Last week I finally used some of our connections at Xiao Shi to start pursuing the “I want to be a doctor” part of my life. Our connections at that school are numerous, and as much of Chinese society depends on such ‘guanxi,’ it has served us well. We need to be careful asking favors at school, though, because sometimes we aren’t really even looking for a favor, but wind up with one. Like if I ask how much jade should cost, the next thing we know they are trying to arrange the school car to take us to some crazy market and insist on buying it for us. And I didn’t even want jade, I just wanted to know how much it should cost.
But this time, I did want something. Chinese medicine is still very popular here, and I was very curious about how it worked. Allan, our liason who left after a month because he had cancer has returned for two weeks in order to get some Chinese medicine to complement his treatment.
Our friend Andy gave us a book about it before we left, and I read all about the various elements, organs, and energies that are all balanced in a healthy person’s body. The book also described many traditional herbs and how they work to put your body back in balance, but what it lacked was the actual doctors office where Chinese medicine is practiced. We had been to a few pharmacies that were part of a tourist town or museum, but never to an actual working hospital. And I wanted to go.
We were told in passing that one of our co-teacher’s husbands was a Chinese medicine doctor, and I asked her if we could visit him. Of course, she said, and she could come along as our translator! Very exciting. Her English name was Snow.
Snow met us at the front of the large Western hospital that was right next door. This large building is somewhat of a landmark—maybe it was the only building in town more than 6 stories tall until ten years ago? She led us around back to the Chinese medicine hospital. From the outside, this looked like a normal hospital. From the inside, it looked like a normal office building. There was a wide hall, with doors opening into offices. Snow walked down the hall, squinting at the nameplates next to the doors, looking for her husband’s office. She didn’t come here often, clearly. Finally, we found his office, and though he wasn’t around, the door was open and a dozen or so people loitered, standing or sitting in chairs along one wall of the room. There was an observation table against one wall, an older computer that was not turned on, and two desks pushed together facing each other. On one, there was a small piece of equipment to take blood pressure, but it was not used while we were there.
We waited with the rest of the patients for him to come back. Snow told us that he is still building up his client base, and that he specializes in diabetes, which is increasing in China like it is in the rest of the world. His patients generally came in weekly for a quick check up to determine how well their treatment was going and for a new week’s worth of drugs.
The other patients in the room were generally elderly. He strolled in wearing a doctor’s white shirt, but without a stethoscope. He sat down and the crowd of people moved towards him. There was no line but apparently an established order. Patients sat down, gave him their green books which were probably case histories, and he looked at them, took their pulse, and jotted something down in his notebook, something on their case history, and then wrote out a prescription, all by hand. Each patient took less than five minutes. And of course everyone was hovering over their shoulders to see what everyone else had.
The tests in Chinese medicine are very basic and observational. A traditional doctor looks at your tongue, your coloring, and takes your pulse. From this, he can decide what is out of whack in your body and prescribe traditional medicine (mostly plant material, but occasional animal or mineral) to make you feel better.
I wasn’t there solely to observe; I wanted to have my persistent nasal drip checked out. Some say that Chinese medicine is best for those who have problems that are low-level and persistent, and cannot be solved by Western medicine. My ailment fulfilled all three of these criteria.
I watched a few patients being helped, and then I sat down in the chair to face him. I explained my condition. He took my pulse, glanced at my tongue, pondered for just a moment, and then gave me his diagnosis. We had to look it up in our dictionary together. I have too much phlegm! So that was a let down. Of course I do! He asked if I wanted any medicine to help me with it, and of course I did. So he scratched out a prescription and we were on our way.
Downstairs, the hospital had one of the set ups that is so classic to China. I had to take my prescription to one window, where a man added up my herbs on an abacus and told me how much I owed. But I couldn’t pay him. I had to walk down to another window, hand them the piece of paper he had given me, and pay them. But they couldn’t give me my drugs, they could only stamp my prescription and send me to the actual pharmacy, where the pharmacist took my prescription and filled it.
