Han-Yak, aka Korean Herbal Medicine

As little kids (again, this was before the time of the bros), my sister and I each had to drink a batch of Korean herbal liquid yuckiness. Han-yak, Koreans call it. Nasty juice, Julia calls it. To prepare it, one boils a variety of wildly expensive dried ingredients that the doctor specifically mixes for your particular need. Each serving comes neatly wrapped in an individual piece of paper (see picture). I remember our mother straining the liquid in the crockpot and the resulting stomach-lurching stench permeating through our house. Once she'd unravel the cheesecloth, among other strange items, there were what looked like bits of tree bark and twigs. Drinking the wretched brew from this mixture of unknown earthy materials makes a kid grow stronger and healthier than without, ensuring a child to be healthy as a horse. Your appetite, for example, would increase, and you'd get sick less frequently.

How do little girls manage to overcome the noxious smell and swallow this nasty juice, you ask? Well, Soeur certainly figured it out: you don't. She clamped her mouth shut and if uhm-mah somehow managed to get some in there, within seconds, brown droplets of the expensive liquid would seep out from the sides of her mouth. Damn, was uhm-mah pissed. She turned to me and pumped my tummy full of Soeur's share of the nasty brew. You see, to her, it was ak-ga-wuh (wasteful, a pity to throw away). I remember that moment: fearing the yard stick she used for alterations (yeah, this all went down at a University City dry cleaners); Soeur freaking out in tears; brown juice spilling everywhere; uhm-mah raising her hand and voice simultaneously. Just to shut her the hell up I drank it - every last drop of it. My stomach wanted so badly to reject the brown nastiness. It kept coming back up but I took one one look at uhm-mah's screaming mouth and forced it to stay down. I took one for the team that day.

Truth be told, my appetite was never a problem, but Soeur's was. She hated to eat solid food and preferred soups and candy. I think uhm-mah made the brown herbal juice for her, not me. In any case, maybe our mother felt responsible (as she should!) for making me drink so much of that crap that she never gave me any slack for my hearty appetite and the resulting chubbiness. I also never got seriously sick until junior year of high school. I guess the han-yak worked.