My usual excuse for silence has become boring I'm well aware, yet I've been ill again. This time I've asked Jiejie if I should consult a traditional Chinese doctor in order to get some herbal medicine. To my surprise, Jiejie advised me to stick to Polish herbal medicine and even helped me to buy necessary products on taobao (Chinese on-line store. In my opinion, you can buy everything there, so when one day I decide to have a baby or launch a rocket into space I will check the prices of babies or rockets on taobao first). She said that Chinese traditional medicine is very mild and helps, but you need to cook the medicine daily in your own kitchen, which will make it smell like Snape's dungeons, then you drink a bitter potion every day and get better in about a year.
China is a country famous for its medical tradition. The first fully medical book was written around first century B.C. This branch of science has developed for around four thousand years and is still alive in China and around the world. For instance, as a child suffering from numerous bronchitis, I was constantly subdued to cupping therapy that comes from China. I'm reading about it now and all Western sources condemn it as “having no scientific proof for its effectiveness.” Well, the proof for my family was that it worked for me. It works basically like this: you take a special glass bowl, you smear strong alcohol inside it and put fire to it, which burns all air and creates a vacuum inside, then you quickly put it against the patient's skin, so that it sucks it. My grandmother always did it to me, my mother was dead scared. Afterwards you stay in bed with the duvet up to your eyes all the time because if the skin that was treated with the cups gets cold, you get seriously ill. Born and raised in the West, I told Jiejie that there is no explanation why the therapy works, she said that of course there is and a Chinese traditional doctor could explain it to me.
That is the crucial point. In the West, we like to think that we believe only in the methods proved scientifically. At the same time, people tend to believe the ads that tell you that certain cosmetics or pills will make them forever beautiful or healthy. Moreover, we turn to Chinese, Indian and our countries' homeopathic methods, but only when they are expensive enough to be fashionable. Popular, often rural, medicine is at the same time ridiculed.
Not in China. Here traditional methods are still alive and practiced along with the modern medicine. For example, the belief in yin and yang is common sense for all Chinese. Yin means cold and weak, yang means hot and strong, in the universe the balance between the two elements must exist. Some foods are yin, such as vegetables, tofu, fish, green tea, they make you cold. Even when they are hot, a Chinese person will describe them as cold. Some foods are yang, such as meat, freshwater fish, eggs, milk, coffee, black tea and chives. A healthy person should eat the same amount of yin and yang ingredients during a day, but not the same amount, i. e. you mustn't eat as much meat as vegetables. Sometimes more yin foods are recommended, for example during the summer. Then you drink hot green tea, as it will cool you down. In winter and when you are sick and weak, you should eat more yang foods. Now I understand when a Chinese person tells me that I shouldn't drink green tea when I'm ill because it's cold even though it's hot. The meaning of this sentence is clear, isn't it?
It is not all old wives tales, it is a way of understanding the world. A Western doctor, when you are sick to your stomach, will tell you not to eat fruit because they are raw. In China, they will give you the same recommendation, but say that fruit is cold. Same thing, different concept.
The practice of traditional medicine is preserved by traditional doctors. A traditional doctor and a doctor are two different professions in China. Doctors go to medical schools and acquire the common medical knowledge, here in China called the “Western” medicine. It is of course not only Western, since it has roots where the Western civilization does, in Middle East, Greece, India and even China. In modern times, however, medicine developed mostly in Western countries, hence the name. This is the area of expertise of all Chinese doctors, as well as Polish, English, Canadian and Mexican doctors. Wherever you go, a doctor is a doctor.
A traditional Chinese doctor is a different profession. They work in separate hospitals of traditional Chinese medicine. There, young doctors study with old professionals and acquire skills necessary to diagnose illnesses and proscribing treatments. They do not treat patients in critical condition nor can they do serious harm with their herbal medicine. The Chinese medicine is viewed as additional, homeopathic treatment. However, nobody ridicules it as not being scientifically proven, I'm not sure, if the Chinese would understand this concept. Chinese medicine is a respected profession and valid science, since it has been curing the Chinese for millennia, who needs other “proof” from Western people?
