Diary of a herbal medicine junkie

When I was a child, I was always the first one to catch a cold when the seasons changed. I was the one who had sinusitis when the spring pollens flew in the wind. I had earaches for no reason. On occasion, my mother would hold my hand and exclaim, "Why are your hands so clammy?", to which I would have no answer.

Now my mother's parents, that is, my grandparents, are what modern day city-dwellers would call country bumpkins, but for their time, they were considered 'townsfolk'. In those days, when you were ill you went to see a doctor, but you wouldn't be able to find a doctor practising Western medicine. Of course, for serious infections and the like, the local government health bureaus would find a way of distributing penicillin and other modern medicine (I recall my mother telling me they were handed out worming pills every year at school). But if you were suffering from a stroke or stomach pains, most likely you would go to see an old man in a dark house, surrounded by powerful fumes of herbs drying on white paper laid on top of wooden lacquered cabinets which had square drawers marked in Chinese. You would find the Herb Doctor.

The first time I went to see one was when I was eight years old, on my first visit to Daegu - a city where all my extended family lived - to see my grandparents after returning from England. My grandfather took me on this long walk to the doctor's house. It was a very old-fashioned house, and the doctor was resting in the entrance of the house, smoking and enjoying the summer sun. There was a stink of various plants and animal parts permeating the entire open air living room - a queer mix of bitter and sweet, camphor and cinnamon bark. The doctor said things that made no sense to me (mostly because I had shaky Korean then, and partly because he was speaking in dialect) and tapped my wrist several times. He then stared at the soles of my feet and my hands. I don't know what the diagnosis was, but it warranted several white envelopes full of dried herbs and roots. My grandfather had them wrapped up in a plastic bag and we went back to my grandparent's house. 'How am I meant to have those dried roots as medicine?', I wondered to myself.

I soon found out. In the afternoon, I realised the house was filled with the same smell as the doctor's house.
"What's this stink?" I demanded to know as I opened the kitchen door. My aunts were busy in the kitchen. One of them pointed to a large pot.
"That's your medicine," she said.
I opened the lid, and my aunt immediately started shouting at me.
"You're meant to let it boil with the lid on! Now go out and play with your cousins!"
I ran off, but I had glimpsed a sodden rough cloth in the water, with bits of branches of herbs sticking out. I came back after a while to find my aunts squeezing the two ends of the cloth bundle by turning it in opposite directions. From the steaming middle of the cloth seeped out a hot brown liquid which was collecting in a bowl. The bitter, sour smell was still lingering in the kitchen.
"What's that?" I asked.
"This is what you're meant to drink," my aunt said. I immediately started wailing, "I don't want that! I'm not going to drink it!", and I ran off to hide. I couldn't hide forever though. At some point I had to have dinner. So I ended up having the whole bowlful of medicine after dinner (I couldn't run away fast enough, and my grandfather shamed me into having it by pointing out that my younger cousins would drink it without crying).

After that, every time I have been 'run down', 'looking pale', 'looking yellow', 'looking dark', my mother made me accompany her to the local herb doctor to get diagnosed and have herbal medicine made. It was almost as certain as the Pope being Catholic: if I was unwell or my complexion looked vaguely unfavourable I was sent off to the Herb Doctor. I don't know if it made me any better, I just assume it must have done. In any event, if I tried to refuse drinking it, my parents would send me on a guilt trip - "Do you know how much this medicine costs?" "Do you realise you are very lucky to have medicine like this?" and so forth and so on.

One of the great things about going back to live in England was that there were no herb doctors there that my mother trusted. So I had a relatively drug-free existence for most of my young adulthood. Indeed, I thought I was rid of herbal concoctions forever, and for the most part I was, until this March. I went to visit my parents in Seoul and my mother uttered those magic words - "I think your complexion is very dark. You must be exhausted. You need to replenish your energy."
At the beginning of April, a tin box full of plastic pouches containing brown liquid was delivered to my office, together with the toothbrush and alarm clock I'd left at my parents' house by mistake. Herbal medicine has undergone a modernisation so the doctors nowadays prepare and pack the medicine for you, instead of giving you white envelopes of herbs that you have to boil and squeeze out yourself. My mother tried to be accommodating. She knows how much I hate to have the medicine, and she realised there was a good chance of rebellion on account of her having had the medicine made up this time without even telling me (she had to have it made based on my diagnosis from November last year. I had refused to have it made then).
"You don't need to have them three times a day. Try to have at least two a day," she said when she called.

Sometimes, you just have to give up. As they say, 'if you can't win them, join them', you know? I mean, I'm looking at my thirties and she still makes me take this stuff. Chinese Sad Associate faithfully digs out a pouch from the tin box in my office every morning when she comes in to say hello. If she sees me in the afternoon, she asks me if I've taken my medicine. I take a few pouches home to have over the weekend. This morning, I spilled some on my chair. The smell was so awful I had to have a new chair. I still have seventeen to go. I'm going to take my lunchtime one now. Eurgh.