Where Shasha shops.

So this would be the spice market in Yarkand, Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, China, in October 2005. One of our group had a horrible cold, so we went inside and visited an elderly gentleman who had his shingle out as an apothecary (there was at least one in every market). He had a mortar and pestle made from a stick with a bulbous end and a long hollow wooden cylinder carved out of wood, which I think must have been a hollowed-out section of poplar, as it is the go-to wood in that region.
He listened attentively to the list of symptoms, held up a hand when he’d heard enough, and started sprinkling a pinch of this and a sprinkle of that into the wooden cylinder. He ground it up with the pestle and poured it into a little paper envelope, and handed it over to our sufferer with instructions to steep a healthy pinch in hot water morning and evening, and drink.
Worked like a charm.

Which I will be signing at 2pm on December 2nd
at the Poisoned Pen Bookstore in Scottsdale, Arizona.
Click here to pre-order.
Chatter By the Shores of the Middle Sea Everything Under the Heavens Silk and Song The Land Beyond
Right after reading your post above, PBS posted this link. It is amazing music. YoYo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble at Tanglewood. http://video.pbs.org/video/2365211861/
Dana, do you know when the 2nd book can be pre-ordered from the Poisoned Pen?