Laka Wood

15. LAKA-WOOD

Kiang-chon-hiang is also called tzi-tong-hiang or red vine incense.

It comes from:

• Sumatra: This is the best kind of the purity and strength of its fragrance.
• Java
• P’ong-fong
• all districts of:
  • Kuang-tung
  • Kuang-si.

Its aroma is strong and penetrating.

• It counteracts bad smells.

All Cantonese, rich or poor, burn this incense at the end of the year, as if they were making a sacrifice to Heaven.

Its price is very cheap.

16. MUSK-WOOD

Sho-hiang-mu comes from Guangzhou and Cambodia.

It is a tree which falls down from old age and sinks to the ground where it decays. This is the best variety.

Its fragrance slightly resembles musk.

The wood is called musk wood.

When fresh cut, it is of a strong and unpleasant odor. This is the inferior quality.

The Cantonese use this wood for making furniture resembling that made of rose-wood.

17. JACK-FRUIT

The po-lo-mi is of the size of a pumpkin. Its outer skin is covered with nodules like the hair on a Buddha’s head.

Its colour is green while growing, and turns yellow when ripe.

The pulp, when cut out of the fruit, is extremely sweet.

The tree resembles a banian, and the flowers grow in clusters.

When the flowers fall and theh fruit sets, only one develops. The rest shrivel up.

The po-lo-mi comes from Su-ki-tan. It is also found at Nam-hoi Temple in Canton.

18. ARECA-NUTS

The pin-lang comes from:

• North Vietnam
• the 4 districts of Hainan
• other countries

The tree resembles the coir-palm.

The fruit grows on the leaves, fastened to them in clusters, as on willow twigs. When gathered in the spring, it is called juan-pin-lang or «soft areca-nuts». They are commonly known as pin-lang-sien or fresh areca-nuts. It is then good to chew.

When gathered in the summer or the autumn and dried, it is called mi-pin-lang or rice areca-nuts.

Preserved in salt, it is called yen-pin-lang or «salted areca-nuts».

Small and pointed nuts are called ki-sin-pin-lang or «chicken heart areca-nuts», large and flat ones ta-fu-tzi or «big bellies».

When chewed, these nuts prevent eructation. In Sumatra, they make wine out of the juice.

The Customs at Canton and Guangzhou derive an annual revenue of several tens of thousands of strings of cash from the trade carried on in this product by foreign ships.

But most of the product comes from Hai-nan. The fresh nuts and salted nuts come from there, whereas the ki-sin and the ta-fu-tzi varieties come mostly from thhe Philippines.