Month: June 2026
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The Heavenly Steed
More than two millennia ago, the Han people knew of the Horse of Heaven from far to the west of China. It came from Ta Yuan, ancient Ferghana, the Chinese equivalent for a local name for Greeks or Ionians, “Yavan”, which was described by Zhang Qian, China’s pioneer in Western Asia, as a land where…
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The Silk Road
It is said that almost five thousand years ago, while sitting in the shade of a mulberry tree in her garden, the Empress Hsi Ling-Shi found a fallen cocoon in her teacup. The cocoon softened in the hot tea and unraveled into a long, lustrous thread, thus beginning the invention of the silk loom and…
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The Papaya
Among my favorite memories of the Big Island of Hawaii is late afternoon at the beach, of a baby girl being fed by her mother spoonfuls of papaya, its flesh glowing a deep orange as the sunset over the ocean’s horizon. The mango may be the tourist’s beloved fruit, but the papaya is undoubtedly the…
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A Banana Forest
The scientific name for the banana is Musa Sapentium, or the “wise fruit,” which was given by the Swedish scientist Carolus Linnaeus in 1750. The word “musa” derives from “mauz”, the Arabic word for fruit, and “sapentium” is Latin derived to mean wise. The green banana, or plantain, was then called Musa Paradisiaca, “the fruit…
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