In the first Chinese class I attended in Taiwan there was a very intelligent and well spoke Australian, who had was in the process of repeating this most basic entry level course. For the third time.

His habit of an immaculate English vocabulary was an un-vaultable wall which prevented him from learning to crawl in Chinese until he could walk, run, fly. I thought about him the other day when I found myself on the thin ice of a conversation that had suddenly become tangled and complex. There are some words that tickle the ears with meaning, they provide an ephemeral connection to understanding. But, understanding and expression ride different neural pathways; once the conversation returns back to me those stepping stone words have vanished. I can detour around them, but they have not planted in my mind, and so they cannot be formed with tongue and breath. Had I bothered to grasp those words and immediately turn them back in a short reply, they would have had an opportunity to plant in a fertile moment.

By, grasping a few words and repeating them. Like making conversation about a subject you know nothing about. You can keep it going a long time if you toss a few just words back in your reply!

The trick to keep the conversation going at the speed of the tongue, instead of the ears.

There is a method of telling fortunes in Taiwan. Actually, there are many methods of telling fortunes in Taiwan. 算命先生 fortune tellers in Taiwan are as numerous as psychotherapists in any trendy west coast American city, and for the most part serve the same function. Which is to help us ask the questions that get us to the right answer.

Shortly after arriving in Taipei in 2001 I found myself at one of the thousands of temples that polka-dot the island. I was drawn by the riot of color, clouds of incense, the feeling of something foreign and far off my map of the world. There, a man who spoke English asked “would you like to read your fortune?”

“Sure, why not.” After all, when in the midst of a jet lag and culture shock cocktail, any kind of sign from the divine could be of service.

I had no idea I was about to be introduced to the Taiwanese version of a Rube Goldberg Ouija board.

The first step is to hold in the mind a question. A clear question. The question that will facilitate an answer that opens the next fork in the road, the question whose answer will invite a fuller and deeper experience of life. First you need the right question. Then, from a brass canister, a stick with numbers is chosen. This is will direct you to the answer.

The question here is not “is this the right answer”, the question is “have you choose the right question for this particular stick?”

Did you get the question right?

To find out- grab a pair of wooden smile shaped blocks, hold them along with your question and drop then to the floor. Should they land one up and one down, that stick you pulled is right for your question. But, should they land both face down, or both face up, then it is your question that is not right.

Put away the stick. But, more importantly, put away that question. You are barking up the wrong tree. Pop the frame, narrow the focus, ask about something else, rethink the situation. Ask the question before or the one you thougth would come later. More important than the answer is the question. It is like building a house with the wrong set of plans. Get the question right, and a whole new set of possbilities opens up.

My first clue came in Taiwan when I was teaching English.

I’d approach the grammar portion of the lesson with fear and trepidation. Give myself a glancing review of subordinate clauses, predicate adjectives and past perfect participles.  Relying as much on my students inability to understand English, as my own well honed skills in extemporaneous speaking and sleigh of hand in changing the subject.

The only thing that really qualified me to teach English in Asia was my American accent and white skin. That and the willingness to trade the sounds of English for the local currency. Most of my students would never go deeply into English grammar. For them, it was enough just to open and their mouths and attempt to string together a few words, or learn a bit of slang, figure out how to hold their own in a job interview, or simply please the parents who were paying for their lessons.

I never learned grammar, the same way I never learned English. It was just the soup in which I swam. So long as I could communicate and write well enough I figured I was on solid ground.

Then I started translating “The Ten Major Formula Families in Chinese Medicine.” That is when I found that that commas and periods go inside of the quote marks, that there are rules and agreements of grammar that may not be casually ignored. For the first time grammar, and the proper use thereof, became important. And it was way way too late to return my high school English class and bone up on the nuts and bolts of how to parse the English language.

As they like to say in Chinese 失敗是成功之母, defeat is the mother of success. Luckily a writer friend of mine recently confided her own struggles with truly understanding how we structure our language. So it was off to Barnes and Noble. For her, a 5th grammar workbook and for me, The Mountain Man’s Field Guide to Grammar.

That darned book actually makes the rules of grammar both frisky and fun.

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!

