When the Foochow pioneers first moved to Sibu, they brought a lot of seeds and even cuttings to grow.
While they must have brought a lot of dried herbs for coughs, fevers and other health problems, they must have brought seeds of the perilla which in Chinese, is called zĭsū (紫苏) or sūzǐ (苏子).
My mother was born in 1926, 15 years after the first arrival of Wong Nai Siong and his Foochow pioneers. By then my mother said the Foochows were already spreading and trying their best to carve out good farming land for themselves. Land was free for any Foochow who was hardworking.
It was known that my hardworking maternal grandfather had already fell more than 100 acres of land and had grown a lot of rubber for his growing family. He had built three coolie houses for his rubber tapping employees to live in. I have even met one man (surname Chiu in Miri) who said that his family tapped rubber fro my grandfather and uncle before and after the Japanese war. Today he is a very wealthy man.
My mother was the fourth daughter and there were already two brothers older than her. Subsequently my maternal grandmother gave birth to two more boys and one more girl before the Japanese arrived. It was also rumoured that my ngie mah had a baby girl before my second aunt was born. And then there were also one or two miscarriages along the way. My maternal grandmother never talked about these unfortunate situations all her life.
While growing up my mother never saw a doctor and she never experienced any injection. Her first vaccination was when she was almost 20!! That was the time when she was given a card with her photo for her vaccination!
What medical treatment did she have? Parents did their best with their traditional knowledge. Fevers were treated easily by giving children some mung bean porridge. A bit of cough was cured by chewing some perilla leaves plucked from the roadside!
I was way over 60 when I chanced upon perilla leaves in Minqing.
I did ask my mum about it but she said she never realized that perilla as a plant has almost disappeared from the gardens of Nang Chong. She was then almost 90 and she told us about her early childhood when they did not know about western medicine. She was afraid of going to the hospital all her life.
"In the olden days Zisu was found all over the yard. Just take a few leaves and chew and your small cough would be gone. No need to go to Sibu to see a doctor."
Panadol, aspirin, and Bre A col and other over the counter cough mixtures all caused perilla to disappear from our cultural landscape. And it was something not even recorded in our social and cultural history my mother had commented.
I also believe that children in the olden days were tougher and made of sterner stuff.
"Perilla is a good thing," she said when I asked her once,
No comments:
Post a Comment