This is Randi Hacker with another Postcard from Asia from the KU Center for East Asian Studies.

Japanese gardens are admired for their understated elegance, their meditation/movement fusion, their precise placement of essential elements such as water and stone. In this last way at least, Medicinal Herbman is typically Japanese: He’s all about precise placement. Medicinal Herbman is a human-shaped herb garden whose herbs are planted in the anatomical area they most help. So, Chinese Mugwort, for example, which is thought to relieve shoulder pain is planted in Herbman’s shoulder. His creators, a Japanese landscape team called Earthscape, want to take him round the world to teach people about healing herbs. So far he’s been to Pakistan and Nepal as well as parts of his own native Japan. You might say he’s well on his way to becoming an “herb-an” legend.

From the Center for East Asian Studies, this is Randi Hacker. Wish you were here.