Mingmei Yip - Song of the Silk Road

When I mentioned my desire to seek this peculiar herb, an alarmed expression fleeted across my healer friend’s face.

“Miss Lin, just let me know what you want, and I’ll get them for you. It’s not suitable for a young woman like yourself to travel there alone. The trip could be very dangerous if you don’t know your way.”

“But I must go there by myself.”

He studied me as if I were from another planet. “Do you speak Uyghur?”

“Of course not!”

“If you’re three thousand meters above sea level and get sick, do you know what to do? Do you have any experience living in uninhabited wilderness?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“Can you climb up icy cliffs and gather plants between their cracks?”

I shook my head, now feeling totally defeated.

“Then what makes you think you can get there by yourself?”

I sighed. “Because I have to.” I suppressed the rest of my thought—to get the three million dollars.

“No, that is very foolish of you.” He widened his eyes. “Let me get it for you. Or if you like, I can go with you.”

That didn’t seem such a bad idea, but should I trust him? Why not? Since he was a healer, I didn’t think he’d harm or cheat me. Besides, I believed there was already some kind of bond established between us.

“Anyway, I plan to visit the Mountains of Heaven soon, and the Black Dragon Pond to visit my relatives.”

“They live by the pond?”

“No, they are buried there.”

“What happened?” This revelation caught me by surprise; he’d never mentioned a family. My heart started to pound, awaiting something beyond my imagination, or reason.

“I’ll tell you when we’re there,” Lop Nor said while reaching to stroke the white jade pendant he always wore against his chest. I’d been noticing this habit of his and the luminous jade pendant for some time. A unique, exquisite piece. He seemed quite attached to it, but should he ever be willing to part with it, I would happily pay a lot.

“It’s a beautiful pendant. Is it old?”

My friend didn’t answer my question, but stood up and went to the small kitchen area next to the counter. “Now I’ll cook some dang gui with lamb to invigorate you, so you’ll have enough energy for your trip to the Mountains of Heaven.”

Even though I was Western educated, I had heard of dang gui . In the famous Cantonese opera Princess Chang Ping, every day the princess had her maid cook dang gui — dang means ought and gui means return. So the name is a synonym for “time to come home.” The princess believed that the cooking of this herb would speed up her husband’s return.

Ridiculous, I almost blurted out, but stopped myself just in time.

Instead I asked, “Why is dang gui good for women?”

Lop Nor put the ginseng-like herb inside the pot together with some thin strips of lamb, then put a lid on the pot. After cooking for a while, he began to fan the fire with one hand while stirring the pot with his other. “Because it adjusts your qi and nourishes your blood. Dang gui is the best tonic and fortifier for women. It will enter the heart, liver, and spleen meridians to regulate qi and menstruation.”

“Wow, that sounds really impressive.” I lifted up the lid and stared into the broth, now beginning to emit a pungent, bittersweet smell.

Lop Nor cast a sidelong glance while sprinkling the soup with some black herbs. “Maybe you don’t really believe in it. But this has been helping women in China for thousands of years.”

Next he dropped a few dried lumps into the boiling pot. “This is dan shen root to cool, nourish, and enhance your circulation. Your yin body type needs it.”

That made sense. After all I must have plenty of yin , since I possessed yin eyes to see spirits. But of course I was not going to offer this piece of yin information to a very yang man like him. Nor did I think it was the right time to ask him about his mysterious visit to the graveyard. But didn’t he imply that his family was buried near the lake?

So, instead of asking him about his dead relatives, I asked Lop Nor to tell me more about life-prolonging herbs.

“ Yin foods grow in shaded places, so they are cool and moisturizing. Yang foods are warm because they grow exposed to the sun. Your body belongs to the cool type so you should eat more spicy, energy-giving yang food like meat and stews to generate heat in your body and stimulate your qi to circulate. However, since you’re now living in the hot, dry desert, your body needs to protect its yin energy.”

Talking, he lifted the lid and studied the boiling contents while stirring the mixture in a gentle, rhythmic motion.

He went on. “Herbs are consumed to balance, cooling the body in summer and warming it during winter, so we won’t get heatstroke or chilled. Chinese medicine aims for the balance of qi in our body. We prepare herbs to prevent diseases, not to cure after we’ve caught them.”

Now the pleasant smell of the soup filled the room. After more stirring, my friend carefully ladled the contents of the pot into a big ceramic bowl.

Both the soup and meat tasted unbelievably good. After only a few sips and bites, I already felt my whole body warming up in a very comforting way.

Lop Nor asked, “Feel the heat inside you now?”

I nodded, sending another spoon of soup into my mouth. “Yes, excellent soup, thank you so much, Lop Nor.”

“You should feel the qi emanating from the soup, since I sent my qi into it,” he said.

I gave him a curious look.

He returned my look with a “how-come-you-never-heard-about-this” expression. “You have to be able to practice for a long time to do this.”

I quickly drank another spoon of the dark liquid. How could a Uyghur man in this remote village talk so eloquently like a traditional Chinese scholar?

“Lop Nor, may I ask how you know all this?”

“From my grandfather, who was a Chinese herbalist and qigong master.” He paused, then said, “Because of him, although my father was Uyghur, the cultivation of qi for longevity was very much emphasized in my family.”

“So your parents are still enjoying their longevity?”

To my surprise, Lop Nor’s expression suddenly turned unfathomable, and even bitter.

All he said was, “They should have.”

“What do you mean—something happened?”

Just then a fortyish Uyghur woman wearing a colorful headscarf and matching outfit stepped inside the store with a young boy. A gap-toothed smile bloomed on her long, brown face.

Lop Nor immediately went up to the duo and led them to sit down by the counter next to me.

She spoke in a language totally lost on me. However, her expression told me she was very upset about something concerning the boy, probably her son, for they looked almost identical.

My friend started to examine the boy’s eyes, face, tongue, and pulse. After that, he spoke to the mother in the same strange language.

To my puzzlement, the woman raised her voice and gesticulated wildly as if arguing, but my herbalist friend remained calm and continued to explain patiently, what I had no idea. He turned to speak to the boy in a very gentle voice, but the kid responded by shaking his head and starting to cry. Then to my surprise, the woman suddenly pinched her son’s ear. This time the boy responded by yelling and crying hysterically, spitting something imaginary from his mouth.

Lop Nor tried to explain more, but the woman, her expression furious and her face turning purple, pulled her son out of the store.