iSurprise Chinese Pharmacy

A Chinese pharmacy

This is one of Chinatown’s few remaining traditional Chinese herbal medicine shops. People still flock here from all over town for dried herbs, plants, bark, animal parts and spices with medicinal value. According to long-rooted medical practice, each patient, they carefully select a mix of herbs to be brewed at home.

Medicine street

Before the war, there were many Chinese clinics and medicine shops like this one. 21st street was locally known as ‘medicine street’.

Original details

The big black Bai Zi Gui is an original. In this cabinet, hundreds of herbs are stored systematically with their names neatly labelled. The hole in the ceiling was used to lower medicinal herbs from the storeroom upstairs.