witch's brew

A week ago, J and I ventured to Eu Yan Sang to gather our stock of Chinese herbal teas. In our encyclopedia of chinese traditional medicine there are only 4 entries - yin, yang, heaty and cooling. So as we surveyed the various packets herbal teas, it seemed each of them fell under the safe "cooling" category, promising to rid us of "heat" and "toxins".

There was only one tea which stood out. It promised to have the additional benefits of aiding digestion, appetite and ridding the body of "wind". And its name was poetry - 七星茶, literally seven star tea.

And here, my friends, is what poetry means in traditional chinese medicine.


beetlejuice beetlejuice beetlejuice!

Today, during our visit to J's parents, his mom aahed at the mention of "seven star tea" and offered this revelation in Hokkien: "Seven star tea, oh, it's for children to help them burp, get rid of wind. Yes yes, sometimes it's got cockroaches and cockroach shit in it. Your second brother drank it when he was a kid."

the breakfast club

finally, #3 - click for larger view

The "study corner" at the void deck of J's block of HDB fats in Toa Payoh Lorong 8 is a pretty happening place. Every morning, a group of some 8 to 10 ladies between the ages of 50 and 70 gather there without fail.

I guess this is probably quite a common sight in HDB estates: housewives back from their morning trip to the market and stopping for a little chat that becomes a long gossip - and oh, since it's going to be a marathon session, they take out their morning shopping and start preparing their lunch there too!

What amazes me is that this daily gathering takes place despite the noise and dust from all the "upgrading" works taking place around them. If the mechanical drilling and hacking is loud, they would just speak louder. Such persistence!

I'll try to get a sketch of them one day...but meanwhile, here's the 3rd picture of the adventuring rabbit series. I've been trying out new styles and compositions, and this is one of them. The rabbit's finally in the city, and in the background is J's block of HDB flats at Toa Payoh Lorong 8.

look Ma, wings!

Adults need fairy tales - or so the publishing world has realised some time ago.

I suppose if you were to market children's books, particularly picture books, your target audience is not the young reader with no $pending power, but the anxious parent and doting aunt who will be buying the book. So it was only natural that publishers and bookstores soon packaged these books, Silverstein's "The Giving Tree" for example, to the adult reader instead, "the young at heart". These books sit at the far borders of the graphic novel world, since their wisdom and moral universe are too saccharine.

At Kinokuniya's Christmas/New Year discounts, I picked up a couple of books by Taiwan writer/illustrator Jimmy/幾米 Ji Mi. Aiyah, being a snob, I had ignored his books for a long time...until after the recent trip to Taipei. Taiwan's been in love with his dreamy, colourful children's book illustrations for several years. But since Hong Kong made these poor movie adaptations out of his Turn Left, Turn Right and The Sound of Colours, he has outgrown that island.

My favourite is this 2003 book Mr Wing (pic above is of a vinyl toy based on the book...Merchandise!). It's a meandering sort of narrative that starts with perfection and ends with... ambivalence. A guy with the perfect life (handsome, rich, talented, charming, good-natured) discovers one day that he has sprouted wings. And what seems the pinnacle of his achievements (a man so perfect he becomes an angel) quickly becomes first an irritation, then a curse to be overcome, and finally, a just a fact of a radically pared-down existence. He doesn't return to his perfect life. He doesn't get much out of it all. There's no moral to be derived and no lesson learnt. But the reader knows that he survives somehow.


posers in front of giant yoshitomo & JiMi illustrations

Maybe it's the desire for escape into a simpler world that nonetheless acknowledges the stresses of grown up life. Or maybe we all just like looking at pretty pictures...