The other morning, one of my neighbours knocked on my gate to tell me that a huge python, as thick as a man’s forearm, had been seen slithering across the road into my property in the early morning light. “It was as long as the road is wide,” he said. “You better check your garden, it could be hiding in one of your plants.” This latter comment was a veiled reference to the fact that my garden is the most luxuriant of all in the neighbourhood and most people know me locally as the person “who lives in the jungle house”.

I can’t help it – I love a mass of tangled green, with some colourful climbers running riot around my garden. It reminds me that we’re all part of nature and that we can co-exist, not only with our own species but, hopefully, with all the life on the planet. Of course it’s a bit of a contrast with my Chinese neighbours, who consider a few potted plants next to a neat oblong of manicured carpet grass, bordered with white gravel out of which a lone pine elegantly springs, to be quite enough in the way of “outside space”.

But back to the snake. I thought I should look for it, so I walked around my mini wilderness, stick in hand, accompanied by three barking dogs. Either it really was hiding or it had long since gone, as there was no sign of it. Anyway, this possibly mythical python ushered in for me the new Chinese Year – which is the Year of the Snake, and coincidentally also my birth sign in the Chinese zodiac.

This year it will be celebrated in great style in George Town with the first ever Snake Festival, which will be held in conjunction with the Snake Temple (thought to be the only one of its kind in the world) at Bayan Lepas.  Even though it’s a bit out of town, many tourists visit this temple to see the sleepy pit vipers, often draped around branches or coiled in jars, passing their days as restfully as cats. It’s thought that the strong incense makes them drowsy and less inclined to bite, but I’ve never been bold enough to put the matter to the test. The temple is sacred to the Chinese deity Chor Soo Kong, who is venerated as a guardian of wild snakes.

Apparently, before he became a deity, Chor Soo Kong was a Chinese Buddhist monk who lived during the Song Dynasty (960-1279) and, as well as being a friend to snakes, he was a healer. Intriguingly, snakes have long been associated with medicine in both Eastern and Western cultures. You can find the classical Greek caduceus, or staff of intertwined snakes, in doctor’s surgeries and in hospitals all over the world as the symbol for medicine. Perhaps that which wounds also has the potential for healing as well?

The connection between snakes and medicine was given an interesting twist recently with news from medical researchers that have been conducting a large international study to gauge the effectiveness of a protein derived from the venom of a Malayan pit viper to treat stroke patients. According to findings, the protein (ancrod) is able to dissolve the blood clots that cause strokes for as long as six hours after stroke symptoms start. As strokes can be devastating, this research could be vital for saving not only lives, but also salvaging the quality of life, for many in the future.

Interestingly, Penang was the place in which the medical potential of this jungle medicine first came to the attention of doctors. A physician at the Penang General Hospital, Dr. Alistair Reid, noticed, back in the 1960s, that when he treated patients bitten by pit vipers, they bled copiously, and so he thought the snake’s venom might contain something that could be used to treat troublesome blood clots.

Another fascinating thing about snakes is that they shed their skins regularly. When walking in the jungle, I sometimes come across the discarded tube of a snake, thinner that polythene and more transparent than paper. It former occupant must have grown a new skin underneath until it was ready to burst out of this sausage sheath. Shedding an old skin for a new one somehow makes snakes very appropriate symbols for a new year, when we shed the preconceptions, misunderstandings, and doubts of the old year for the hope and potential of the new one.

Anyway, another neighbour has just brought me some yellow sulphur. “The snake is at least fifteen feet long,” she tells me gravely. “You better keep your cat inside for a day or two.” It seems that that sulphur keeps snakes away, so I suppose the garden will smell like hell for a day or two, but it is safe to assume that the year of the snake could be a truly transformative year!

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Source: Penang International February 2013 -March 2013

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