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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.

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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.

In China people talk about having a stuffy feeling the chest and dizziness.

In the US we talk about anxiety, and depression.

We all have that about which we are concerned. We all have symptoms and difficulties that to us make sense.
Regardless of which side of the pond upon which we live, I suspect our experiences of ourselves is not that different. We just give it different meanings.

This sometimes makes practicing Chinese medicine in the West a particular kind of challenge. There are experiences which in China are taken for granted. Language, culture and the shared understanding of what is assumed without words. Those words however, slipped into English don’t even begin to make sense.

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Wind invasion, receiving cold, rising fire, these all in Chinese make sense. But, wiggling them into English requires a translation not just across language, but through culture and habit as well. Being bi-lingual helps.

Being bi-cultural is helps even more.

To the ear that has not learned to pull meaning out of the staccato of short syllables accented with tone, Chinese sounds like a rusty machine gun.

But, for those who can pull meaning from the slurry of sound, it sounds like this poem from my friend Jiang, who lives in Yangshou.

In our hearts we like to return home
Sometimes we forget that we are just natural people, we hover like the birds,we are free like fish,we are like cute dogs, and we enjoy the sight of flowers, we are unrestrained like a melody full of poetic pictures.
We often yearn the beauty of natures places, especially if sad and we have a desire to return to our homes.
I guess we forget we too are nature’s gifts. All of nature’s animals and wildlife also see us as a beautiful scenery and they too want to return to their homes.
When we lay beneath the blue sky with its soft white clouds we can close our eyes and hear the whisper of the butterflies and the fish swimming in a nearby brook..
We can climb high mountains and look down on an ancient civilization and imagine time gone by.
What a privilege it is to be able to visit local people in their own homes and feel warmth from their friendliness.
Our hearts are more happy when we allow the love we feel shine out to others.

Jiang is a travel guide, who will be showing our group of western acupunks around Yangshou. A journey with her is not simply about the territory!

Affirmations never worked for me. They are like lost post-it notes from another dimension, lacking a certain verve, and calling to a dream that might be best forgotten.

Taiwanese stationary on the other hand, incorporates the best of intentions, with the slight twist of English that is not wrong, but neither is it quite right.

It speaks the truth like a random haiku.

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More often than not, it just makes good sense.

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And it speaks the brilliant wisdom and truth we already know, but need reminding of.

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Sometimes, it is just the elusive obvious

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Other times, it is the call allow yourself to be daringly bold.

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You don’t even need to mark it on your calendar, it is already done for you!

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Oh yeah, hang with the happy, that’s right!

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Where we put our focus is where we go!

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. Push your luck!

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What?!? We are in charge of our own wish granting. Now they tell me!

At times, it is as if there is a hamster spinning a wheel at the back of my mind, trying frantically to continue making sense. It is the biggest obsticale to understanding. That constant “trying to make sense” narrows of the focus of attention to a personal struggle to make sense, it closes the ears, and constricts the lungs, gives a temporary sense of dizzy and a feeling of cotton in the ears.

Strangely enough, in those moments of forgeting to hold on, mumbles turn to syllables, turn to words, meaning, feeling and that sense of understanding another through sound. We are not so different really. All struggling to understand and be understood, appreciated for the unique creations we are. Our particular spot of color and light in the universe.

Perhaps it is I have come to China as something other than a student. Or, it might be that my language skills have progressed. Or that I have learned to listen with different ears. The stories I heard. Of a 20 years ago China. Of present challenges in life. Of dreams of a future that might be dared. Mornings tasting tea. Mulling over idioms. Recognizing half a world and magnatude of language language away, we find moments of meeting, connection, shared joy and common saddness.

Somehow, in this trip, there is a veil that I’ve slipped through, the polite talk is just an introduction, but it is not where we stay, the real words like a thirsty connection are abundent.

十大類方 (shi da lei fang), the book I’m in the process of translating is getting site of its own. While items of general interest pertaining to health and vitality will still appear on this blog. The new site Classic Formulas will host information that is more geared to the community of Chinese medicine practitioners. It will also have occasional excerpts from the book. So, if you want a sneak preview, check it out from time to time!