Malaysian Post

From the NST today

Netting whopper of a grouper

A smiling Tan Eng Thiam (far left) posing with the giant catch. They netted the grouper while fishing in the Straits of Malacca coast near Sembilan island.

TELUK INTAN: Their dragnet felt extremely heavy but the three fishermen from Hutan Melintang did not think a live 183kg grouper fish was their big catch.

Fisherman Tan Eng Thiam, 45, said the incident happened about 11am yesterday when they were fishing in the Straits of Malacca coast near Sembilan island.

Tan said the machine lifting the dragnet to the fishermen’s boat experienced technical difficulties due to the heavy catch.

He said it was common for the machine to experience difficulties when the drag net got stuck on logs at the bottom of the sea.

“However we were stunned to find what we thought were logs was actually a giant grouper fish that was still alive,” said Tan.

The 2.1-metre-long fish was brought back to the beach near Hutan Melintang. They first sold the fish to a middle-man who later sold it to a restaurant operator for RM5,500.Before yesterday’s big catch, the heaviest grouper fish caught weighed 163kg.

Found the trail made by a snail in my garden and managed to snap a few shots.

Quite educational to see the trail made by this slow creature. The constant changing of direction reminded me of the way a drunkard walk. For this snail it is going to be a long and winding road…….

Finally, we found out the human appendix has an important function, after all!

Your Health: A not-so-useless appendage

Dr Rajen M.

The appendix could be a vital part of our secondary immune system, according to scientists.

Scientists have finally figured out how your seemingly useless appendix works. It is a “safe warehouse” for those good germs working in your gut.

Indeed, your appendix could be a vital part of your secondary immune system as it could contain immune system tissue.

That is what surgeons and immunologists from the world famous Duke Medical School published online in the scientific journal, The Journal of Theoretical Biology early last month.

For generations, the appendix was dismissed as a useless part of the body. We thought it had no function.

Worse still, it could get infected and inflamed. This could cause lots of problems, including death if not removed in time. Indeed, surgeons removed it routinely.

According to the Centre for Diseases Control, 321,000 Americans were hospitalised with appendicitis in 2005. About 300 to 400 Americans die of appendicitis every year.There are a large number of germs in your gut , about two to three kilogrammes in dry weight. There are 400 different types present there. Indeed, there are more bacteria in your gut than there is in the entire human body.We do not quite know what these germs do. Indeed, not all have been characterised. They are a mix of the good, bad and neutral germs.The good bacteria help you digest your food, break down toxic substances that arise from digestion and produce lactic acids as well as other anti-bacterial substances that keep the bad bugs at bay.The function of the appendix seems to be related to this massive amount of bacteria populating the human digestive system.There are times when the bacteria in the intestine are killed off or purged. Diseases like diarrhoea, cholera or amoebic dysentery would get rid of much of these good bacteria.Similarly, taking water with chorine, antibiotics-tainted meat or going on a course of antibiotics would kill of many of these beneficial bacteria.The appendix’s job is to re-boot the digestive system if this does happen. The appendix would act as a “good safe house for bacteria” wrote Bill Parker, Duke’s Professor of Surgery, a co-author of the study.The location of the appendix — just below the one way flow of food and germs in the large intestine in a sort of cul-de-sac — helps support the theory. It also has a worm like shape. This acts like a “bacterial underground bunker” cultivating the good germs for the rest of the gut.In modern times this is less important, as you can replace the dying good germs with food and supplements. However, in the past, it was not so easy to repopulate the gut with good bacteria. Thus, the appendix came in really handy.

Indeed, in less developed countries, where the appendix is more useful, the rates of appendicitis are much lower as other studies have shown.

Bill Parker says that the appendix may be another case of an overly hygienic society triggering an over reaction of the body’s immune system.

Even, if the appendix does appear to have a function, it must be removed when it is inflamed or infected as it can be deadly, writes Parker.

The Duke proposal for the function of the appendix makes sense and raises some very interesting questions. The idea seems by far the most likely explanation for the function of the appendix. It makes evolutionary sense.

