, who was fascinted by his stories of having studied Han Viet, a language replaced by more classical Vietnamese of Chinese 300 years before, by stories of the fabled Seven Sacred Mountains and the enchanting Forbidden Mountain where Quang lived with an ancient for three years in a cave studying meditation, and most importantly by seeing firsthand his incredible knowledge as a traditional herbalist and learning how he acquired his knowledge. The book takes the reader through an incredible journey of a bygone age in a country where magic and ghosts are as real as the physical healing. Together they write to share this dying esoteric knowledge.

CULTURE SNATCHES

KITCHEN GODS: The Vietnamese wood stove is a free-standing wide-brimmed ceramic bowl that contains the fire, and over the flames are pots made of baked mud and rice hulls shaped with always three prongs underneath. Vietnamese culture is so steeped in spirits and magic and house gods, and these three-pronged cooking pots reflect on this spirituality for the three prongs stand for the three kitchen gods that dwell at the hearth, where they keep on eye on the householders. And every year during Tet, the Vietnamese lunar new year, they house gods ride on an orange carp up to heaven to report the householders deeds - both good and bad - to the Jade Emperor, and then return with commensurate good luck for the coming year. And here is the cultural story supporting the belief:

Long ago an unhappy couple lived together. The husband beat the wife so much that she fled the house, and eventually met another man and remarried. One evening when her new husband was out hunting, her old husband found her. At first she didn't recognize him since he was dressed as a beggar and was very humble, and when she did, she took pity on him, remembering their good times together. She decided to feed him and wash his clothes. Suddenly her husband came home and the former husband, naked, had to be hid under the woodpile. The husband greeted his wife and thanked her for building such a great fire pit for the animal he killed, and promptly lit the fire and threw the animal on it to roast it. The wife was so proud and yet ashamed that her former husband would die with crying out so as not to betray her that she threw herself on the fire to die with him. The second husband, distraught with losing his precious wife, jumped in to die with her. And so the Jade Emperor was so touched by the deep love they each showed selflessly that he granted them eternal life in the hearth of every home, to protect people from getting burned by fire.

DRAGONS AND FIREBALLS: Dragons are now the model of self-mastery, inner wisdom, and spiritual protection, but it wasn't always so. Long ago two dragons lived in water, fought and made a great nuisance of themselves by frisking up the river water and making it choppy and dangerous for people. They raced around so much and caused so much water havoc that people complained to the Jade Emperor, who couldn't get the dragons to settle down, so eventually came up with the idea of luring them out of the water by giving them a magic fireball that couldn't be gotten wet. The dragons were so entranced by the fireball that they came out of the water and played continuously with their treasure, which had a calming effect on them, and over time the dragons started to meditate and become wise.

ON MEDITATION: Quang had many teachers, but the teacher he most admired and connected with was the Fourth Uncle, a monk who had been meditating deep in a cave for many years. Quang's grandfather had meditated with him, his father had meditated with him for 19 non-consecutive years, and Quang was to meditate with him for three years. Fourth Uncle told Quang how to meditate: "You must not pray or chant when you meditate. Praying and chanting is grasping for something you want. From now on, you must keep quiet inside. Close the doors in every direction and do not let any thoughts come in. Focus your attention on your third eye. Draw the yin and yang energies into your body. Imagine the warm energies of the sun streaming in through the crown of your head. Imagine the cool energies from the underground spring bubbling up through your perineum. These opposite forces will blend together in your body and balance your energy."


SNATCHES OF EXOTERIC HEALING

THE SIX PULSES: Quang's father told him "By reading the pulse, we can understand how well the internal organs are functioning. Like the heart, the stomach, the liver, the kidneys, and so on, we can feel if the organs are weak or congested or inflamed, or if they are working just fine. We can also feel how well the blood is circulating in the body." "Once we have an idea about what is going on inside the body, we can make medicine to help the body function better. There are herbs that cleanse, herbs that soothe, herbs that warm, and herbs that cool. There are herbs that nourish the body and make more blood. You can prepare formulas that include all these properties. The trick is to understand what each patient needs. Two people can have the same symptoms, but most likely they will need a different kind of medicine."