There were five or six pharmacists working in a heavily scented room, with woody, earthy, and ginseng lingering in the air. Behind the counter were a few aisles of large wooden cabinets. Each had numerous drawers, each filled with a different ingredient. A young woman took my prescription and started to fill it. She laid out five one-foot squares of light brown paper on the table and started heaping on my prescription. She’d measure out a few large handfuls of most ingredients on a primitive scale (like the one the blindfolded Justice holds), then scatter them roughly evenly over the five squares. I had ten ingredients in my prescription, including three types of wheat, a wood of some sort, orange peel, bottom-grade ginseng, and some green sticks. When she was finished, she folded up the squares of paper and handed them to me. I was to take them home and make myself some tea.
So that was the visit. To make the tea, in the morning I put the medicine in a pot, cover it with water, then simmer for up to an hour. I strain and drink the dark colored liquid, which tastes bad, and return the solids to the pot. In the evening, I use the same solids for a second batch, which being weaker, tastes slightly better. I have not found any positive effects yet, but it is supposed to take a few weeks to be effective.
Last week I finally used some of our connections at Xiao Shi to start pursuing the “I want to be a doctor” part of my life. Our connections at that school are numerous, and as much of Chinese society depends on such ‘guanxi,’ it has served us well. We need to be careful asking favors at school, though, because sometimes we aren’t really even looking for a favor, but wind up with one. Like if I ask how much jade should cost, the next thing we know they are trying to arrange the school car to take us to some crazy market and insist on buying it for us. And I didn’t even want jade, I just wanted to know how much it should cost.
But this time, I did want something. Chinese medicine is still very popular here, and I was very curious about how it worked. Allan, our liason who left after a month because he had cancer has returned for two weeks in order to get some Chinese medicine to complement his treatment.
Our friend Andy gave us a book about it before we left, and I read all about the various elements, organs, and energies that are all balanced in a healthy person’s body. The book also described many traditional herbs and how they work to put your body back in balance, but what it lacked was the actual doctors office where Chinese medicine is practiced. We had been to a few pharmacies that were part of a tourist town or museum, but never to an actual working hospital. And I wanted to go.
We were told in passing that one of our co-teacher’s husbands was a Chinese medicine doctor, and I asked her if we could visit him. Of course, she said, and she could come along as our translator! Very exciting. Her English name was Snow.
Snow met us at the front of the large Western hospital that was right next door. This large building is somewhat of a landmark—maybe it was the only building in town more than 6 stories tall until ten years ago? She led us around back to the Chinese medicine hospital. From the outside, this looked like a normal hospital. From the inside, it looked like a normal office building. There was a wide hall, with doors opening into offices. Snow walked down the hall, squinting at the nameplates next to the doors, looking for her husband’s office. She didn’t come here often, clearly. Finally, we found his office, and though he wasn’t around, the door was open and a dozen or so people loitered, standing or sitting in chairs along one wall of the room. There was an observation table against one wall, an older computer that was not turned on, and two desks pushed together facing each other. On one, there was a small piece of equipment to take blood pressure, but it was not used while we were there.
We waited with the rest of the patients for him to come back. Snow told us that he is still building up his client base, and that he specializes in diabetes, which is increasing in China like it is in the rest of the world. His patients generally came in weekly for a quick check up to determine how well their treatment was going and for a new week’s worth of drugs.
The other patients in the room were generally elderly. He strolled in wearing a doctor’s white shirt, but without a stethoscope. He sat down and the crowd of people moved towards him. There was no line but apparently an established order. Patients sat down, gave him their green books which were probably case histories, and he looked at them, took their pulse, and jotted something down in his notebook, something on their case history, and then wrote out a prescription, all by hand. Each patient took less than five minutes. And of course everyone was hovering over their shoulders to see what everyone else had.
