Entertaining with magic tricks and peanuts.

No! No! No! Linda in the Playgroup Club book shouted at other mums not to give her son peanuts, he might be allergic to  them. Many thought being cautious is just being paranoid. I wrote with passion, because I am allergic to peanuts. I don't only not eat peanuts, my nose can't smell well.

When friends automatically go and smell flowers, I don't.  This is the story why.

Entertaining with magic tricks and peanuts.

When Dad went to England, in 1956. I was twenty months. We moved back to the village in Lanang Road.

We did not have electricity, radio and TV. So we made our own entertainment. A favourite game the older kid used to make magic tricks. 
Once an uncle demonstrated by putting a peanut, it would appear in the armpit. Impressionable me, I was just four  years old, copied. It did not appear in my armpit. Instead it was lodged in my nose. 
All efforts to get it out failed, and Grandfather Chan said to leave it alone because digging it would only get deeper. 

I did not go to hospital. It remained inside my nose for months until one day I jumped from the jetty to the boat to Grand pa Kong’s house. As I jumped, the peanut came out. 
I was so happy to show everyone. The peanut had turned white. I am allergic to peanuts, the only one of 9 to have it. Was the peanut in my nose the culprit?

I told Father about forty years after. He said he was never told of this situation. Of course they should have taken me to hospital, if not, the peanut might travel up to my lungs and I would asphyxiate and die. 

Peanut allergy can be serious, people can die. I am only mildly allergic to it. When I have eaten peanuts, I feel a reflux, I feel like vomit coming out of my mouth. I feel the peanut have got rancid. If there is peanut oil in the food, I feel terrible the whole day.

I wrote part of this in my book,"From China to Borneo to Beyond."

t 8:45 PM Posted by Ann, Chen Jie Xue 陈洁雪 a