Pregnancy and Mien Dream Interpretation - a True Story

Linda, who works at East Earth Trade Winds, is of Mien descent and often tells me about Mien culture - which I find very interesting. I wish I wrote down all the things she has told to me about Mien culture. It would be a very interesting book covering topics such as marriage ceremonies, family relationships, shamans, funeral ceremonies, feng shui, cooking, and life of the Mien before they migrated as refugee's to the USA.

One thing we talk about sometimes is dreams. The Mien have their own ways to interpret them. There's good dreams and bad dreams. All have meaning. Last Friday morning it was quiet in the office for a while and I told Linda I had a funny dream the night before. I was down the street from where I live at a neighbors and doing some yardwork by their fence. I had to climb up a ladder that was against the fence and while on the ladder noticed a fruit tree with branches hanging over on the side I was on. There was some fruit on it and I picked three pieces. I'm not sure what type of fruit it was but it was small, brown, and fig-like. Before I could go on with my dream Linda exclaimed "Your daughter's pregnant!" I asked her why she said that and she explained that dreaming of fruit means a pregnancy in the family. She said if my daughter wasn't pregnant then my son's girlfriend was. She told me both her mother and mother-in-law dreamed of picking fruit and asked her if she was pregnant - which she denied. A month later she found out she was pregnant.

My daughter lives in Hawaii with her husband and I talk to her every 4-6 weeks. She's been married about two years. She's never mentioned anything about wanting children before and I've never broached the subject figuring that's their own business. I told Linda I wasn't sure if I should ask. Linda told me to wait two weeks and then call her.

Three days later on Sunday my daughter calls. "Hi Dad!" she says and before she can say another word I asked if she was pregnant. With a puzzled voice she replied "How did you know?" I told her about my dream and Linda's interpretation of it. I was surprised and pleased that the dream was true. My daughter was surprised also. As for the fruit in the dream? Linda said the brown color means my daughter's child will be a boy.

After I finished talking to my daughter I texted Linda and told her she was right and that I was going to be a grandpa. She replied "I told you so!" and  "Congrats!".

I'm very happy for my daughter and son-in-law. I know they'll be happy with whatever sex the child is. I also need to pay more attention to my dreams.

May 17, 2014. My daughter gave birth to a beautiful, healthy boy in March. The dream interpretation proved true!

New Product Search Feature on eastearthtrade.com

East Earth Trade Winds has added the ability to Shop for products by Manufacturer on their website. This new search function is found on the left hand side of the screen below the "search" function.
This enhances your ability to find the products you want by quickly browsing  a manufacturer's product line.
See: www.eastearthtrade.com

A visit to Bruce Lee's Grave

People may or may not know that Bruce Lee is buried in Seattle, Washington. Recently while in Seattle I had the opportunity to pay my respects. It was a beautiful day. I was visiting an old friend of mine and luckily he knew exactly how to get to the graveyard. We arrived there shortly before the cemetery closed for the night. The sun was setting behind the grave stone so the first picture is a little washed out. 

There is a bench facing the grave with an inscription from Bruce Lee's wife Linda Lee and his daughter Shannon.

Bruce Lee's son, Brandon Lee, is buried next to his father. Both died at a young age. Below are the graves of Bruce and Brandon Lee.

Last year while in Hong Kong I went to visit Bruce Lee's martial art instructor's (Ip Man) grave. There is another posting on this blog about that here: A Visit to Ip Man's Grave

Miami Heat Chris Andersen Chinese character Tattoo

I'm don't follow basketball but when I see a tattoo of a Chinese word I like to know what it means. This photo of Miami Heat basketball player Chris Andersen appeared in our local paper. The tattoo on the inside of his right arm is very visible (as are all the rest of his tattoo's).

The tattoo didn't look right to me and I couldn't find it in my Chinese-English Dictionary. Here's a close up of the tattoo:

Fortunately a Chinese friend recognized it and told me what it was supposed to be. It is the Chinese word "e" which means "evil"*. After learning what the character was I looked it up. Here's a picture of the correct character from my dictionary. The first character on the left is the simplified character. The one in parenthesis is the traditional character. In either case, the top part of the character looks a lot different than the top part of Chris Andersen's tattoo.

The majority of people will never know the difference but just like misspelled words don't appear in English dictionaries there is no Chinese character such a the one on his arm to be found in a Chinese dictionary.

 The moral to this story is to be very careful if you are going to get a Chinese character (or any foreign language word) tattooed on your body.

___________
*Apparently he has the Chinese word for good (hao) on the other arm.

Google reverses site suspension for East Earth Trade Winds

After weeks of having our site suspended from Google Adwords we are now allowed to advertise again. Google had suspended us for advertising items such as Epimedium, Pe Min Kan Wan, and Flu Away - all products which are legal to import and sell. In the case of Epimedium and Pe Min Kan Wan we have carried these since our inception in 1985. We have carried Flu Away since it was first introduced about 13 years ago.

