Boushing Ginseng & Tea

Ahhhh Chinatown. It’s one of those places where locals are nonchalant about and tourist flock to in awe of it. I never gave it much thought when we lived here since I’d drive there occasionally to purchase food and groceries. Usually, I just drive in, park, do what I had to do and then leave. I didn’t meander around, nor did I do the touristy thing. Hubby being a local naturally didn’t do that either while we lived there.
Things sure change when you move away though. When you come back it’s like you’re seeing your home city in a new light. It’s pathetic I know — hubby moreso — and in Chinatown, yes, we did the touristy thing. Hubby stood in the middle of the street to take photos and I actually took the time to browse stores instead of the usual go in, come out and be done with it.
I went into Bou Shing to look at what sort of herbs I could get my hands on to bring back to make soup with. As I entered, the gruff lady behind the counter started speaking English to me, but I quickly replied in Cantonese which caused her to suddenly break into banter. I asked her for this dried seafood I make soup with and she pointed me towards it, but then recommended this other stuff which, at 4x the price was no joke. I looked at it and decided that I wanted both. After all, there’s no place like Chinatown to get this sort of stuff and it’s prime stuff.
As the gruff lady sees I’m buying stuff, she starts throwing more things my way. She’s trying to sell me cordyceps which I don’t need. She shows me a box of it and tells me it’s only 100 bucks. Yes, cordyceps are very expensive stuff and on a recent episode of Bizarre Foods I saw Andrew Zimmern pick up some for more than 1000 bucks in Taiwan.
No thanks I say. So what does she do? She picks up a packet in plastic and goes «this one is 60 bucks». Ahhh yes, the Chinese … always the entrepreneur. I said «maybe next time» and she replies «if you buy today I’ll give you a good price». Never take no for an answer, that’s the Chinese entrepreneurial way. I repeated again «next time».
Hubby thought we were arguing just by the way we were bantering, but hey, I’ve missed this. In Irvine, all you get is Mandarin and speaking Mandarin is no where nearly as much fun as speaking Cantonese.
So, I walked out of Bou Shing pretty happy. The thing is, this place has an impressive array of ginseng and that’s what they specialize in. However, as many stores go, they sell a bunch of dried foods in bulk and packaged. The store itself is like a fire trap, you can barely walk in and out, but this woman definitely has some good stuff in there. She is also an herbalist so you can fill your Chinese prescription in there too. And guess what? She shares my first name. Oh boy!