One of our side tours was to the Yuhu village. This is where Joseph Rock lived for 15 or so years. Dr. Rock was a botanist, translator, and photographer. Sponsored by the National Geographic Society, he sent many different Chinese plants and seeds back to Europe and the US. Unfortunately, a lot of his research was lost when he was forced to leave China around the time of WWII. The ship he sent his research on was sunk by the Japanese.
At the Bai Sha village, Tom encouraged us to visit with Dr. Ho. Tom wouldn’t go in with us but kept telling us 5 minutes - no more than 5 minutes and don’t drink the tea. We ended having to ignore him on both suggestions. When we got inside the dark and cluttered office it was obvious why he kept emphasizing the 5 minutes. Pictured above, Dr. Ho is an 83 year old Chinese Herbal Medicine doctor and a very unique and colorful character. He announced that he was “The Most Admired Man” as he proceeded to give a 20 minute speech on his great accomplishments and accolades while presenting us with a cup of muddy looking, nasty tasting ‘medicinal’ tea. We were also proudly shown newspaper articles and letters that all supported his “The Most Admired Man” status. We were finally able to extricate ourselves after 20 minutes AND after drinking his tea AND paying 20 Yuan for a package of the nasty stuff. He was good, really good – I didn’t know what hit me – maybe it was something in the tea.
At one of these villages we saw lots of strange money littering the road. I turned out that it was tossed by mourners that were following a funeral procession up the mountain. This is so the dead will be rich in the afterlife.
