Ancient Medicine Modern World

It takes an hour and half of cycling through the rattle and screech of Beijing morning traffic to go from south of the Temple of Heaven to north Bee’s Nest road, where Doc Wang has his private clinic. It’s just a bit longer than cycling up to the subway and then compressing into the morning rush. And the bike lanes along the second ring road are surprisingly wide and comfortable.

I met Jason Robertson when I lived in Beijing in 2003, he knew Doc Wang from a brief stint that he’d done at the school where Jason studied medicine in California. Doc Wang is no stranger to travel and has taught acupuncture in a number of different countries. Jason introduced us, and I’ve made it a point to always spend time with him whenever I’m in Beijing.
Indeed, he is the major reason for my coming here.

Doc Wang is a rare kind of doctor in China. When he doesn’t know something, he says he doesn’t know. And what he does know he willing to share.

It’s odd and I really can not explain why, but it seems my listening comprehension in Chinese has not deteriorated that much in the past year. Maybe it has something to do with all the medicinal books in Chinese that I put in front of my eyes in the States, or perhaps the brain just permanently gets rewired with a new language after period of time. Either way, I find I’m understanding a good 80% of what Doc Wang is talking about, and ever impressed with this clarity of thought and candor.

You see a lot of patients over the course of 44 years, and it builds a certain kind of experience. It illuminates what is written the books, and gives one their own view of how acupuncture works. I’ve heard Doc say on more than one occasion “this is what they actually mean in the classics”, when he is explaining a fine point of acupuncture. “It took me 20 years of practice and wondering why certain results were not so good until I figured it out.”

This is why I to return to Beijing, to study with a doctor of this stature. It is not just to learn more about the medicine I practice and how to help people with it. It is to breathe in the inspiration to become a doctor who is comfortable and curious at the edge of the unknown.