One of our main complaints was that while our site was suspended from the Adwords advertising program our competitors, including giants, like Amazon, were allowed to sell the exact same products. In our opinion it is unlikely that Google would suspend Amazon from their Adwords program seeing that Amazon must spend millions each week with Google Adwords. In any case, this was an unfair trade restriction. If Google is going to enforce a policy then they should enforce it across the board and level the playing field for all businesses.

While we appreciate being allowed to continue our advertising again we still would like to see Google change their policies regarding banning legal Chinese herb products. We'll be using Yahoo and Bing for our searches now. We hope you do also.

Google Shopping bans Yin Yang Sister's Flu Away

If you've been on Google and want to buy something one easy way to do it is to search for the item you want then select the "Shopping" tab. Merchants submit a "feed" of their products to Google for this service. It doesn't cost the Merchant anything to do this but it is a good way for the Merchant to advertise their products and good for the Consumer to compare prices and services.

Recently we found that Google Shopping is also into banning products. In this case, East Earth Trade Winds found out the Yin Yang Sisters brand "Flu Away"* is not allowed to be in their data feed for products to be listed on Google Shopping. In fact, none of their products can be listed until this product is removed. Surprised? Maybe you shouldn't be. Google Policy-Censors have banned "Epimedium" and "Pe Min Kan Wan" (see previous posts).

Here's a email from the Google shopping team dated 4/15/13 (bold and underlining mine):

"Hello,
Your account was suspended for advertising and selling Flu Away by making problematic claims such as "This easy-to-use formula contains powerful Chinese herbs for fever, upset stomach and sore throat. This product would likely be considered an unapproved drug by applicable regulatory authorities.

Below is the list of items in your account that are currently violating our policies. Please ensure you're not submitting these items.

Once you've submitted your feeds after removing these, we would be happy to review your account again.

The Items are: Flu Away

Sincerely,

The Google Shopping Team"

 After removing what I thought were the "claims" and changing the questionable line to read "This easy-to-use formula contains powerful Chinese herbs in a convenient instant beverage that you can easily take with you." We found this wasn't good enough. The Google Shopping Team told us the product had to be removed (bold and underlining mine):

"Hello,
Please check your data feed again. Your item 'Flu Away' is still listed in the data feed. We would not be able to review your account unless this item and the similar ones gets removed.

Sincerely,

The Google Shopping Team"

As I pointed out in previous posts Google itself doesn't like to be censored by countries like China but they don't seem to mind censoring what the American public can view or sell. I suggest that people Boycott  the Google search engine. If you are involved in Oriental herbs, the health food field, or just a consumer please pass this information around so that people know that Google Policy-Censors are opposed to Chinese herb products.

_____
*(Flu Away was developed by Author and Acupuncturist Letha Hadady. It contains: honeysuckle, schizonepeta, ligusticum, burdock, forsythia, peppermint, vitex, and licorice.)

Google's War On Chinese Herbs: Epimedium Banned

Google's Policy-Makers seem to have declared war on Chinese Herbs and the supplement/health food industry. East Earth Trade Winds had its Google Adword account suspended in early April, 2013 for advertising violations. What violations? One was having the word "Pe Min Kan Wan" listed on the website (See earlier posting). The other violation? Having the word "Epimedium" on the website, I'm told, is also a violation of their policies. "Epimedium" is short for the botanical name Herba Epimedium Sagittatum (Chinese: Yin Yang Huo 淫羊藿) and is a commonly used herb in Chinese herbal medicine. Epimedium tonifies the Kidneys, fortifies the yin and yang, and is good for pain in the joints and because it is a Yang Tonifying herb it also can be used in formulas for reproductive problems.

This seems preposterous to me. How can you ban the name of a plant that is not only commonly sold in Chinese medicine but legal to import and use?

I pointed out to the Support Rep that the word "Epimedium" was not on the Google Hit List of banned terms.

The response was (bold and underlining mine):

"Unfortunately those list (sic) are not comprehensive. You will have to take my word that you are not allowed to advertise for herbs such as Epimedium, and because the policy for healthcare terms changes so often there is not another list that I am able to send. However, please check the list and make the necessary changes and let me know when that has been completed, so I may continue to chat with our policy team.

Best,
T. R. "

Sounds like "Catch-22" T.R.

Another word I believe I could substitute for "Banning" is "Censoring" as in the Google Censors have determined that the Chinese products "Epimedium" and "Pe Min Kan Wan" are not fit for Chinese Herb Stores or Health Food Stores to advertise or sell. They will suspend your advertising account if you are found to advertise these products unless of course you're a major Google Adword Player like Amazon (search for "epimedium" in Google and an ad for Epimedium Extracts at Amazon.com will come up).

Censoring is an interesting term. If you remember it wasn't that long ago that Google pulled out of China because they didn't want their search results censored... but in the USA they seem to have no qualms about censoring and controlling what US businessmen and women may advertise and sell.

Google's done a lot of really cool stuff with the internet but as in my last posting I would like to encourage you to Boycott Google and use Yahoo, Bing, or any other search engine instead.

Stay tuned. I'm sure there's more to surprises to come.