CHINESE ARE CRAZY

Honestly, I like Chinese people. Life in the United States would be dull without them. Almost unbearable. And food, my heavens, we would all still be eating overdone beef and paperhangers' paste! But they're nuts.

Quite.

I live with one of them. She was carefully selected out of thousands of applicants. Meaning that twenty five years ago she and I sparked, and she proved crazy enough to move in when I asked her to live with me.
No, actually I never did ask anyone else. I don't take insane chances.
We're no longer a couple, but we still occupy the same quarters.

Anyhow, I came home this evening, and there was a bag of round flattish looking objects possibly of animal origin on my bed, near the Froad and the Control Monkey. Both creatures are temporarily on my side of the apartment, rather than hers. Her bed has an overpopulation of small creatures, but on a day when she doesn't have to work (like Armistice Day), they are told to go over to the old dude's room (my room), to quarrel and fight all they want without bothering her.
I worked today, so I wasn't disturbed by this.
What the heck are those things?
Flattened glands?

"Mmm, hon, what are those?"

"Those are for you. For digestion."

"Yes, okay, but what ARE they?"


See, Chinese people customarily consume all kinds of strange things because of the reputed benefits. Over the years I've found dendrobium stalks, red ginseng root, astragalus, rehmannia, atractylodes rhizome, polygonum, dried dates, and Asian licorice root in Chinatown.
All of these products have tonifying actions.
Radix eleutherococcus senticosus (五加参 'ng gaa sam') is particularly good, and I've always had a supply of pills on hand. Panax notginseng (田七 'tin chat'), the main component of Yunnan Baiyao (雲南白藥 'wan naam pak yeuk'), is an excellent systemic aid, available both in root and powder forms (use the root in tonic wine), and Yunnan Baiyao, which is sometimes extremely hard to find, no explanation of which scarcity makes any sense, is an excellent remedy for wounds.

"So what are they?"

"Good for you. Make you go 'woosh'!"

"I don't need that!"

"Oh trust me; WOOSH!"


"WOOSH!!!"


What on earth makes her think 'woosh' is a problem?

I am a man of regular habits. Every morning I start the day with two cups of strong coffee, then retire to the bathroom for half an hour, during which among other things I shave and shower. This upsets Savage Kitten, who remains convinced that that lack of spontaneity cannot possibly be good. She fails to understand the dynamic.

Though white people are universally organized, she remains convinced that we are instruments of chaos.

Unpredictable, illogical, and at times unimaginative.
What would make us happy is 'woosh'.
We need that.



Life with a Chinese person in the house is an adventure.
Chinese people are utterly crazy.
Woosh.




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