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Hubby sent me an article a few weeks ago about a colleague collecting Saga Seeds that we can find in Singapore, so of course, I had to find some (and fell into the rabbit hole that is the internet for my quest).  We hunt some down and how appropriate it is to share a post about them on this Valentine Day.

Those scarlet glossy and heart-snapped beads symbolize love in many countries in Asia and are known as Xiang Si Dou (相思豆) in Chinese which literally means “Longing Peas”. They are unique to certain parts of Southeast Asia, Africa, the Pacific, and the Caribbean Islands.

Saga is actually the Malay name and it’s been traced to the Arabic for “Goldsmith”. In the olden days, the seeds were commonly used to measure the weight of gold and silver as 4 seeds = 1 gram.

PS: while I was digging my rabbit hole 😉 I found this cool project by British contemporary artist, Nicola Anthony, who collected more than 10,000 saga seeds and hand-numbered them one by one: Pass It On

from Tumblr http://bit.ly/2Ea82Sb

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