Yunnan Province: Journey to Land of the Yaks
[ 2007-06-26 16:46 ]
After a good lunch in a small village, we went to see the legendary herbal
healer Dr. Ho. The man himself said hi to us, but not much else, as he is in his
80s and had seen two or three tour groups already that day. He wore a knit cap
and a dirty lab coat, and his office walls were lined with framed posters of
himself and old newspaper clippings where his name had been mentioned. His
extremely energetic son lectured us for at least 45 minutes on how many
accolades his father had received, how many famous people had been healed of
leukemia by him, and how many newspaper articles and TV programs he had been
featured in. The man apparently doesn't charge for his services, but everyone he
heals of cancer is just so gosh-darned grateful that they have donated enough
for him to build a massive museum for himself, featuring plaques with quotes
from patients thanking him and saying how wise he is. The museum was very large
and impressive. I was most amazed. For all these years, leukemia and lymphoma
have killed so many people, and so much money has been spent researching new
drugs and treating people with radiation and chemo-therapy, and the whole time,
the answer has been growing in a small herbal garden in a village outside of
Lijiang! What a pity that everyone with the disease doesn't know that the cure
for cancer is growing right in Dr. Ho's garden.
We also read a guest book where people could write notes to Dr. Ho. One man,
Steve from Arizona, thanked Dr. Ho for curing him of his homosexuality. I wasn't
aware that homosexuality was a disease, but apparently Dr. Ho has a cure for
that, too.
April 16: Today I biked around the city. I first went through the countryside
outside of the city, and saw two water buffalo roaming in farm fields. That's
not something I see everyday in Beijing. Later, I went through an older part of
the city that hadn't really been touched by tourism. I was the only Caucasian in
sight, and I got a lot of strange looks from the residents, surprisingly few of
whom wore traditional garments. Most were just going about their business, and
the scene reminded me of Shangri-La, with a number of machine and truck shops,
and small grocery stores and such. It seemed to me as if the people living here
either worked during the day in the old city, catering to tourists, or perhaps
they were just involved in different industries altogether, like construction or
trucking. It seemed to me that this section of town might actually be more
"authentic" than the old city section!
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