The aproned woman pauses, then yells something across the room in Cantonese. I don't understand, but everyone else does. I wonder if any family friends are here?

CHINESE ROCKS

An older man in a white jacket approaches. He's mellow and my request doesn't faze him. One type of fertility medicine costs $6.50. After a few months, he says, I'll have my baby. The generic container holds 350 pills, and it looks like something you could buy at GNC. I decline and ask him about the more colorful items on the wall. Esmond-brand Passion Performance has a box that looks like the jacket of a romance novel. The lettering is airbrush-style, straight from the side of a conversion van, and there's an image of a couple who look like Fabio and Daisy Duke making out in front of a sunset. Some packages are sportier, like Nutri-Rich Mega Power, Men's Performance, and Power Man 2000. (Prices range from $20-$25.) Others have no frills. Erectx comes in a stark, two-color box ($30). Stud 100 ($15) comes in a discreet container; three to ten shots of this "desensitizing spray for men" will dull the male genitals and reduce chances of premature ejaculation.

I point to the box of Doctors Group-brand Super Nutritious Power All-In-One Velvet Deer Antler Plus All-Natural Gel-Caps, and he shows me the price tag: 50 bucks. For 50 more dollars I can buy a shrink-wrap tray of fresh, furry antler discs that I saw earlier next door. So I hand the box back to him.

The apothecary doesn't recommend the drugs with the fancy names. They are good for an energy boost, he says, but traditional Chinese herbs are what I really need. They'll cleanse my body and improve its overall performance. He suggests that I need something that will repair my kidneys and hands me a bottle of Qian Jing Bu Shen Wan. Any side effects? No, he says, other yang-boosters will cause brain damage, but this one won't because it's herbal. He adds that I'll be able to eat whatever I want. Confident that these pills can super-charge the dinking without affecting the thinking, I fork over $30.

BALD CHICKEN TONIC

Aphrodisiacs or sexual performance boosters aren't always so convenient. If over-the-counter drugs can't solve your case, you may have to ask your local Chinese herbalist to prepare something special. It might be something he or she concocts after studying your symptoms, palm, and face. It might also be something traditional like the Bald Chicken Tonic, the potion reputed to have helped the prefect of Shu, Lu Ta-ching, to sire three sons after he was 70. Bald Chicken Tonic can be prescribed as an aphrodisiac, a dietary supplement, and as a medicine. To use it, a man should sprinkle some in a teaspoon of wine once a day. Purportedly, if he drinks it for 60 days he will be able to get down with 40 women. If he takes it three times a day he will become invincible. (The powder can also be rolled in wax and taken as pills.) But Bald Chicken Tonic is not for everyone. After Lu Ta-ching took the elixir, he became so potent and horny that one of his wives couldn't sit because her vagina hurt. The vial was thrown into the courtyard where it was consumed by a rooster. Energized, the cock jumped on a nearby chicken and screwed it nonstop for a number of days, pecking the chicken's head until it was bald. Hence, the tonic's name.

ANIMAL, VEGETABLE, OR MINERAL

Like the Bald Chicken Tonic, most traditional aphrodisiacs contain herbs. Ginseng, seaweed, sulfur, and cinnamon are common ingredients. Animal fluid like liver extract, urine, feces, and semen can also be added.

Many aphrodisiac ingredients are selected by shape. Deer antlers, elongated fungi and cacti, sea cucumbers, and animal penises are used to energize a man's limp rod. Some specific cures include the following:

• Three-Day Glory consists of Red Cock (soy), ox penis, ginseng root, and dried human placenta.
• Celestial Thunder includes tongues of a hundred peacocks, chili from the Western Province, and prepubescent boy sperm.
• Hunting Lion is comprised of bear paws, ground rhinoceros horn, and distilled urine.
• Deer Horn Potion can cure impotence, prevent premature ejaculation and even lengthen a man's member by 3 inches.

Women can also use Chinese medicine. With names like Happiness Powder, Gate Opens Wide, and Smiling Golden Gully, ointments can be used to cure frigidity or even tighten a woman's vagina. Supposedly, mixing three pinches of sulfur powder and a pint of hot water will make a solution that can shrink a woman's opening to be "as narrow as that of a girl of twelve or thirteen."

At the Chinese herb shops I visited, there were more sexual enhancers marketed toward men than to women. However, there was a version of Passion Perfor-m ance for females, a few sexy slimming packages, and a lot of placenta extract was on display.

COMING ATTRACTIONS

After taking my herbal medicine for a few days, I don't feel any difference in my bodily functions. That's fine. However, the herb doctor mentioned that Chinese medicine could require weeks or months to take effect.