We have evolved for millions of years with this seemingly useless and ugly appendix that can be also be very deadly. Surely, evolution would have eliminated this tissue completely if it was useless and posed a danger.

It should also make us wonder about another part of our body that is conveniently cut off — the tonsils. I bet we will find some use for this part as well.

The moral of the story is: Keep all parts of yourself intact unless it is absolutely necessary to remove them. Trust the wisdom of Nature.

We know that if there were no germs in the gut, you would be dead in just three days.

What do you do if you have had the appendix taken out? Consume more probiotic (friendly bacteria) as food. Take lots of yoghurt and other traditional cultured foods like tapai and tempeh.

If you are supplementing with probiotics, make sure that these are derived locally. That means it comes from local sources.

After all you got your first probiotics from your mother’s vaginal passage and from her nipples. Your gut was sterile while you were in the womb.

After that, you got it in your food. You also picked up useful soil organisms from salads, fruits and simply playing with dirt as all children usually do.

That is how it has been right from the beginning of time. Only in the last 30 or 40 years have we started consuming bacteria that come from different climates and soils.

Imported bacteria are not bad and do not present any real danger to you. However, these germs are best for the guts of people in the countries that they have been imported from be it Japan or North America.

Probiotics are truly a case where “local is better”. Nothing is more local than your gut that has to cope with the unique foods that you get in this part of the world.

The local bacteria will live better and longer in your gut. That would go a long way to making your healthier.

Datuk Dr Rajen M. is a pharmacist with a doctorate in Holistic Medicine

An interest item from the NST today.

Jerry Tay Hock Kee says his skin feels smoother and lighter after each one-hour session at Dr Fish Spa.

MALACCA: Suffering from dry skin? Meet some skin specialists from Turkey who will nibble them off you.

Before you get the wrong idea, these are no ordinary doctors but a rare breed of fish which is creating waves here with their ability to remove dead skin.

This treatment is available at Dr Fish Spa, where customers with dry skin relax in a pool filled with warm water as little Garra Rufa fish numbering in the thousands feed on the dead skin.

“The fish, measuring between two and four centimetres each, are nature’s answer to having smooth, clear and rejuvenated skin,” said Dr Fish Spa owner Cecilia Choong.

Dr Fish Spa opened its doors on Sept 15 last year and within weeks, word of its unique therapy had spread to Kuala Lumpur, Johor and Penang.“I read about the Garra Rufa while surfing the Internet. I enquired about the toothless fish and found that they have been used for hundreds of years in Turkey to combat dry skin problems,” said Choong.She said fish spas had mushroomed in Japan and Korea after news about the Garra Rufa spread.Dr Fish Spa has six pools and hygiene is a priority at all times.

“We change the water after each session and our advanced water filtration system monitors the bacteria, smell and pH levels to ensure the customers get the best and most hygienic spa treatment.”

Each fish “works” at the spa for between nine months and a year. This is because as the fish gets bigger, the stronger is its suction power and this can cause discomfort to some people.

“I had freckles on my face but after allowing Dr Fish to treat me, the freckles turned lighter and are not as visible on my face anymore,” said Choong, adding that the treatment could also lighten skin pigmentation.

“The fish even got rid of my corn and cracked heels.”

One of the spa’s customers, Jerry Tay Hock Kee, 45, said he enjoyed having the fish nibble on his skin as it was not painful.

“The fish are toothless and they use their suction power to remove the dead skin.

“Once I step out of the pool after an one-hour session, I can feel that my skin is lighter and smoother.”

This article was published in The Star on 17th October 2007

The earthen clan houses of China’s Fujian province are home to the Hakkas who migrated from China’s central plains.

AN April 2004 article in the People’s Daily Online describes an incident in 1985 in which a western intelligence report purportedly claimed a surveillance satellite had detected a nuclear base in the southern part of China’s Fujian province. The base was ostensibly housed in clusters of large, mushroom-shaped structures that the satellite could not identify or penetrate.

