Close Encounters Of The Detestable Kind

I remember when we were kids, one day my cousin was taking a bath and suddenly she let out a terrifying primordial scream and the door crashed open and out dashed she in her birthday suit — all because of one roach that crawled out of the drainage hole and started to fly…….

OMR – Oh My Roach!

Actually cockroaches can be used for medicinal purposes. In my very young days, when kids sometimes got a boil (bisul) on their bodies, the parents would go and catch a cockroach, twist its head off (but leaving its entrails stuck to the head) and then apply the entrails onto the sides  of the boil.

Within minutes, the entrails would become bloated, and the swelling and redness around the boil would be alleviated. That was another kind of TCM (Traditional Cockroach Medicine).

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Can’t Beat Them, Eat Them !

Please fasten your seat belts and get ready to puke !

Mice and rats are prolific breeders and have since time immemorial been the bane of human kind. They compete voraciously with us for food and also they spread many diseases.

So how to beat them ?  My dad told me that in his youth days, people used to hunt for freshly-born baby rodents (less than a day old or so) and then eat them alive, just like that, or else dipped in a sauce or wrapped with a large banana split.

Folklore maintained that those pinkish, hairless and blind newborns “were effective for treatment of asthma and a good general tonic for the human body”.

I learned that in China, this practice of “pest control” is still popular.  Anyone else game for this squeaky “delight”?

Siamese Marching Powder ??

No kidding !  That’s the Chinese description – 行軍散 – (as per my limited Chinese prowess).   Yes, the 5-Pagoda Medicinal Powder that has been trusted for generations for ailments of the alimentary system.

But why was it called such ?  Perhaps because it did an awesome job in giving the Marching Orders to whatever goblins inside us that were causing the tummy to bloat, or the guts to flush like a monsoon drain.

For old-timers, it was like magic silver bullets (just look at the small aluminum canisters).  Just one canister of that minty brown powder was all it took to restore peace and order.

Alas, these days this stuff is shunned – even banned in some countries – in favor of modern chemical weapons.