A trip to a Chinese herbal doctor...

One of the foundational components of traditional Chinese medicine is herbology, a practice whereby various natural ingredients (dried roots, flowers, barks, berries, horns, insects, etc) are brewed together to form a concentrated tonic (藥). The tonic is used to nurture the patient, helping to correct whatever imbalance has weakened his or her body, and the ingredient combination is uniquely crafted based on the patient's particular needs. I may not fully (or even marginally) understand how it works, but it has been practiced for many thousands of years, and a billion or so people rely on it today. I'm not one to argue with that kind of track record.

When both Katherine and I came down with a nasty bug this week, we decided to take a trip to the herbal doctor that Katherine frequents the most, giving me my first ever experience. (I've been inside herbal doctor shops with Katherine many times before, so that wasn't new, but I've never been a patient.)

After describing my symptoms to the doctor, he took my pulse (on both wrists in succession), examined my tongue, peered down my throat, and asked a few additional questions about the general state of my body (including what foods I had been putting in it recently). Shortly thereafter, he wrote out a list of ingredients on his prescription pad and handed it off to his pharmacist. The pharmacist quickly went to work, sorting and measuring an abundance of dried ingredients from the large glass jars that lined the wall behind his counter...

My prescription

Next came the brewing process, but that takes a few hours, so we went back to our apartment to rest. Later, around dinner time, we picked up our medicinal drinks and toted them home...

As black as midnight

Down the hatch!

"You displease me!"

As you can see by my reaction (which was not at all staged - Katherine caught my genuine response before I regained composure), this wasn't a walk in the park. It was, without a doubt, the most difficult dose of liquid I've ever had to swallow. One or two sips wouldn't have been bad, but the cumulative effect of the whole cup was...unpleasant. Still, I got through it (twice, actually - two cups spread across two consecutive days), and I'm glad I did. Hopefully both Katherine and I will start to feel better soon.

Celebrating continued employment...

Before reaching tenure, Katherine works on a contract basis for the University of Hong Kong. Her initial contract was for three years (concluding at the end of 2010), but this week, the University decided to go ahead and renew her contract for an additional three years (concluding at the end of 2013). We didn't expect that to happen this early, so it was somewhat of a surprise, but obviously something exciting and worth celebrating. As such, last night we went to 西碼頭環 ("Western District Pier"), a recently-discovered favorite seafood restaurant of ours on the Kennedy Town seaside, to commemorate the occasion...

豆苗 (green pea sprouts) in broth

東風螺 (or "花螺" - a species of sea snail) in a spicy sauce

花蛤 (or "花甲" - a species of sea clams)

Slices of venison with asparagus, onions, and potatoes in a sweet sauce

Every dish was outstanding (though the snails took a little more prying work than we would normally prefer ;>) and it was a lovely evening.

Show time...again!

Last night our residence hall held a karaoke-style singing contest and the band was asked to close the evening with a brief show. Like last time, I was asked to be a guest performer on two of the pieces (different than those I played before)...

Katherine recorded a video of the second song's final two minutes, so I thought I'd share that with you (beware, though, that the audio capture abilities of our little digital point-and-shoot camera are not so impressive ;>)...

It's a swing-pop-rock tune called "如果我是陳奕迅" ("If I Were Eason Chan") by Mister that's fantastically fun to play. As part of my preparation, I crafted my own arrangement of the drum score (which we'll also use as a teaching tool in the band). You are welcome to take a look at it if you're curious (the video above starts in measure 24).

The band has a few more performances this month, but my playing is done for the time being. I'll return to laying low and cheering from the crowd.