14/01/2019

It was in the afternoon of the New Year’s Eve, 31st December 2018, a single digit C of winter temperature in Tokyo. As travellers, we felt to chill out again at the Tsutaya book store in Daikanyama, a quaint area within the district of Ebisu of the big city of Tokyo that we have always enjoyed going there.

Tsutaya is a huge book store chain in Japan. Only this particular store that I know sells English and foreign language books/magazines. We can also have tea and meals there. At first, I was disappointed that I couldn’t find anything in Chinese. But in the cookbook area, I saw the prominent four Chinese Characters that read as 药食同原 as a particular section, and immediately I knew that I had found my treasure.

It’s not a big section, all the books up on the shelf are in Japanese, even photos of authors are Europeans on the covers, the contents are all in Japanese. Fortunately, I do have limited Japanese resources both in words and speaks. I was hoping to find some books that are translated from the Chinese just because of the concept of 药食同原(Yào shí tóng yuán) was originated from China, but in vain.

药食同原 actually and literally shall read as  药食同源  (Yào shí tóng yuán), and the Google translation is ” Drug-Food Homology.” It’s a profound concept that has budded from the teaching of the Huángdì Nèijīng (chin. 黄帝内經) thousands of years ago to focus on our health and wellbeings through what we eat. Finally, in 618 to 907, 《黄帝内经太素》 (Huángdì nèijīng tài sù) is the more comprehensive literature on the subject matter.

It says in the book that 书中写道：“空腹食之为食物，患者食之为药物” (Kōngfù shí zhī wèi shíwù, huànzhě shí zhī wèi yàowù), which means that when you eat it with an empty stomach is Food; food prepared explicitly for people who are sick are drugs. From detoxication, food preparation, processing and the information on properties of all the seasonings… I was once obsessed wanting to learn more about it, but if it is not a TCM PhD study is definitely a postgraduate education.

Therefore, I can only settle my heart with a few copies of the cookbooks to bring home with. At first, the printings of the books are not only pleasing to my eyes, but I am open to trying some receipts that are new to me. In reflection, as now more people are health conscious than before and also convicted that we are what we eat. But why we have many weight-watchers had a hard time or discipline to keep their diets?

Personally, I gained a few pounds during my stay in Tokyo, if it was not my New Year’s resolution, I need to do something about it to refit to my fairly new wardrobe. An incentive, and also thought in contemplation, what if I can think of a way that I can eat whatever ( not whatever amount of it) I like and wouldn’t have to worry about my weight? I am sure that I can gain a few insights if I spend the time to flip through the book on what and how I shall eat. Until then.

I Corinthians 6:13a New American Standard 1977 

You say “Food is for the stomach, and the stomach is for food, but God will do away with both of them. Yet the body is not for immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord is for the body.”