Ancient Medicine Modern World

Sometimes it is referred to as the “women’s ginseng.” A panacea for the health concerns that include monthly cycles and changes of life. In western vocabulary it is called Angelica. It has a sweet aromatic fragrance with an affinity for nourishing the blood and improving its circulation. While there is no such thing as a miracle herb, Dang Gui comes pretty close in that it is safe as food, and has such a powerful effect on feminine cycles.

While it is not advised to use herbs to treat serious conditions without proper medical advise, Dang Gui can be used quite safely for minor problems with the menstrual cycle, blood loss from injury, or anemic conditions.

It actually makes a nice soup base for either a chicken or vegetable soup, especially when combined with other blood nourishing herbs like Gou Qi Zi, or qi boosting medicinals like Shan Yao.

In places like Taiwan, they sell little bottles of single dose Dang Gui based soups in all the 7/11’s and grocery stores. Women there drink it after their period like we drink lattes in America.

Want to know more? Talk to your local Chinese herbalist!

Xinyi Road is a forest of drills, cranes and mushroom like ventilation towers. Taipei’s already excellent subway system sprouts new lines like clematis tendrils climb a trellis. This one will connect the financial nerve center and the world’s tallest building “Taipei 101” to the main train station and the highspeed bullet line that now renders most Taipei to Kaoshiong flights obsolete.

I remember the sense of audacity when first arriving in Taiwan in the spring of 2001, that they would dare such a tall financial monument in one of the earth’s most seismic activate zones. I chalked it up then to a senseless bravado. That was before I understood the Taiwanese to be the optimistic and hardworking people they are. In the seven years I’ve known Taipei, I’ve watched her go from amazing to incredible. I’ve been privileged to live in and visit a city that mixes modern and traditional living in a way that only a well written science fiction story could tell.

The symposium on the International Globalization of Chinese Medicine was by and large an opportunity for the Taiwanese to continue a trend that emerged in during the Republican Era after the fall of the Qing dynasty. Namely, that Chinese medicine must be verified and rubber stamped by Western science. I sat through a number of lectures that gave us scientific proof of the properties of medicinals that the Chinese of the Han dynasty has already figured out. Like their brothers and sisters on the mainland, they are reluctant to toss out Chinese medicine for not being “scientific”, and at the same want to force Chinese science to fit the mold and form of the West.

.

Clinical and laboratory medicine may have a common root, but the world views that support each are like children of a family that grow into people that could not be more different.

While laboratory findings that confirm what practiced clinicians already know are interesting. What stood out most to me in the two days was the lecture on the health insurance of Taiwan.

Taiwan has universal health care. A middle class self employed person such as myself would pay USD$42 a month for my health insurance. That’s full coverage. Everything from acupuncture to open heart surgery, from granulated Chinese herbs to kidney dialysis, from twist ankles to car wrecks. In the USA I pay more than 4x that amount for hit by truck catastrophic care with a deductible that would wipe out my savings.

What is more interesting yet…..
The costs of administering the program are 1.5% of monies taken in. It is efficient, computerized, universally accessible, there are no waiting periods, nor gatekeeping doctors practicing insurance, instead of medicine. Wasteful? Perhaps, certainly that criticism has been leveled at the system. People that don’t need to see a specialist, but decide on their own they want to, and do. They can. They just have to pay a premium out of their pocket.

As in any system, if you have money, you can get what money buys, and that usually translate as more access to whatever you want. But, the amazing strength of the system here in Taiwan is that of basic health care. The kind of health that most of us need most of the time, it is as available here as a Big Mac is in the USA.

I’m a professional acupuncturist, not a politician, but if I were. I’d be looking into how the Taiwanese have managed put together such a stellar system for taking care of their citizens. But then, these are the people that would dare to build the world’s tallest building in an earthquake zone. Perhaps they see the world in a fundamentally different way.

There is something of a cat meow in the way Taiwanese girls say 歡迎光臨, it is as irresistible to the ears as ice cream on a soft breeze summer night. It seeps into the ears like spilled honey, the audio equivalent of the fragrance of lily.

Flocks of scooters that roar a turbulent surf.

The emotional tags of oh’s ah’s and ug’s tacked onto the end of sentences.