The first pulse is taken with the index finger (of the left hand) by following the thumb bone down to the wrist, and stopping at the creases at the base of the hand. The pulse is for the heart and the valves of the heart, and also for checking the membrane surrounding the heart. This pulse can also be taken at the inside base of the index finger where the finger hinges with the palm. The second pulse and third pulses are taken with the third and fourth finger just below the heart pulse, but with a little space between. The second pulse is for the liver, gall bladder, and diaphragm. The third pulse is for the kidney, colon, uterus, and prostate. Once a doctor finds these pulses, he will need to learn to define the pulses within the pulses too.

The pulses on the right hand in the same position signify different organs. The first pulse on the right hand is for the lungs and diaphragm; the second is for the spleen and stomach; and the third is for the kidney, small intestines, uterus, and prostate. And if when taking a woman's pulse and it has a fluttery quality, the woman is pregnant, even though she might not even know it yet.

SAMPLE DIAGNOSIS: When Quang was about 15, his father told him to diagnosis a woman. Quang had learned that when a healthy person had a new cold, all pulses strike high, which means that the immune system is strong and is fighting the cold, helping the healthy person to recover from a cold in two or three days if given the proper medicine to clear the cold out.

Quang palpitated the 34-yr-old woman's wrist and wrote his analysis for his father. Left hand - heart pulse hitting high, liver/diaphragm pulse low, kidney/colon/uterus pulse deep and weak. Right hand - spleen/stomach pulse weak, kidney/small intestine/abdomen pulse weak, no fluttery pulse (so not pregnant).

From the analysis Quang knew that the woman would not recover from her cold very fast because her body was not functioning well. He knew without asking that she had a gassy stomach, sluggish bowels, painful menstruation, lower back pain, and she suffered from fatigue. He also knew it would be difficult for her lungs to decongest until her digestion improved because gas in the gut causes heat to radiate upward and creates a drying effect on the lung tissue, making mucous thick and sticky.

Quang's prescription: herbs to improve digestion, to loosen the bowels, to warm and moisten the lungs, open the sinuses, and improve the circulation in the lower abdomen. Quang had learned that digestion and circulation are the two most important factors for facilitating recovery. If a person has a healthy appetite and can absorb the nutrients well through the small intestines, and the circulation and the nervous system are functioning properly to transport those nutrients to the muscles and organs and to eliminate bodily waste, then the person stands a good chance of recovery.

VARICOSE VEINS: Quang also learned to treat and cure varicose veins, of which women were much more likely to suffer from, especially women who had small veins showing in the backs of their knees before childbirth and didn't get them treated before giving birth. The veins usually show up on the backs of knees and make the whole knee joint hurt, but they can be returned to normal if the congealed blood inside them (thick and sludgy) is cleaned out once a week for nine weeks. The first time Quang treated a woman with varicose veins by sticking a three-sided needle in, brown blood shot out three feet. He had to cut the vein in two places and squeeze out the blood clot in between. The next time she came back the vein was smaller, but the blood still came out brown. By the ninth time, the blood came out nice and red, and the vein was normal again.

URINE AS MEDICINE: A man came into Quang's clinic one day and had acute swelling in his lungs, so painful in fact that he could hardly breathe. Quang went into the neighborhood and asked a kid to pee in a cup. He put tiger balm on the rim of the cup and gave it to the man to drink. In just a few minutes he was able to breathe better. The rationale Quang learned behind using urine is that urine is anti-inflammatory. Sometimes when the body suffers from trauma, the nerves and the circulation lock, and in this case urine soothes the nerves and restores circulation to the organs and tissues. Children's urine is the purest, although he said it is good to drink your own sometimes when very sick. When drinking it, the immune system fights the sickness, and using first urine in the morning is best, especially if taken before speaking because speaking diminishes the body energy and therefore the strength of the "medicine". Take it from the middle of the flow and drink but a quarter of a cup.

In another case, a six-month pregnant woman had fallen and hurt her ribs, and the swelling around her rib cage was triggering uterine contractions. Blood was trickling out of her vagina, and she was afraid she would lose her baby. Once again Quang hurried into the neighborhood to ask a child for urine, and again he added tiger balm to the rim and told her to drink. Within minutes the contractions had subsided and she felt better.

MUGWORT MOXIBUSTION: Leaches could get on a person and if they stayed on a person more than an hour, they could cause a nasty infection. To pull a foot-long, three-inch fat leech off is dangerous as it takes flesh with it, so using an ash and honey mixture (salt I've heard works also) is needed to get the leech to release its hold. Then to disinfect the wound, stick a wad of dried mugwort dipped in alcohol in the wound, light it on fire and stick a glass cup over the flame to create a suction for drawing the toxins out of the wound. About a tablespoon a fluid should come out. Without doing so, a person could easily get an infectious disease.