Simultaneously, people in the West are often fascinated by it. They buy books on it, practice yoga, take acupuncture. It is all very positive, but at the same time the Westeners are often taken advantage of. Chinese medicine is fascinating, exotic, an alternative to Western medicine, especially when the scientifically proven methods fail. That is why personal trainers in the West often call themselves Chinese medicine professionals, which of course they are not, as this knowledge is unattainable outside China. Everybody can read books published on the subject in the West, you don't need to pay people who have done only this to advise you. Moreover, then they come to China, the foreigners get lured by, for example, a certain doctor in Yunnan recommended by Lonely Planet. He gives foreigners traditional medicine and takes amazing amounts of money. Especially those suffering from cancer give him any prize. I met a group of Poles, one of them paid around 500 yuan for medicine for two months and saw a woman suffering from a breast cancer give the “doctor” a thick roll of bills. That is outrageous, especially that the same medicine in a traditional medicine hospital is most probably a hundred times cheaper.
Of course, not all traditional medicine practices are all so wise, which is one of the reasons why I laugh to myself when people in the West pay any money for any piece of information on ancient Chinese wisdom. For instance, Chinese women don't wash themselves after giving birth for a month. A month. It is commonly believed that a shower would kill a woman during this period. My gynecologist (in Poland) on the other hand, doesn't understand why they don't get an infection and die.
A woman not only cannot take a shower, she can't move. Move. Watching TV, reading, doing anything is out of question, she is too delicate. Yet somehow they don't die of infection coming from the dirt.
Less exciting piece of advice is that you mustn't eat ice-cream when you are having a period. Hard as I tried to explain that the period has nothing to do with your digestion, nobody believes me that you can eat ice-cream during the period. The argument of my ex-colleague was that I can because I am not Chinese, our bodies are different. The proof: Western women wash themselves after giving birth and suffer no consequences. My contra-argument was that Chinese women would be OK if they washed themselves, but I only scared and scandalized the poor girl, who thought what I just said unthinkable.
To conclude, the only was to become an expert on Chinese medicine is to speak Chinese fluently and undergo years of training in a traditional Chinese hospital. Or perhaps even be Chinese, as those practices are quite obscure to the Western understanding. Yet, it all soaks into your vision of the world when you live here. I am scared of drinking cold water, as we all know, it will make you sick. People: drink a lot of hot water! And honestly, take care, as autumn is killing us everywhere around the world.
China is a country famous for its medical tradition. The first fully medical book was written around first century B.C. This branch of science has developed for around four thousand years and is still alive in China and around the world. For instance, as a child suffering from numerous bronchitis, I was constantly subdued to cupping therapy that comes from China. I'm reading about it now and all Western sources condemn it as “having no scientific proof for its effectiveness.” Well, the proof for my family was that it worked for me. It works basically like this: you take a special glass bowl, you smear strong alcohol inside it and put fire to it, which burns all air and creates a vacuum inside, then you quickly put it against the patient's skin, so that it sucks it. My grandmother always did it to me, my mother was dead scared. Afterwards you stay in bed with the duvet up to your eyes all the time because if the skin that was treated with the cups gets cold, you get seriously ill. Born and raised in the West, I told Jiejie that there is no explanation why the therapy works, she said that of course there is and a Chinese traditional doctor could explain it to me.
That is the crucial point. In the West, we like to think that we believe only in the methods proved scientifically. At the same time, people tend to believe the ads that tell you that certain cosmetics or pills will make them forever beautiful or healthy. Moreover, we turn to Chinese, Indian and our countries' homeopathic methods, but only when they are expensive enough to be fashionable. Popular, often rural, medicine is at the same time ridiculed.
Not in China. Here traditional methods are still alive and practiced along with the modern medicine. For example, the belief in yin and yang is common sense for all Chinese. Yin means cold and weak, yang means hot and strong, in the universe the balance between the two elements must exist. Some foods are yin, such as vegetables, tofu, fish, green tea, they make you cold. Even when they are hot, a Chinese person will describe them as cold. Some foods are yang, such as meat, freshwater fish, eggs, milk, coffee, black tea and chives. A healthy person should eat the same amount of yin and yang ingredients during a day, but not the same amount, i. e. you mustn't eat as much meat as vegetables. Sometimes more yin foods are recommended, for example during the summer. Then you drink hot green tea, as it will cool you down. In winter and when you are sick and weak, you should eat more yang foods. Now I understand when a Chinese person tells me that I shouldn't drink green tea when I'm ill because it's cold even though it's hot. The meaning of this sentence is clear, isn't it?
