Talk about Dai medicine

With the popularity of the TV series "Let Me Understand Your Language", the miraculous effects of Dai medicine have aroused great interest among the audience.

Xishuangbanna is located in a tropical rain forest with a wide variety of plants. Different plants have different medicinal properties. When I was a child, I heard my mother say that in the mountains, wherever you sit on the ground, you will find at least three kinds of medicinal herbs.

My grandpa is a local herbalist, and it is said that it is a family tradition. My uncle and my mother both know some herbal medicine. When we were young, we had a headache and a fever, and my mother went outside to find a few handfuls of herbs and cured it. Sometimes my stomach hurts, and my mother can just massage it with her hands and it will be fine.

I remember when I was a child, every time we ate hot food at home, my mother would always go to the house in advance to pick a few golden bamboo leaves, wash them, soak them in boiling water and let us drink them, so that we would not get angry after drinking them. Sometimes when we get too hot after eating outside, my mother would help us “break down the heat” with massage, which is very useful.

My uncle has learned the most about family medicine. He wanders around the mountains all year round and finds many wonderful herbs and medicines. There are some medicines that even grandpa doesn’t recognize. I remember one time my uncle came back from a distant mountain and said excitedly that he had found a medicine that could cure serious illnesses. Asked him where he was, he wouldn't tell. The uncle said that if he said anything, he would be ruined by people outside.

How good is my uncle’s medical skills? Let me tell you something. Someone in a nearby village got a strange disease, which couldn't be cured in the hospital and was given a red card. The patient's family sent the patient to my uncle's house, and it took my uncle two months to cure him.

Maybe you will say that if your uncle can cure a serious illness, he must be rich. Then you are wrong. In the cottage, the purpose of treating diseases and saving people is not to make money. Every time he receives medical treatment, the patient himself pays freely. The strange disease that the uncle mentioned earlier was cured. After the patient recovered, he gave the uncle a kilogram of rice wine he baked himself.

We asked the uncle why he didn’t charge more. The uncle said that the medicine grew in the mountains, not by him. He just helped the mountain gods to use the medicine on the patients. It's a pity that my uncle passed away and now he has not passed down many medicines.

Nowadays, in order to make a living, the Dai doctors in the village will also charge some money, but compared to the Han doctors in the city, it is very cheap and the curative effect is very good. Sometimes it is still given to patients. Our custom is to give some money or things to the doctor, otherwise the disease will not be cured. Sometimes patients can give one yuan.

The year before last, I went to a Dai village to find a Dai doctor because of my cervical spondylosis. That Dai doctor, Lao Botao, was very good at bone setting. He cured many things that couldn't be cured in big hospitals.

Now I am waiting in line to sleep on Dai medicine. Sleeping Dai medicine dehumidifies, detoxifies and purifies the body. Taking the time to sleep in a few times a year can do wonders for your health.

Xishuangbanna folk medicine is really a treasure given by nature.