teh jagung

teh jagung
minuman asli tanpa pewarna and perisa sintetik, keluaran negara di sebelah negara matahari terbit,
dan merupakan salah satu perniagaan orang kampung. sedap dirasa dan lazat dimakan.
above is a just crappy comment, kindly disregard.

pretty girl, right? anyone seen this girl before? no, she's not lost. On the contrary, her big photos were can be seen on the body of several jumbo jetplane of her home country. She's none other than Lee Young Ae.

Pretty appealing as she is, much more appealing is the character that she had portrayed in the much sort after TV series of today which is Dae Jang Gum (or in bahasa baku pronounced as teh jagung). I emailed my friend over in korea about its proper pronounciation but haven't got a reply yet.

the show focuses on Jang-geum, the first female royal physician of the Joseon Dynasty of Korea.
The main theme is her perseverance, as well as the portrayal of traditional Korean culture,
including Korean royal court cuisine and medicine.

The first time I heard of this show was from a friend of mine who called it in Chinese as Da Zhang Jing, which I thought as the Bible of Big Intestine, which really left me thinking for a while.

Then, after accompanying my dearest watching an episode or two, somehow, this show is pretty appealing to me. And I bought the DVDs, and finish the whole 70 episodes in 3 days.

From the entertainment point of view, it had drama, comedy, political play, cooking, culture, art and more...

But from education point of view, it is a real collector's item for the parents who really wanted the youngster (especially the girl) to learn that hardwork will get you anywhere, as long as you choose to put effort in it and also the fine point of loving thy parents and other people, and even inspire one to forgive your most hateful enemy.

Though, from my point of view, what Chang Jing (the main lady character) is really like a modern day fairy tale. A fairy tale is just the perfect entertainment to escape from the harsh world out there. What can I say. this series is truly inspirational and motivational.

From health point of view, it teaches the food we eat is most of the times the best medicine for our illnesses, or could be the source for our illnesses. In a real sense, this is very very true as this is the ancient teaching of Chinese medicine (or should i say eastern medicine, subduing my chinese superiority complex) and from personal experience and observation, this is o' so true, so true.

The most compelling moment in the series is when

Female Physician Jang-Duk, Jang Geum's mentor in the field of medicine said
"I use my [acupuncture] needles to kill people."

- on why she is a Female Physician. She actually wanted to exact revenge on an imperial court officer who forced her mother to commit suicide during the reign of Yeongsangun. The court officer, now exiled to Jeju island, tried to draft Jang-Deok's mother into the palace and become the Emperor's concubine.
in short, she learnt medicine to kill.

As shocking as it seems, she also made it clear that doctors are after all humans. Doctor is not god. One just help in the healing process. One does not heal. And one is subjected to what every humans had - feelings. The feeling of angry, happy, remorseful, dull or simply the feeling of unbearable stress from work, exams, and worst is from expectations. But as doctors, we must first accept ourselves as human and then strive to control this emotion from swaying our medical judgement.

From my opinion, it is true that one get stressed most often not by duties or hours but by expectations. Expectations can even kill.
Expectations from parents,
expectations from siblings,
expectations from senior dr,
expectation from tutor,
expectations from patients,
expectations from society
and the most fearful of all, expection from within ourself.

Expectations drive one to our destination at a speedier rate,
but uncontrollable expectations can often do more harm than good.