Buddha's-hand

Text by Guo Dan Translation by Sussi Yuan Illustration by Nan Fang

Buddha's-hand

Text by Guo Dan Translation by Sussi Yuan Illustration by Nan Fang

Kallen Guo

Senior filmmaker, socialite and bestselling author, authored Don't Fall in Love with Zurich, the winner of The Best Foreign Language Novel.

郭丹

資深影視人、名媛、暢銷書作家。代表作包括最佳外語小說獎獲得作品《別愛蘇黎世》等。

Recently my gum swells up a little bit. When I eat I can only use one side of my teeth to chew and I have to cover the swollen side by my hand. In traditional Chinese medical book, it says this is caused by the internal heat in the stomach. It is a folk saying, which also says that the internal heat in the heart will be refl ected on the corners of the mouth and the defi ciency of the kidney will cause acne on your jaw. My brother was brought up by my aunt. Every time he got a swollen gum, my aunt would ask him to drink salty water and take tablet of bezoar. But for me, I prefer food therapy like mung bean soup and eel porridge. Sliced-up chayote can also reduce the internal heat, and it has a high output. In the countryside, people use chayote to feed pigs.

這兩天有點牙齦腫。吃東西單邊嚼，腫痛得一邊手捂著。醫書上說是胃火重。上火，熱氣，都是民間俗語。而心火旺的，跑到嘴角，陰虛火旺，腎陰虛，則在下巴長痘。祁嬸子帶大的我哥哥，每逢他牙齦腫，祁嬸子就說喝鹽水蠻好，新簧片。但在我這里主要還是食療，綠豆湯、鱔糊。佛手瓜切片生吃也脆爽降火。佛手瓜別名多多：隼人瓜、安南瓜、壽瓜、葵瓜、虎兒瓜、云南叫洋絲瓜，產量賊高，農村喂豬。又叫徒兒瓜，勿曉得都是哪個地方的叫法。普通，不難見。

風俗器薄，不比佛手，指尖如鉤如爪，背大癢時，得此以爬意淫麻姑撓癢。肉乎乎外層果瓣攥緊小拳，也是它的一種賣相。紅樓夢里的賈探春擺盤用的是佛手，劉姥姥家的板兒要玩。汪曾祺說，賣果子的葉三專給大宅門送果子，佛手、香櫞，人家買去，配架裝盤，書齋清供，聞香觀賞。而佛手瓜則少有人看得上眼。

Unlike chayote, the Buddha's hand looks like a hand or a claw. When my back itches, I will use it and pretend that someone is tickling for me. Sometimes its appearance is similar to a plump fi st. In the Chinese novel A Dream of Red Mansions, Tanchun used it as a garnish in the plate and a kid treated it as a toy. The Chinese writer Wang Zengqi once wrote, the wealthy families would buy fruits, Buddha's hand and citron as decorations in their studies. But chayote was not lucky enough to be their choice.