In America, if we get sick we take a pill. If we get depressed, we take a pill. If someone has erectile dysfunction, they take a pill. Every ill has a pill that promises to cure and ease pain. Our lives are fast and convenient and we want our medicine that way too. Because these little pills can’t be sold to the masses without being subjected to testing, clinical trials, and the FDA, we pop them with confidence.

Photo: howie221

Yes, we believe the fountain of youth comes in the form of under-researched and over-advertised medication. With these new remedies, our old beliefs about medicine have largely been left in the dust. Not even grandma believes her chicken soup is all-that anymore. She believes in the doctor that’s kept her alive for two decades past the normal life expectancy.

Because we are used to a medical system that we perceive to be so effective, efficient and backed by research, we have a hard time believing that anything different could possibly be effective.

In China, the medical world is different. If someone is sick, sometimes they take a pill. Sometimes they drink a tonic. Sometimes they get a deep-tissue massage, or a scraping, or a vacuum on their back. (Not the kind for cleaning the floor, the kind made out of a cup and a match on your skin.)

Traditional Chinese medicine is also backed by research, generations of research that is. These treatments helped your Chinese friend’s father, and his father’s father. That’s why Chinese people trust their medicine implicitly. Why wouldn’t it work? It’s worked so well for so long – For millennia, in fact. So as far as they’re concerned…we know where we can stuff our clinical trials.

In fact, the practice of TCM (traditional Chinese medicine) is so ingrained into Chinese culture that it still has failed to disappear even after official edict. According to one report, “TCM has been banned several times in Chinese history as useless, only later to be reinstated by official fiat. Mao's resurrection of TCM rescinded the 1929 ban instituted by the Kuomintang government, which had opted for scientific medicine over folk practices but did a very poor job of delivering it to the masses.”

Another part of TCM in Chinese culture is that most Chinese people are militant about their medicine. Don’t be surprised if you are scolded by everyone from your boss, to your ayi, to a little girl on the street if they think you are doing something bad for your health. That could be anything from drinking cold water, to wearing flip-flops, to using your air conditioner. (Shame on you for not conforming!)

Because TCM has these little odd beliefs that are so hard for westerner’s to accept, they never give TCM a try. How could any of it possibly make sense, when the most pervasive ideas are just a little hard to believe? (My husband was told the reason he had a blood clot was because he slept with the air conditioner on.)

Actually, very successful medical techniques are discovered when TCM is given a second look. For instance, researchers have begun to study frog venom to treat cancer. The idea to use frog venom was taken from the traditional Chinese drug known as huachansu, which is made from frog venom, and is an effective treatment with very little side effects.

Yes, to the foreigner’s chagrin, sometimes we have to admit we don’t always know everything. Sometimes, what our Chinese friends say comes true. Once, I watched a foreign friend enjoy a bag of delightful, sweet mandarin oranges. He ate six or seven of them. As he was enjoying his citrus, a Chinese woman scolded him, “Don’t you know eating those oranges will throw your body off balance? Your skin will suffer,” she said. He rolled his eyes and kept eating. The next day, he had two very large pimples on his face. “I still seriously wonder if those oranges had anything to do with my face,” says my friend who is nearly 30. “I haven’t had a zit in years!”

Another foreigner I know came down with very bad flu symptoms. In the west, doctors usually only prescribe medicine to help us deal with the symptoms, like ibuprofen or a cough syrup. The flu is a virus, and our immune systems are the best tools we have to fight it.

My friend got fed up with her situation and decided to visit a Chinese practitioner. He gave her a painful massage and a few jabs with an acupuncture needle. During the treatment she said she didn’t think it would help. It didn’t make sense that a massage would heal the flu. But after her visit, she noticed a difference. “I totally felt better,” she said. “I know why so many people use Chinese medicine. Sometimes, it actually works.”

***

Related Links

Chinese embrace massage to knead away the pounds
Ba Guan for Beginners
Sweet, Sour and Southern: South China Produce

Warning：The use of any news and articles published on eChinacities.com without written permission from eChinacities.com constitutes copyright infringement, and legal action can be taken.