April 17, 2010: I was worried about the wind-heat attacks

I've had an awful cold for the past few days, dear readers. You know, the kind that makes you feel absolutely wretched. Last night, I kept waking up with coughing fits (interrupting a lovely dream in which I was making out with Hugh Jackman). In China, you can't buy OTC drugs, band-aids, etc. in the supermarket. You have to go to a pharmacy. Today, when I went on my weekly excursion downtown, I went to a drug store. I showed the clerk "cough syrup" in my handy phrase book and mimed coughing. She consulted the pharmacist who indicated a package with a lovely water color image of a cluster of yellow berries on it. When I got home, I googled the only word in English on the package insert -- Qiangli Pipalu. I got a link to the English website of the manufacturer. I found this (as well as dosage info):
Indication & Action: For cough and yellow-phlegm or difficulty of expectoration , painful swelling of the throat, choking sensation and painful distention in the chest due to wind-heat attacking lung and entering the interior to leading fire.
Thank goodness I got this medicine! That leading fire was getting to me, to say nothing of the wind-heat!
BTW, here's another example of charmingly inept Chinese to English translation (from my apartment complex):