It is not all old wives tales, it is a way of understanding the world. A Western doctor, when you are sick to your stomach, will tell you not to eat fruit because they are raw. In China, they will give you the same recommendation, but say that fruit is cold. Same thing, different concept.
The practice of traditional medicine is preserved by traditional doctors. A traditional doctor and a doctor are two different professions in China. Doctors go to medical schools and acquire the common medical knowledge, here in China called the “Western” medicine. It is of course not only Western, since it has roots where the Western civilization does, in Middle East, Greece, India and even China. In modern times, however, medicine developed mostly in Western countries, hence the name. This is the area of expertise of all Chinese doctors, as well as Polish, English, Canadian and Mexican doctors. Wherever you go, a doctor is a doctor.
A traditional Chinese doctor is a different profession. They work in separate hospitals of traditional Chinese medicine. There, young doctors study with old professionals and acquire skills necessary to diagnose illnesses and proscribing treatments. They do not treat patients in critical condition nor can they do serious harm with their herbal medicine. The Chinese medicine is viewed as additional, homeopathic treatment. However, nobody ridicules it as not being scientifically proven, I'm not sure, if the Chinese would understand this concept. Chinese medicine is a respected profession and valid science, since it has been curing the Chinese for millennia, who needs other “proof” from Western people?
Simultaneously, people in the West are often fascinated by it. They buy books on it, practice yoga, take acupuncture. It is all very positive, but at the same time the Westeners are often taken advantage of. Chinese medicine is fascinating, exotic, an alternative to Western medicine, especially when the scientifically proven methods fail. That is why personal trainers in the West often call themselves Chinese medicine professionals, which of course they are not, as this knowledge is unattainable outside China. Everybody can read books published on the subject in the West, you don't need to pay people who have done only this to advise you. Moreover, then they come to China, the foreigners get lured by, for example, a certain doctor in Yunnan recommended by Lonely Planet. He gives foreigners traditional medicine and takes amazing amounts of money. Especially those suffering from cancer give him any prize. I met a group of Poles, one of them paid around 500 yuan for medicine for two months and saw a woman suffering from a breast cancer give the “doctor” a thick roll of bills. That is outrageous, especially that the same medicine in a traditional medicine hospital is most probably a hundred times cheaper.
Of course, not all traditional medicine practices are all so wise, which is one of the reasons why I laugh to myself when people in the West pay any money for any piece of information on ancient Chinese wisdom. For instance, Chinese women don't wash themselves after giving birth for a month. A month. It is commonly believed that a shower would kill a woman during this period. My gynecologist (in Poland) on the other hand, doesn't understand why they don't get an infection and die.
A woman not only cannot take a shower, she can't move. Move. Watching TV, reading, doing anything is out of question, she is too delicate. Yet somehow they don't die of infection coming from the dirt.
Less exciting piece of advice is that you mustn't eat ice-cream when you are having a period. Hard as I tried to explain that the period has nothing to do with your digestion, nobody believes me that you can eat ice-cream during the period. The argument of my ex-colleague was that I can because I am not Chinese, our bodies are different. The proof: Western women wash themselves after giving birth and suffer no consequences. My contra-argument was that Chinese women would be OK if they washed themselves, but I only scared and scandalized the poor girl, who thought what I just said unthinkable.
To conclude, the only was to become an expert on Chinese medicine is to speak Chinese fluently and undergo years of training in a traditional Chinese hospital. Or perhaps even be Chinese, as those practices are quite obscure to the Western understanding. Yet, it all soaks into your vision of the world when you live here. I am scared of drinking cold water, as we all know, it will make you sick. People: drink a lot of hot water! And honestly, take care, as autumn is killing us everywhere around the world.
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