Hi! I'm Yuen Seo and I'm the 23rd Generation of the Seo's  family lineage. My interest in TCM started when I was a little kid. I would observe daily string of patients coming for consultation. Being curious and intrigue by the daily presence of old and young patients, I would observed with curiosity and keen interest on the patients who awaits treatments.

It is also a common sight in the olden days for patients to bring token gifts such as chickens, ducks, fruits etc as an appreciation for curing their illness and again my little mind would unfold the drama where my dad would be the super hero after completing his mission and as usual, the story ends with everyone living happily ever after. It was later in my life that I came to understand that Chinese Physicians and the great militarist legend, Sun Tze applies similar doctrine in their quest for successful mission as both of them are Military Strategist where one deploy his human army to its maximum attacking gain while the other deploy herbs into the body en route on a mission to cure. Back in the olden days, everything was done manually. I still remember helping my parents to grind medicines using the grinder shaped like a boat as shown below. A wooden rod is locked in-between the solid iron disc which has its edge sharpen. I had to rest my feet firmly secured on the wooden rod and to roll the iron disc using both feet. To add weight so as to crush the medicines, I had to stand on both feet on the wooden rod balancing myself on top of it. It was real hard work and this 'exercise' gave us the extra thick layer of skin on our sole and strengthen our leg muscle.

When our order of herbs arrives, we had to use the giant cutter to cut the herbs such as 車前草 into shorter pieces. To ensure a clean cut, the giant cutter shown below has to be sharpen every now and then to make clean cut as well as to reduce pressure on our arms.

To cut high-end herbs such as Panax Ginseng - 泡參 , we had to use the smaller version which is a quarter size of the above Giant cutter as shown below. Prior to the introduction of this small cutter, we had to use 'Butcher' chopping knife (as shown below next to the small cutter) which is slow and dangerous as we have to slice the ginseng to smaller pieces as thin as a piece of paper!

With the introduction of machines, cutting herbal roots  is just a breeze as it is fast, thickness and thinness can be adjusted and cutting a kilogram of ginseng roots takes less than 3 minutes compared to an hour's manual cutting.

Another difficult and dangerous task is the slicing of root such as 'mountain roots' - 淮 山 as shown below and 'Baizi'. Before the roots can be sliced, it is soaked overnight in water and the following day, it is steam hot until soft. While still steaming hot, it is then place on top of the slicing tool and using our palm, we apply pressure on top of the roots and push it towards the sharp blade which will slice the roots as accordingly to the thickness or thinness that is required. Not only do we have to endure the heat, we have to take the risk of not getting the skin under our palm shaved off!

Besides cutting herbs, another arduous job is grinding the pearls into powder. Using the pearl grinder which is made of harden refine ceramic as shown below (on the right), we had to pound the pearls which is as hard as a granite into smaller pieces. Once it is broken into smaller pieces, this is where the arduous work of grinding comes in. To grind, we have to hold the grinder rod and apply pressure grinding the pearl in a circular motion for about 5 hours non-stop! The grinder on the bottom left is made up of solid copper which is used to break down nuts, fruits etc.

Anyway, our lives were made easier with the introduction of the electronic grinder as shown below.

This electronic grinder can break down dried herbs to powder within minutes. Jobs that normally takes us a day to do only takes a couple of minutes.

At the end of the day, our accounting system relies on the faithful abacus as shown below:

The abacus can do many mathematical function such as addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. The figures can be as large as 1,000,000,000 and units can be as small as 0.01. An expert can solve the dauntless task and its been proven that an abacus expert has won a competition challenged by a person using a computer to solve a given mathematical calculation. 

Well, besides tools and herbs, I do believe the Chinese also practice many forms of cultures, religions, beliefs and to find out how they link them all together like a puzzle, this understanding eventually leads me to design this website for readers who are curious to understand not only Traditional Chinese Medicines but also Chinese Cultures, Beliefs, Religions, Superstitions, Feng Shui, Partner's Compatibility, Animal Zodiac Sign and  so on to present readers an "All In One Website". All articles presented to readers are true events and photos are genuine. From time to time, I will continue to load facts, photos, pictures and stories so that readers and the generations that follows shall continue to benefit from the articles as presented before you.

 

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