Mingmei Yip - Song of the Silk Road

The glass felt cool on my skin. The herbalist, with acute concentration, pressed together his index, middle, and ring fingers on my wrist.

The creases on his forehead read like abstruse philosophical truths etched in an esoteric language waiting to be deciphered. His eyes, though sad, also emanated strong yang energy. However, what really caught my attention and made my heart ache were his hands—large, brown, leathery, scarred. His fingers were thick, calloused, tipped with nails lined with faint dark ridges. What had this man done with those hands—just collecting herbs on the mountain, or digging graves to house ghosts?

As his right hand was taking my pulse, his left stroked a big, translucent white jade pendant that hung from his neck on a leather string. A sense of déjà vu welled up inside me while my arms began to tingle. I sensed this must be something that he’d loved and lost from a previous life.

It was an exquisite piece, and I wondered how it came to be in this bare village. Was it a priceless family heirloom?

As I was savoring the mystery washing over me like waves from Lop Nor, he turned to pull out a few drawers, taking pinches from each and weighing them meticulously on his diminutive scale. After that, he laid a mixture of dried fruits and herbs on a sheet of white paper and pointed to one of them.

“These are red dates, good for nourishing your blood, soothing your nerves, and replenishing your vital energy.” He cast me an intense look. “Miss, it’s your tension that depletes your qi .”

Then he lifted up a dark pink perforated plant. “This is raw lotus root to clear your heat, especially now that you’re in the desert. It’ll also stimulate your appetite.” He went on, pointing to some mushroomlike plant. “White fungus has a cooling effect and is excellent for women’s skin and complexion.”

He wrapped up the herbs with his scarred hands. “Back home, you put all these together with a piece of lamb and cook them in a water-filled pot for two hours. Drink the soup and eat the meat.”

Finally, he pointed to some dried, yellowish flowers. “This is chrysanthemum. Just pour hot water over it, let it brew for ten minutes, then drink it. It is slightly sweet, so it’ll help soothe your eyes in the desert heat. You understand?”

“Yes. Thank you so much for these, Mr. Lop Nor.”

He cast me a curious glance. “You’re Chinese?”

“Yes. I am Lily Lin.”

“Miss Lin”—his owl-like eyes shot out a few suspicious sparks—“what makes you come all the way to this village to see me?”

“Oh… I come here to research a book on the desert. I’m a writer.”

Without responding to what I’d said, he handed me the packages. “Come back if you feel unbalanced and need more herbs.”

“I definitely will, Mr. Lop Nor.” As I took it from him, my hand brushed against his rough one and I felt a minuscule jolt.

“You can just call me Lop Nor.”

“Thanks, Lop Nor.”

I paid him, thanked him again, and took leave.

This was an encouraging start.

In the two weeks that followed, I visited Lop Nor four times. Sitting inside his store permeated with the fragrance of herbs—dried or cooking in a pot—we chatted about various things: the Silk Road, politics in Urumqi, happenings in the desert villages, and his favorite subject, and now mine also, Chinese herbs. Although I had not been particularly attracted to Chinese medicine, Lop Nor’s erudition on the subject and his enthusiasm unexpectedly sparked my interest.

Of course I enjoyed this solemn-mannered gentleman’s company, but I had to admit that my goal was selfish—picking his brain about snow lotuses in the Mountains of Heaven. However, I never left his store without buying a few herbs—usually the more expensive kind—as a token of my appreciation for his knowledge and his willingness to share and, most important, to bond with him.

One time, when I bought some very expensive ginseng from him, he said, “This herb is extremely hard to obtain, its price is astronomical, and what you can get in most stores is fake….”

“Fake? How?”

“They mix it with thin wires to increase the weight so the store can charge more. But when you buy from me you always have your money’s worth. And you get the real herbs, some I even risked my life for.”

It didn’t matter whether I believed him, just whether I could get more information about herbs on the Mountains of Heaven out of him. However, I was glad but also surprised that our friendship could develop so easily. Was I really that interesting? Or maybe he was simply lonely?

One morning after entering Lop Nor’s store, I found that he was not, as usual, sitting behind the counter fussing with his herbs and the tiny scale.

“Lop Nor, Lily’s here,” I called, but no one answered.

I looked around, then went through the store to the backyard. There was Lop Nor, bare-chested and wearing kung fu pants fastened at the ankles. He was standing with his muscular feet wide apart on the thin rim of a large, round, water-filled urn, seemingly focusing hard on his martial arts stance.

I stopped to watch, trying my best not to make any noise that might break his concentration. Lop Nor’s hands were alternately pushing forward and drawing back huge, imaginary waves. Then, about fifteen minutes later, to my utter amazement, the water inside the urn started to bubble, emitting a gurgling sound. Gradually, the sound increased in volume and the bubbles in ferocity. It was then I realized that the water was boiling by itself with no fire under it!

A loud, involuntary “Wah!” shot out from my mouth.

Swiftly Lop Nor jumped down from the urn, his eyes drilling holes in mine. “Miss Lin, what are you doing here?!”

His voice was loud and harsh. He had never before talked to me like that.

“Sorry, Lop Nor, I didn’t see you in the store so I came out and found you here.”

He slipped on his thin jacket while still penetrating my eyes with his tigerlike ones.

“Sorry,” I added nervously, “but the door was unlocked.”

“I must have forgotten to lock it. When you come back to this courtyard next time, please alert me right away. I don’t want to be put off balance by the presence of feminine energy,” he said, swiping away big beads of perspiration on his broad forehead with a white cloth.

“You’re able to sense that?”

“Yes, but I didn’t want to break off the qi in the middle of my practice. Not until you cut it off. I’m done now. Let’s go back to the store.”

Both awed and intimidated, I humbly followed this qi -boiling-water master back into his shop.

After we sat down by the counter, I asked, “Lop Nor, how can you make the water boil without fire?”

“I focus my qi .”

I was too stunned to say anything.

He smiled a little. “Actually I borrow it from the universe.”

“How can someone do that?”

“It takes many years of bitter practice plus a profound understanding of qi distribution in the cosmos.”

He went on to tell me some amazing stunts of qigong masters. His grandfather could direct qi from his fingertips to extinguish five lit candles and send a row of people stumbling back without even touching them.

“With qigong , you control all the energies of the universe.”

I knew even if I asked more it would be to no avail. My Westernized, ignorant mind was too shallow and unprepared for anything so grandiose. So, after some silence, I changed our conversation to what was most on my mind—visiting the Mountains of Heaven for the special snow lotus.