The jet engine blast that fires night market woks.

Taiwan’s rich commotion of sound paints aural pictures as deliciously round and thick and rich as a brimming bowl of beef noodle soup.

I’ve been through terminal one of the Taoyuan International Airport enough times to know which way to turn out of customs to catch the bus that is a nap away from Taipei main train station.

Down two flights of escalator, a short flight of stairs and into the slipstream of Taipei subway rush hour. You could not crowd this many Americans into one space, let alone have them move with the particular Brownian motion that feels like breathing a school of fish.

The Taiwanese excel at finding the spaces in-between. Joining the flow which sweeps me down to the Danshui line, there is again that distinctly familiar feeling of having returned home.

It is not that time changes things. But, that things change as they flow through time.

Seven years ago about this time of year I boarded an airplane with the destination of Taiwan. Armed only with determination and desire to learn enough language to engage the medicine in Asia. Tonight in the deep beyond midnight I return to the beautiful island. Return by invitation, return to join in a symposium on medicine.

From seven years ago, this moment is unimaginable.

Einstein is credited with saying that imagination is more powerful than knowledge. And the mystery of life itself surpasses both!

.

It is a common question,

These herbs, will I need to take them forever?

It is a usually a question asked by someone that is already taking pharmaceutical drugs. Taking drugs for a problem, and then other drugs to allievate the side-effects of the cure, and sometimes even others to deal with the side effects of the drugs for the side-effects.
I wish I was making this up.

.

.

But, it this is often the case.
We have a drug problem in this country, and I am not talking about the crack cocaine that is being sold a few streets over on Second Avenue.

I’m not here to rail against the awash in cash and power drug companies, like any business, they are looking to supply a solution to a problem. Nor, am critical of those who must keep a filing system of colored pills, capsules and gels. We are all looking to feel good, and keep the process of disintegration at bay.

What I am curious about is the willingness with which most of us will take a western pharmaceutical for uncounted calendar months, while a few weeks or months of a generally side effect free herbal formulation is as suspect as a foreigner at airport security.

Perhaps it is a matter of culture and habit, Chinese are used to having herbs as an accompaniment to the various slides, falls and fortunes of life.They know that herbs not only can chase away disease, what is more, they can boost and nourish the vitality. That essence which allows life to perpetuate itself through the challenges and grace of life, and the seasons and changes of years.

Indeed there are cases of incurable disease. The experience of diabetes, heart disease, arthritis, and other long term illness that can be controlled and reduced, but rarely disappeared. For, these yes, herbs are usually a long term relationship.

But, they are one that tend to coax the body into a partnership, rather than foster dependence.

It is a question as common as rain in Seattle.
How does acupuncture work?

Us westerners like to think of nerves and endorphins, MRI lightshows and double-blind glimpses of reality. We want to know. Know if it works (just ask someone who has used it!), and how it does what it does.

After ten years of using needles to help people, I can clearly tell you.
Acupuncture does not do anything.

It is true, it does nothing. Needles don’t heal people and they don’t cure disease.

It is our bodies and that deep mysterious spark of life that does the healing. There is no healing that I know of that comes from outside of us. Sure, there are drugs and treatments that control symptoms, there are surgeries that save lives, there are drugs that halt an infection. But, the actual act of healing, of regaining lost health, or enhancing the balance of vitality. That all comes from within.
And that is where acupuncture plays an unusual role.

Acupuncture simply calls forth a response from the body. Like hearing the voice of a loved one when you are lost in a crowd. We are suddenly connected to a source of nourishment and wellbeing. The voice is nothing more than simply a reminder of the connection.

Like a particular smell from childhood, that transports us instantly into an all encompassing experience of the present and past collapsing into something beyond time.

Or the pregnant pause between a sizzle flash of lightning and the crack of responding thunder, there are forces of nature which play a dynamic call and response.

Calling forth that which is already there, opening an accessible channel,
this is how acupuncture works.

A flashback travel log from the summer of 2001. Back when every new word of Chinese learned was a luminous experience.

.
.

I like spending time with my friend from Brazil, Marcelo. His name in Chinese is
Ma Rou-Zi. The sound comes off my tongue like cranking up an old metal windup toy. The kind that had a special key.

