Home Made Chrysanthemum Tea

It has been really hot these days but it looks that some gale is blowing our way. And hopefully once again the green green grass will appear. Too many brown burnt trees are around now with the raging bush fires and also uncontrollable open burning with undetectable causes.

Prices every where seem to be going up too. And very recently goods from China have also gone up in price (What else is new?). There has even been talk that some of the China goods might stop coming for a while. But this could be real or it could be a gimmick to up prices. And the Chinese community would go into a frenzyh of hoarding in response.

Let's go back to the topic : heatiness. My old favourite way of cooling down has been to make a pot of my own Chrysanthemum Tea at home with some rock sugar. It used to be something very very cheap. I cannot even remember how much a paper wrapped packet of chrysanthemum tea from China cost before! It seemed so long ago when we paid like 2 or 3 ringgit for a huge packet.

Now China goods come in nice plastic packets. How I miss the old paper wrapped packets with real strings binding them! I like to read the old form of writing on the brown paper. They looked very safe and traditional.

Today we are spoilt for choice in the Chinese drug (?) outlets where we can get a thousand and one different kinds of stuff to make our bodies strong (cooled/heated up etc) on the nice glass shelves. Even the old smell of gangchou (Chinese licorice) and gingseng is gone! I used to go to Hock Choon and Chew Hock Choon in Sibu and enjoy the fragrance of Chinese medicine floating in the shop! I sometimes can imagine that my headaches just go away because of the nice old smell of the old Chinese drugs store. There was really a certain sense of well being.

Sometimes I still automatically want my pulse taken. Putting my right hand on the old sweat soaked little pillow was like going back to old times and old comforting days. Today all these seem to have disappeared from right under our eyes. And to know that our next generation may not experience what we have experienced! What a pity this life style has gone!

Perhaps only movies which cost millions of dollars can bring back a few of these memories for a few fleeting and albeit blurry moments. I heard some Chinese movie makers had a spend a few millions to create a street in Hong Kong of the 1900's for a movie on the life of Sun Yat Sen. We have living history right in front of our eyes and slowly they are being taken away. But at what cost in the future people will have to re-create history !

If only we can love our heritage and preserve and conserve always. Sigh.

Have a cup of my home made chrysanthemum tea and think of long ago happy days when we did not have to de-tox - buy bottled mineral water - wear face masks - read the prints on packets of stuff to find how much preservatives we are taking in with our food etc.