A visit to a Chinese herb store
An interesting story about a visit to a Chinese herb store in Toronto, Canada:
“The first, Yat Cheun Chinese Herbs Company, is located at 294 Spadina Ave. On the second floor of a non-descript building, Yat Cheun is both very clean and orderly. The second, Hu Chun Tang Chinese Herbs, at 558 Dundas St. W., is much smaller and the interior more closely resembles the archaic little store in the movie Gremlins where the trouble-making mogwai Gizmo was purchased.
Both stores are stocked with boxes of teas, glass jars filled with herbs, open barrels filled with dried goods and pills and tonics for seemingly every malady. Most products were unfamiliar, but I did identify ginseng, royal jelly and many varieties of mushrooms. The most exotic products in Hu Chun Tang were deer related, including deer tails for kidney support and deer blood for anemia. In Yat Cheun, I was fascinated by the dried sea horses and sea dragons, which are boiled to remedy tonsillitis.
I wanted to find out about immune-boosting materials, as I’m in the process of nurturing a concern for my health into a full-blown obsession. In Yat Cheun, I asked the clerk what he recommended and he answered with an enthusiastic “Yes!” before turning on his heels and heading into the back office, where he joined a conversation with two female colleagues and tucked into a bowl of noodles.
In Hu Chun Tang, I again inquired about my immune system, this time summoning all of my sixth-grade summer drama camp skills to produce a laboured cough. The clerk looked unimpressed. I, too, was unimpressed, and was reminded of why I was cast in the role of “background singer/dancer” in my camp’s production of Pippin.
The clerk in Hu Chun Tang did, after some insistence that verged on begging, recommend “Spore Powder Capsules” in a box with a picture of some mushrooms on the front. “This one prevents cancer,” she said. Not bad for $7.99.”