He speaks no English, I speak no Portuguese.
So we share our common language.
The one we are learning.
Together.

.

.

I’m not sure how to describe a slice of life subtitled in Chinese. How to express the wonder of him taking me to his favorite noodle shop. Shop, yeah, right. It’s one of the countless carts with a vat of bubbling goo. There is a thin alley, a scooter could barely pass through. A roof has been thrown over. And there is a narrow paint peeled counter, with plastic stools. Surprisingly pleasant Asian rock and roll plays as I slide back between the cart, and the crib that holds the owners son.
I see his wife slicing………….Something.
Ma Rou-Zi is a vegetarian. So I ally my fears of eating something very frightening.

Memory is a funny thing, it is difficult to recall in English, the experiences that unfolded in Chinese. I mostly remember a red rich soup, with tender golden noodles. A lot of laughing. The pantomime of trying to explain 習慣 to Ma Rou-Zi. Explaining the concept of what you get used to. We take a few failed runs at it, and end with shrugged shoulders. Later, in the conversation something comes up.
“習慣!”. This is 習慣, this is it! Extemporaneous learning occurs.

We laugh like madmen. Mouths full of noodles and Chinese.

It has been a desire of mine to spend the Christmas holiday season in a non-Christian country. A place without that holy mix of commerce and religion. A place that didn’t blare for months on end the message that if you love someone, you will certainly open your wallets to the merchants. I was hoping to find that here in Buddhist/Taoist Taiwan. Instead, I’ve discovered that along with McDonald’s, Kentucky Fried Chicken, and 7/11. The Taiwanese have imported Christmas.

At first it seemed like a living cartoon. Imitation conifer trees in a land of palms and bougainvillea. The trappings of trees, boughs, and bells. In a land of idols, the baby Jesus is suspicious missing. But, xiao jie don Christmas elf hats, that light up with red stars. Everyone likes to practice their English “Merry Christmas” on the foreigner.

It’s like feeding animals in a zoo.

The newspapers claim the merchants are doing well this year. Better than expected. It is fortune teller’s sign that the economy might be yet alive and kicking. Of course, the political party in power claims responsibility. I am blessed by only being able to understand a little of the hype, and call to buy. Advertising falls on ears that can only unwind a little meaning from the stream of sound, and my eyes can only take in some of the written word. So I am spared the barrage of buy, buy, buy.

.

The Sunday paper had a picture of 3,000 Santas parading down Hsin Yi Road. All employees of the Sinopac Bank. Spreading Christmas cheer, and reminding people to contribute to charity.

The front page of today’s Christmas edition of the Taipei Times has Mayor Ma, the mayor of Taipei. Dressed up in white. As an angel. Full length gown, part wedding dress, part Italian renaissance fantasy, complete with white feather wings. He is singing Christmas carols on the steps of city hall.

Christmas in Taiwan is a cross between an epic Cecile B. Demille movie and the Simpsons. It is missing the religious underpinnings that fuel the celebration in the States.

Over here it runs on a nitro mix of the Chinese love of group events, coupled with the desire to adapt the trapping of American culture, and a make your heart go pitter-patter love for flash and glitter.

They go for the tinsel and trimmings like a hungry cutthroat trout goes for a silver spinner.

You hear this a lot with Chinese medicine:It has been around for thousands of years, they must know something.    A thousand years is a long time.

Plenty of time to have lots of bad ideas, along with the good ones.

I always get concerned when I hear people deciding that Chinese medicine must be good simply because it is traditional. Tradition, all too easily can simply be a nostalgia coated wish, or blind faith in the face of a reality that demands open eyes, even as we wish to shut them tight.

There is a difference between tradition and traditionalism.Traditionalism is accepting on faith the teachings and ways of those who have come before. It is a quaint anachronism at best, and at its worst an unthinking regard for the present and our own place in it.

Tradition on the other hand, offers something different. It is not the tradition itself that is important. What matters is that spark of understanding, that comes from one generation to another, and kindles in the present moment that which also illuminated those in the past. It is not a worship of the past, nor a belief that we are fallen, and must hark back to a more golden time. It is the recognition that each generation must have lit in themselves that fire which is being passed along.

Tradition is only as alive as it flourishes anew in those who receive and carry it forward!