During my Winter stays in Beijing some years ago, I spent hundreds of hours in the National Library of China and found so many wonderful books therе, taking lots of notes, which now I find useful for my books and seminars. For example, 《食物志》 mentions the virtues 德 of the bitter gourd: it never transfers its bitter taste to the other components of the dish. No matter how you cook it - with tofu or other vegies, it never makes them bitter. And thats a virtue - never to spread your sorrow to the others; keep the bitter taste of life to yourself and transform it into something positive. 《食物志》里记载：“苦瓜，一名君子菜，味甚苦。然杂物煮之，他物不苦，自苦而不以苦人，有君子之德。” Photo of bitter gourd, shared from Victor Yue
Posted on: Mon, 18 Aug 2014 17:07:47 +0000