13-year-old boy finds passion in traditional Chinese herbology. Photo: screenshot from Sina Weibo.

A man from Southwest China's Sichuan Province has recently found his son adopting a special hobby of hand-drawing Bencao Gangmu, also known as the Compendium of Materia Medica, a Chinese herbology volume written during the Ming dynasty (1368-1644). 

The father, surnamed Wang, found the handbook with the drawings while he was checking his son's school bag after the 13-year-old failed to perform well in exams.

To his surprise, the dozens of drawings were exactly like the ones in Bencao Gangmu, with elaborate descriptions written next to each of the herbal material describing its medicinal functions. Wang said he is a grass-root artist, but had never taught his son the skill.

"The kid doesn't talk much, and I never knew that he has such a passion for traditional Chinese medicine." The father said his son often listens to the elderly talking about medicinal materials, or sometimes browsing the internet to look for medicinal functions in daily foods. 

Global Times