Mingmei Yip - Song of the Silk Road

“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.

After they’d left, I asked, “What happened?”

My friend smiled wryly. “She’s not very happy with my diagnosis.”

“The boy sick?”

He laughed. “No, he’s perfectly OK, just refuses to eat meat. I told the woman she has to let him be. He’s a born vegetarian. But she was furious with me and said, ‘There’s no such thing as born vegetarian, otherwise we’d all starve to death!’ She told me her husband works very hard to save money to buy meat, but the son always wastes it by spitting it out. One time he even secretly threw it down to feed a wild dog. When she saw what had happened she pulled the meat from the dog’s filthy mouth and forced it down her son’s throat.”

I exclaimed, “Oh, my, that’s horrible!”

Lop Nor went on. “I can understand why the mother feels so bitter. She said, ‘He acts like we are so rich that we can afford meat all the time and he can waste it!’ ”

After some silence, I asked, “Why was the boy spitting and crying?”

Lop Nor shook his head. “I tried to persuade him that chicken is tasty, and so is lamb. But you saw his response to that. He screamed till his face was twisted.”

“But why?”

“He accused his mother of poisoning him with meat. He screamed, ‘No! No! I don’t want to be poisoned! Please don’t poison me!’ ”

“A child can be born vegetarian?”

“Yes, that’s his karma. But the mother doesn’t understand that nothing can be done except to let him be. If he eats meat, his life will be shortened.”

Looking at Lop Nor’s detached, almost emotionless face and listening to his erudite words, I wondered how a learned man like him ended up in this remote village where business was minimal and his practice and insight were hardly appreciated. Was he just unlucky—or could it be he was hiding from something?

Lop Nor poured us hot tea from his thermos. “Miss Lin, please have some chrysanthemum and honey tea. Don’t worry. The boy is fine, only the mother is not. By the way, he reminds me that I should try to get some herbs particularly for vegetarians. Should we set a date to travel to the Mountains of Heaven?”

“Lop Nor, please just call me Lily.”

But he ignored my request. “Miss Lin, you have a calendar with you?”

The weather on the day of departure turned out to be surprisingly artistic with a Van Gogh sky, patches of Magritte clouds, and a light breeze breaking the sultry air. Once I agreed to travel with him, Lop Nor, like a Zen master, had been quick and decisive in making plans and arrangements.

From his village, we took a bus to the train station, and from there the train to Urumqi. At the train station, Lop Nor negotiated with the driver of a rather dilapidated car to take us into the Mountains of Heaven at the foot of the Bogda peak, one of the highest. After a long stretch along the monotonous, flat, dry, hot, and dusty semidesert, we turned onto a narrow road that zigzagged up along a rushing river.

Finally, the car pulled to a stop in front of a modest wooden building with a sign declaring itself to be the Heavenly Lake Guest House. We got out and I paid, for me a trifling sum, then we registered, had a light supper, and went to our separate rooms.

The next morning, we set out across an open field until we reached a gorge with a small stream roaring at the bottom.

Lop Nor said, “We’ll first go to the forest to find herbs, then to the Heavenly Lake. We’re now about 2,000 meters above sea level. Later it will be mostly an uphill climb. Are you ready?”

I nodded even though I had no clear idea of what awaited me. I hoped that the climb, however steep, would lead to the precious herb demanded by my aunt Mindy Madison.

Humming a tune to alleviate my nervousness, I lost track of time until my sore, booted feet landed on the level forest ground. Instantly I was embraced by a surge of fresh, cool air. I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply the pleasant smell of lush vegetation while listening to the chirping of birds and the soothing flow of water. When I reopened my eyes, I had fallen sensuously in love with the deep forest, with its tall pines and dragon spruces.

“Miss Lin.” Lop Nor’s voice rose loud and clear in the forest air. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to start first from the lower slopes to gather mushrooms, almonds, wild apples, ginseng, and motherwort for my store. Then we’ll climb higher where we might find the plant you need.”

I smiled to my mountain companion. “Of course not. I love almonds and wild apples.” Especially from this beautiful paradise. The setting was very romantic, but I was not going to tell him that, lest he misunderstand. Then suddenly I felt a wave of regret. While I’d agreed so easily to go to this remote mountain forest with a strange Uyghur man, I’d turned down Alex’s earlier repeated requests to travel with me. I hoped that now he was at least having a good time with his parents, wherever they were.

After about an hour of treading through the dense forest, Lop Nor said we had arrived where he might find what he needed.