The tests in Chinese medicine are very basic and observational. A traditional doctor looks at your tongue, your coloring, and takes your pulse. From this, he can decide what is out of whack in your body and prescribe traditional medicine (mostly plant material, but occasional animal or mineral) to make you feel better.
I wasn’t there solely to observe; I wanted to have my persistent nasal drip checked out. Some say that Chinese medicine is best for those who have problems that are low-level and persistent, and cannot be solved by Western medicine. My ailment fulfilled all three of these criteria.
I watched a few patients being helped, and then I sat down in the chair to face him. I explained my condition. He took my pulse, glanced at my tongue, pondered for just a moment, and then gave me his diagnosis. We had to look it up in our dictionary together. I have too much phlegm! So that was a let down. Of course I do! He asked if I wanted any medicine to help me with it, and of course I did. So he scratched out a prescription and we were on our way.
Downstairs, the hospital had one of the set ups that is so classic to China. I had to take my prescription to one window, where a man added up my herbs on an abacus and told me how much I owed. But I couldn’t pay him. I had to walk down to another window, hand them the piece of paper he had given me, and pay them. But they couldn’t give me my drugs, they could only stamp my prescription and send me to the actual pharmacy, where the pharmacist took my prescription and filled it.
There were five or six pharmacists working in a heavily scented room, with woody, earthy, and ginseng lingering in the air. Behind the counter were a few aisles of large wooden cabinets. Each had numerous drawers, each filled with a different ingredient. A young woman took my prescription and started to fill it. She laid out five one-foot squares of light brown paper on the table and started heaping on my prescription. She’d measure out a few large handfuls of most ingredients on a primitive scale (like the one the blindfolded Justice holds), then scatter them roughly evenly over the five squares. I had ten ingredients in my prescription, including three types of wheat, a wood of some sort, orange peel, bottom-grade ginseng, and some green sticks. When she was finished, she folded up the squares of paper and handed them to me. I was to take them home and make myself some tea.
So that was the visit. To make the tea, in the morning I put the medicine in a pot, cover it with water, then simmer for up to an hour. I strain and drink the dark colored liquid, which tastes bad, and return the solids to the pot. In the evening, I use the same solids for a second batch, which being weaker, tastes slightly better. I have not found any positive effects yet, but it is supposed to take a few weeks to be effective.
Last week I finally used some of our connections at Xiao Shi to start pursuing the “I want to be a doctor” part of my life. Our connections at that school are numerous, and as much of Chinese society depends on such ‘guanxi,’ it has served us well. We need to be careful asking favors at school, though, because sometimes we aren’t really even looking for a favor, but wind up with one. Like if I ask how much jade should cost, the next thing we know they are trying to arrange the school car to take us to some crazy market and insist on buying it for us. And I didn’t even want jade, I just wanted to know how much it should cost.
But this time, I did want something. Chinese medicine is still very popular here, and I was very curious about how it worked. Allan, our liason who left after a month because he had cancer has returned for two weeks in order to get some Chinese medicine to complement his treatment.
Our friend Andy gave us a book about it before we left, and I read all about the various elements, organs, and energies that are all balanced in a healthy person’s body. The book also described many traditional herbs and how they work to put your body back in balance, but what it lacked was the actual doctors office where Chinese medicine is practiced. We had been to a few pharmacies that were part of a tourist town or museum, but never to an actual working hospital. And I wanted to go.
We were told in passing that one of our co-teacher’s husbands was a Chinese medicine doctor, and I asked her if we could visit him. Of course, she said, and she could come along as our translator! Very exciting. Her English name was Snow.
