After the Mountain

When you sign up for tourist groups here in China, at the end of the trip they take you to different places where you can buy things. At each place, you go into a room and listen to them tell you all about their products, then you can buy them if you want. Kinda like being in an infomercial. We were taken to three different spots: one about tea, one about snake medicine, and one about bamboo. The first and the last were kinda boring but the snake medicine was right up my alley!

The use of snakes in medicine has been going on in Chinese culture since 100 A.D. They use it for everything; skin issues, eye problems, bladder problems, cancer, you name it. Using snakes in medicine in the USA has pretty much been eliminated due to restrictions by the FDA and some endangered species. Most likely you'll only find it by a doctor in Chinatown.

Ever seen a snakes penis??? Well, now you have!

There are many different preparations of snake medicine from pills to balms to alcohol. The snakes are placed in alcohol to preserve them and let them slowly be infused. From left to right: just snake alcohol, wild mushrooms and snake penis(used for hair loss, insomnia, and erectile dysfunction), snake venom(used to kill other poisons in your body) and the last two were just different snakes in alcohol. I tried the one with the snake poison in it. It was cool at first, then I could feel the warmth in my throat and chest. Pretty cool stuff!