lunula Recently I have found three of my fingers start to grow lunula. I am happy because before I had none. I took a look at the relationship between lunula and health. It is said having 7-8 lunulas is best, less this number means sub-health situation. Totally zero means body quality is cold, slow blood circulation,low immunity and easily to be tired. The size of lunula if less than 1/5 of nail means your body don’t have enough energy and poor digestion and absorption. So how many do you have?

Mouse Ear Grass This plant is popular in my hometown. When spring comes, it can be found everywhere. It's very easy to be recognized because it is hairy. I was told by my mother to call it ‘qing (pin yin)’. We picked it to make a green traditional food which is made by this plant, flour and any other things you would like. I had no doubt about its name until recently a Japanese gave me 7 traditional edible plants‘ names in spring! Wow, it is called the Mouse Ear Grass,because the hairy new born leave looks like a mouse ear! How cute!

Rice Cake 2 weeks ago, Uncle Di came to Hangzhou to do business and brought a lot of farm fresh food for my family. One big surprise was my parents,my brother and I got a meter high bag of rice cakes called ‘Nian Gao’ and a bag of ‘Mochi’. The difference between ‘Nian Gao’ and ‘Mochi’ is that ‘Nian Gao’ is made of uncooked rice powder and ‘Mochi’ is made of cooked sticky rice. My mother said she would be much happier if we shared just one bag of rice cakes. As I didn’t know how to store rice cakes, my mother instructed me to soak them in cold water after five days. However it seemed like she forgot to ask how long ago my uncle had bought them. All the Mochi had become mouldy. The mould was colorful, I could see several colors:black, yellow, dark blue and red. What a pity I had to throw them away. After work, my husband saw them in the rubbish bin and said ‘In his hometown, such kind of mochi is edible’, which left me dumbfounding. Lucky Niao Gao didn’t go bad. I soaked them in cold water and change water every 2 days to keep them fresh.It is said in this way, Niao Gao can last 4-5 months without refrigeration.

My lotus Last Spring I got some lotus seeds from mother in law. In her hometown, people grow lotus to get its seed. I carefully cut one seed open by a saw. It was quite dangerous because the shell of seed was round and hard，I almost cut my finger. I put the seed into a bottle of water，few days later it grew out some roots. Then I transferred it into a big bowl with some water and mud. Later it grew out green leaves whose size was much smaller than those grew in a lake. Also it didn't flower last year. This summer we see it flowering unexpectedly. it holds its leaves gracefully up around its blossoms.Top of pedals are red looks like a girl vanish her nails.

what's the meaning of intense and concentrated here？ Peppermint oil is very intense and is far more concentrated than most other steam distilled essential oils. (I got a bottle of peppermint oil，trying to understand it's use,hehe.)

My uncle's story My uncle in law is a small manufacturer. He has been in trouble these days. His Judean customer wants to reduce more than 30,000USD from current order which costs about 450,000USD, as a compensation of quality problem of last order. Actually the complaint of last order is not confirmed yet：The Judean customer even couldn't send back the faulty samples！He showed my uncle a testing report and said the lab took the faulty sample so that he didn't have it. My uncle's items are already at the port of USA. He didn't charge any deposit of the customer.I asked my uncle why he didn't charge deposit as it was too risky. He replied that there was no other choice and the company had to survive. That Judean customer refused my uncle's proposal of giving him best price and priority in the future which could immediately reduce 2000USD in the coming order. Since the return fee of those items at port will be more than 10,000USD，I guess this is the figure of money that the Judean customer wants to get. Tonight, my uncle told me many times that it was really hard to do business.

Silk stories Silk stories Chinese people have raised silk worms for more than 6,000 years Based on archaeological discovery. One silk butterfly can lay about 500 eggs and 500 silk worms will spin 1.8 square meters silk material. The first step to make silk cloth is to boil cocoons before silk moths could leave them. It is quite cruel! The next step is to find the end of a silk strand from a silk cocoon. It is said a skilled worker can find it real quickly. And then strands from several cocoons are twisted together to yield a thicker, stronger thread. Silk threads can be dyed with plant dyes or mineral dyes to weave silk cloths with varied colorful patterns. In Ancient time, only emperors and people from the upper class could wear silk clothes; but now, silk products are common in daily life. People can luxuriate in the sensuous feel of silk shirts, pajamas, skirts and scarves, etc.