Snow met us at the front of the large Western hospital that was right next door. This large building is somewhat of a landmark—maybe it was the only building in town more than 6 stories tall until ten years ago? She led us around back to the Chinese medicine hospital. From the outside, this looked like a normal hospital. From the inside, it looked like a normal office building. There was a wide hall, with doors opening into offices. Snow walked down the hall, squinting at the nameplates next to the doors, looking for her husband’s office. She didn’t come here often, clearly. Finally, we found his office, and though he wasn’t around, the door was open and a dozen or so people loitered, standing or sitting in chairs along one wall of the room. There was an observation table against one wall, an older computer that was not turned on, and two desks pushed together facing each other. On one, there was a small piece of equipment to take blood pressure, but it was not used while we were there.
We waited with the rest of the patients for him to come back. Snow told us that he is still building up his client base, and that he specializes in diabetes, which is increasing in China like it is in the rest of the world. His patients generally came in weekly for a quick check up to determine how well their treatment was going and for a new week’s worth of drugs.
The other patients in the room were generally elderly. He strolled in wearing a doctor’s white shirt, but without a stethoscope. He sat down and the crowd of people moved towards him. There was no line but apparently an established order. Patients sat down, gave him their green books which were probably case histories, and he looked at them, took their pulse, and jotted something down in his notebook, something on their case history, and then wrote out a prescription, all by hand. Each patient took less than five minutes. And of course everyone was hovering over their shoulders to see what everyone else had.
The tests in Chinese medicine are very basic and observational. A traditional doctor looks at your tongue, your coloring, and takes your pulse. From this, he can decide what is out of whack in your body and prescribe traditional medicine (mostly plant material, but occasional animal or mineral) to make you feel better.
I wasn’t there solely to observe; I wanted to have my persistent nasal drip checked out. Some say that Chinese medicine is best for those who have problems that are low-level and persistent, and cannot be solved by Western medicine. My ailment fulfilled all three of these criteria.
I watched a few patients being helped, and then I sat down in the chair to face him. I explained my condition. He took my pulse, glanced at my tongue, pondered for just a moment, and then gave me his diagnosis. We had to look it up in our dictionary together. I have too much phlegm! So that was a let down. Of course I do! He asked if I wanted any medicine to help me with it, and of course I did. So he scratched out a prescription and we were on our way.
Downstairs, the hospital had one of the set ups that is so classic to China. I had to take my prescription to one window, where a man added up my herbs on an abacus and told me how much I owed. But I couldn’t pay him. I had to walk down to another window, hand them the piece of paper he had given me, and pay them. But they couldn’t give me my drugs, they could only stamp my prescription and send me to the actual pharmacy, where the pharmacist took my prescription and filled it.
There were five or six pharmacists working in a heavily scented room, with woody, earthy, and ginseng lingering in the air. Behind the counter were a few aisles of large wooden cabinets. Each had numerous drawers, each filled with a different ingredient. A young woman took my prescription and started to fill it. She laid out five one-foot squares of light brown paper on the table and started heaping on my prescription. She’d measure out a few large handfuls of most ingredients on a primitive scale (like the one the blindfolded Justice holds), then scatter them roughly evenly over the five squares. I had ten ingredients in my prescription, including three types of wheat, a wood of some sort, orange peel, bottom-grade ginseng, and some green sticks. When she was finished, she folded up the squares of paper anput type="hidden" name="name" value="karensun">
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Last week I finally used some of our connections at Xiao Shi to start pursuing the “I want to be a doctor” part of my life. Our connections at that school are numerous, and as much of Chinese society depends on such ‘guanxi,’ it has served us well. We need to be careful asking favors at school, though, because sometimes we aren’t really even looking for a favor, but wind up with one. Like if I ask how much jade should cost, the next thing we know they are trying to arrange the school car to take us to some crazy market and insist on buying it for us. And I didn’t even want jade, I just wanted to know how much it should cost.
But this time, I did want something. Chinese medicine is still very popular here, and I was very curious about how it worked. Allan, our liason who left after a month because he had cancer has returned for two weeks in order to get some Chinese medicine to complement his treatment.
