Thursday, December 21, 2006
Herb or weed
Hi,
Mai chusi chouh, ai chusi louh.
This Teochew dialect phrase says do not want it it is weed, want it it is herb. It is unlikely that any gardener does not know what weed is. It is any type of small plants that hang around the flower pots or in a garden patch, some vegetation which is unwelcome and to be got rid of so that there is room only for the plants that are being tended.
There is one weed about two hands tall, succulent and tender looking. Its leaves are about an inch in size and shaped like the heart, and it resembles the spinach albeit smaller in size. It looks good to eat, like a vegetable, but who dares to, no one has expressed any thing about its edibility. So even a lackadaisical gardener like me tried my best to exterminate its presence. This is not easy because it grows easily, even at the base of flower pots on its own; it also multiplies very readily, from its seeds.
Well, it is a weed !
Then there was an article about the usefulness of this weed written by a Chinese nun in a Chinese magazine. An elderly woman tried out its efficacy; and to her jubilation her eyesight improved and cleared, the cataract in her eyes disappeared.
Was it a miracle or was it that this weed really works wonders ? In the first place the nun had said that it does, so believe it or not ?!
There was another old woman who tried it and her eyesight improved slightly because she ran out of the weed. She needs more of this herb to continue her treatment. Thus, the saying manifest its veracity, mai chusi chouh, ai chusi louh. But now, where would I find this herb; I had spent time annihilating it.
Well, weed being weed, it is always around. And like what my neighbour said in Hokkien, "See peh choi, mung boi liau ", meaning die father plenty or superlatively plenty, cannot weed them all. True to what he said, I found some tiny ones that were just showing their first two leaves within some of my pots. And as anyone can understand now, these are no longer weeds, they are herbs; and I am now nurturing them in a special area, for this old woman.
Weeds remain weeds until one knows their worth.
Have a nice day,
Ronald
Mai chusi chouh, ai chusi louh.
This Teochew dialect phrase says do not want it it is weed, want it it is herb. It is unlikely that any gardener does not know what weed is. It is any type of small plants that hang around the flower pots or in a garden patch, some vegetation which is unwelcome and to be got rid of so that there is room only for the plants that are being tended.
There is one weed about two hands tall, succulent and tender looking. Its leaves are about an inch in size and shaped like the heart, and it resembles the spinach albeit smaller in size. It looks good to eat, like a vegetable, but who dares to, no one has expressed any thing about its edibility. So even a lackadaisical gardener like me tried my best to exterminate its presence. This is not easy because it grows easily, even at the base of flower pots on its own; it also multiplies very readily, from its seeds.
Well, it is a weed !
Then there was an article about the usefulness of this weed written by a Chinese nun in a Chinese magazine. An elderly woman tried out its efficacy; and to her jubilation her eyesight improved and cleared, the cataract in her eyes disappeared.
Was it a miracle or was it that this weed really works wonders ? In the first place the nun had said that it does, so believe it or not ?!
There was another old woman who tried it and her eyesight improved slightly because she ran out of the weed. She needs more of this herb to continue her treatment. Thus, the saying manifest its veracity, mai chusi chouh, ai chusi louh. But now, where would I find this herb; I had spent time annihilating it.
Well, weed being weed, it is always around. And like what my neighbour said in Hokkien, "See peh choi, mung boi liau ", meaning die father plenty or superlatively plenty, cannot weed them all. True to what he said, I found some tiny ones that were just showing their first two leaves within some of my pots. And as anyone can understand now, these are no longer weeds, they are herbs; and I am now nurturing them in a special area, for this old woman.
Weeds remain weeds until one knows their worth.
Have a nice day,
Ronald
# posted by chunmu @ 6:00 PM 
