Beijing Hotpot (Oct 23, 03)

I went out to try a new hotpot place tonight. The weather is getting colder and colder as moving into winter time. The colder the weather, the more the hotpot, and the more the spicy food too. Actually, my body has been sending out signals that I should stop this diet.

My mouth has this huge crack on it (it's really on the skin around the mouth muscle, not inside the mouth) for a couple of weeks now and it just won't go away. Now it came to the point that I find it really painful even just to open my mouth. I have put on different types of gel as advised by the doctor but not much progress. I finally went to visit a Chinese herbalist. This very very old doctor looked at my tongue, touched my pulse, without asking questions, he said,"You should stop eating any spicy food, then take the Chinese medicine and it will be fine soon." I told the doctor," But my stomach is ok, I don't have any problem with spicy food!", he replied,"You have a southern body nature which is not used to dry weather and spicy food, even your stomach is ok, it doesn't mean your whole body is ok, it takes years for people to full adapt to Northern food and weather." "oh....no....I love spicy food....."

After this, I wonder how long will it take for me to be totally adapted to the northern environment? or can I really become part of the North?