Our friend Andy gave us a book about it before we left, and I read all about the various elements, organs, and energies that are all balanced in a healthy person’s body. The book also described many traditional herbs and how they work to put your body back in balance, but what it lacked was the actual doctors office where Chinese medicine is practiced. We had been to a few pharmacies that were part of a tourist town or museum, but never to an actual working hospital. And I wanted to go.
We were told in passing that one of our co-teacher’s husbands was a Chinese medicine doctor, and I asked her if we could visit him. Of course, she said, and she could come along as our translator! Very exciting. Her English name was Snow.
Snow met us at the front of the large Western hospital that was right next door. This large building is somewhat of a landmark—maybe it was the only building in town more than 6 stories tall until ten years ago? She led us around back to the Chinese medicine hospital. From the outside, this looked like a normal hospital. From the inside, it looked like a normal office building. There was a wide hall, with doors opening into offices. Like most buildings in China, it was clean, but the walls and floor looked dirty with age. Snow walked down the hall, squinting at the nameplates next to the doors, looking for her husband’s office. She didn’t come here often, clearly. Finally, we found his office, and though he wasn’t around, the door was open and a dozen or so people loitered, standing or sitting in chairs along one wall of the room. There was an observation table against one wall, an older computer that was not turned on, and two desks pushed together facing each other. On one, there was a small piece of equipment to take blood pressure, but it was not used while we were there.
We waited with the rest of the patients for him to come back. Snow told us that he is still building up his client base, and that he specializes in diabetes, which is increasing in China like it is in the rest of the world. His patients generally came in weekly for a quick check up to determine how well their treatment was going and for a new week’s worth of drugs.
The other patients in the room were generally elderly. He strolled in wearing a doctor’s white shirt, but without a stethescope. He sat down and the crowd of people moved towards him. There was no line but apparently an established order. Patients sat down, gave him their green books which were probably case histories, and he looked at them, took their pulse, and jotted something down in his notebook, something on their case history, and then wrote out a prescription. Each patient took less than five minutes. And of course everyone was hovering over their shoulders to see what everyone else had and was getting from him.
The tests in Chinese medicine are very basic and observational. A traditional doctor looks at your tongue, your coloring, and takes your pulse. From this, he can decide what is out of whack in your body and prescribe traditional medicine (mostly plant material, but occasional animal or mineral) to make you feel better.
I didn't just want to observe, I also wanted to have my persistent nasal drip checked out. Some say that Chinese medicine is best for those who have problems that are low-level and persistent, and cannot be solved by Western medicine. My ailment fulfilled all three of these criteria.
I watched a few patients being helped, and then I sat down in the chair to face him. I explained my condition. He took my pulse, looked t my tongue for a second, pondered for just a moment, and then gave me his diagnosis. We had to look it up in our dictionary together. I have too much phlegm! So that was a let down, of course I do! He asked if I wanted any medicine to help me with it, and of course I did. So he scratched out a prescription and we were on our way.
Downstairs, the hospital had one of the set ups that is so classic to China. I had to take my prescription to one window, where a man added up my herbs on an abacus and told me how much I owed. But I couldn’t pay him. I had to walk down to another window, hand them the piece of paper he had given me, and pay them. But they couldn’t give me my drugs, they could only stamp my prescription and send me to the actual pharmacy, where the pharmacist took my prescription and filled it.
There were five or six pharmacists working in a heavily scented room, with woody, earthy, and ginseng lingering in the air. There were several aisles of wooden cabnets, each with dozens of drawers, each containing a different ingredient. A young woman took my prescription and started to fill it. She laid out five one-foot squares of light brown paper on the table and started heaping on my prescription. She’d measure out a few large handfuls of most ingredients on a primitive scale (like the one the blindfolded Justice holds), then scatter them roughly evenly over the five squares. I had ten ingredients in my prescription, including three types of wheat, a wood of some sort, orange peel, bottom-grade"MyShoutbox.com - Free Shoutbox!">