According to the article, a couple from a photography institute in New York went to investigate the site. In a hilarious twist to the tale, they discovered that the structures did not contain the presumed sophisticated nuclear arsenal but instead, communities of rustic Hakka farmers living in mud-walled communal dwellings called tulou.

Nestled deep in the verdant mountains of southwest Fujian, these remote clan houses are distributed over several counties. My curiosity aroused by the People’s Daily article, I joined a tour last month to Yongding near the Guangdong border, where many tulou communities are located.

The highway from Xiamen to Yongding took us through Zhangzhou, famed for narcissus – traditionally a lunar New Year flower – and the training base of China’s women’s volleyball team, winner of the Athens Olympics gold. From Zhangzhou we travelled over 100km through layered hills lush with banana and feathery bamboo, on an extra-ordinary highway with some 80 mountain bridges elevated 80m above ground and more than two dozen tunnels, some nearly 3km long.

Finally, we arrived in Longyan – the heart of Fujian’s Hakka country and home of world badminton champion Lin Dan. According to our knowledgeable guide, the county’s population of 2.88 million is 80% Hakka.

Yongding is two hours from Longyan along a winding mountain road. The round tulou, with their yellow mud walls topped with deep grey roofs do indeed look like giant mushrooms. They are doughnut-shaped, with a large open courtyard in the middle, and constructed in four tiers – kitchen and dining areas on the ground level; food storage on the second; and sleeping quarters on the third and fourth.

In a quadrangle-shaped tulou, I met a young man who volunteered that he is the 24th generation descendant of the building’s founder, which dates the structure back some 500 or 600 years. He said his ancestor had migrated south from Henan province in China’s central plains, the original home of the Hakka people.

Indeed, the last thousand years have seen large numbers of people from the north arriving in the provinces of Jiangxi, Fujian and Guangdong to escape war, famine and natural disasters. Our guide said there is also a community descended from Ming dynasty soldiers sent to pacify the region.

Called Hakka (kejia) or “guest people” by the earlier settlers who occupied the fertile lowlands, these later migrants were forced into remote, often hostile mountainous areas where they devised defensive fortresses of mud. With walls some 1.2m thick at the bottom and strengthened with glutinous rice and brown sugar, the tulou we visited have no windows at ground level. Our guide also pointed out a feature above external doors that allowed water, sand or hot oil to be poured onto enemies.

Rustic charm: A round tulou in scenic Yongding

Zhenchenglou, the largest tulou in Yongding, was built in 1912, and has several hundred rooms housing an entire extended clan. I had imagined that Hakkas were primarily poor rural farmers but the family of Zhenchenglou highly valued education, produced a number of scholars and were affluent.

Our guide said some attribute the family’s success to their tulou’s good fengshui. Its octagonal (bagua) contour is shaped like a mandarin’s hat and all the architectural elements are in multiples of eight.

Couplets (duilian) on the walls and columns in Zhenchenglou’s courtyard extol the virtues of education and hard work. In traditional male-dominated Hakka society, however, education was primarily the preserve of men who were expected to find work outside the village. Women took care of everything else, from tending the fields to raising the children. So it came as no surprise when our guide revealed that till today, non-Hakkas of the area, her parents included, actively discourage daughters from marrying Hakka men.

Surrounded by luxuriant hills and undulating rice fields, Yongding is scenic and idyllic. A clear stream runs through the settlement, where grain and the main cash crop, tobacco, are laid out to dry on open ground. Villagers preserve much of their vegetables, from the sweet-salty meicai that we enjoyed steamed with pork, to dried soup vegetables and herbs. Qing dynasty Empress Cizi was apparently a fan of the local dried sweet potato strips.

In today’s China, the old is all too easily discarded for the new in the name of progress. Happily, the sturdy tulou fortresses of south Fujian still retain much of their bucolic ambience and flavour. I am told Yongding is soon to be listed as a Unesco World Heritage Site so we can rest easy knowing that this unique legacy of the resilient Hakka people will be preserved for future generations.

Ziying makes frequent trips to China to refurbish a traditional family house in her ancestral village. She can be reached at ziyingster@gmail.com.