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Chinese concoction to the rescue
http://www.sina.com.cn 2003/04/15 11:43  Shanghai Daily

  Customers squeezed between boxes of dried lily bulb and motherwort herb and pulled packets of wild guava tea and royal jelly off shelves, as Jean Lam worked the abacus on the counter of her Chinese herb shop.

  The clack of abacus beads calculating sales has grown more frenetic and the store more cramped in the past two weeks, after word spread through Sydney's Chinatown that Lam was selling a potent herbal deterrent to the killer flu-like virus, SARS.

  As Lam racked up sales yesterday, her husband Lam Hawk Yun bunched leaves onto a white square of paper then tied them up with elastic.

  Emblazoned with Chinese characters, each package contains an aromatic blend of nine different herbs the Lams' clientele believes will ward off severe acute respiratory syndrome, the new virus that has claimed more than 140 lives worldwide.

  Lam doesn't know if the concoction works, but her customers swear by it.

  "They came in saying that everyone was taking it in Hong Kong in Guangzhou," Lam said. referring to the Guangdong provincial capital in southern China.

  "I just know it's good for your liver, it cleans your liver and cleans your lungs," she said, standing in front of a wall of shelves bulging with jars of dried products, including sea horses, black fungus and crocodile meat.

  Her Chinese customers first began asking for the potion two weeks ago, after it was discussed on a Chinese radio program in Sydney.

  Although no SARS cases have been reported in Australia, customers kept coming in with the list of nine ingredients so she now has them pre-mixed and wrapped. She has been selling up to 100 packages a day at A (US.80) each, she said.

  That number could rise after the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper carried a story about the store yesterday.

  The ingredients are all imported from China, their Cantonese names translatedsintosbotanical terms like forsythia, prunella and coix.

  Australians and other nationalities have only caught on in recent days.




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