Saving Fish from Drowning

Amy Tan’s 2005 book Saving Fish from Drowning has many thought-provoking paradoxes. The book title itself is taken from the paradoxical anonymous quote intimating that by fishing fishes’ lives are actually being saved:

“A pious man explained to his followers: ‘It is evil to take lives and noble to save them. Each day I pledge to save a hundred fishes. I place the fishes on the bank, where they flop and twirl. “Don’t be scared,” I tell those fishes. “I am saving you from drowning.” Soon enough, the fishes grow calm and lie still. Yet, sad to say, I am always too late. The fishes expire. And because it is evil to waste anything, I take those dead fishes to market and sell them for a good price. With the money I receive, I buy more nets so I can save more fishes.”

The story isn’t at all about fishing but rather about an internationally arranged tour group that is scheduled to go to China and Burma (non-politically correct, Myanmar, and its military government SLORC, State Law and Order Restoration Council) and how disaster seeks the tourists out even before the trip begins – the knowledgeable tour guide is mysteriously murdered. Fortunately for the tourists though the spirit of the tour guide travels with them but unfortunately can’t communicate with them as she sees them getting ripped off by tourist traps and attractions that her experience and knowledge of the cultures sought to avoid. The tourists go on to commit serious cultural faux paux and are nearly kicked out of China and forced, three days ahead of schedule, to enter political insecure Myanmar  where 11 of the 12 members of the tour group are kidnapped by Burmese mountain group, a Karen hill tribe, thinking the 14-year-old American boy who easily performs card tricks is mistakenly thought to be “Younger White Brother” (intimated to be younger brother to Jesus Christ?) and his Steven King book to be the “Lost Important Writings.” (For those interested in knowing more about this mythical belief system of the Karen tribe, much can be found on the internet.)

Well, the story dragged on a bit too long for me but to resolve the tale, the 11 tourists were un-kidnapped because of worldwide publicity, the Karen hill tribe that perpetuated the kidnapping were supposedly awarded their hearts’ desire and given freedom to continue with their chosen lifestyle, and with those two underlying threads of contention resolved, the book could end.

I really enjoyed the writing and witticisms of the first third of the book but afterwards there were just too many diversions to the main story and the story got too diffused to keep my interest. I’ve read three other books by Amy Tan – The Joy Luck Club, The Hundred Secret Senses, and The Bonesetter’s Daughter. I think this was my least favorite, but I do have to say, I did get some new insights on the Burmese culture, a culture that doesn’t get a lot of print, so for that “thumb’s up”.

Some witticisms/paradoxes from the book:

“From what I have observed, when the anesthesia of love wears off, there is always the pain of consequences.” p.15

A tour guide effectively explaining “karma” to the tourists concerning a buffalo wearing blinders and thrashing around in mud while being beaten in order for it to thrash more and make smooth mud for bricks: “Past life this buffalo must be doing bad things. Now suffer, so next life get better…” In effect, the tour guide was trying to say that “your situation and form in life are already determined before you are born. If you are a buffalo suffering in mud, you must have committed wrongs upon others in a previous existence, and thus, you deserve this particular reincarnation. Perhaps this buffalo was once a man who killed an innocent person. Maybe he was a thief. By suffering now, he would earn a much cushier reincarnation in the next go-round. It’s an accepted way of thinking in China, a pragmatic was of viewing all the misfortunes of the world.” p.77

On Buddha and Buddhism: “All this talk on oblivion, of wanting nothing and becoming nobody, seems rather contradictory from a Buddhist sense. The Buddha did all this and he became so much a nobody that he became famous, the biggest nobody of them all.” p.148

When the tour guide said, “For your safety and security, please remain on the bus.” Safety? Security? The mere mention of those words caused the tourists to feel unsafe and insecure. p.175

On lucky money and Buddhist beliefs: Peddlers surrounded and elbowed them shouting, “Lucky money! You give us lucky money!” Lucky money is the money a peddler makes from selling his/her first item of the day. They believe the first sale brings them luck money for the remainder of the day. And making sales and purchasing is all part of karma. When exchanges are made, peddlers receive luck and the purchasers receive merit (in Buddhism for the next life). p.219