Snake!

In my previous post, I wrote a long detailed story of how I ended up getting vaccinated against Shingles. Do you know that us Chinese call Shingles, snake? When I was young, I remembered someone in my village contracting snake. I forgot who it was, probably one of my relatives. It sounded very scary and for quite a long time, I feared that I would contract the snake disease. I wished someone had educated me then!

Why is Shingles called snake disease? There is a myth that the ring of Shingles (which resembles a snake) will cause death to the victim when the head meets the tail; possibly by suffocation? The way to avoid death is to prevent the snake's head from meeting the tail. Some traditional sinseh use incense/joss-stick to burn the snake's eye to blind it. Others use a needle. I believe in modern Singapore, there are still people who seek traditional treatment for Shingles. Others might want to play safe and get both a doctor's and a sinseh's treatment.

For me, I cannot imagine allowing myself to be burned by incense/joss-stick.

Still on the subject of snakes. Have you eaten snakes? In Singapore, it's quite common to eat snake. Actually, I don't mean it literally. In Singlish, to eat snake means to skive. I have skived plenty of times in my life. Speaking of eating snakes literally, I can't even.

Tomorrow I'll show you a book necklace I made today.