Ancient Medicine Modern World

I’d been lamenting the anesthesia grey sky, wondering if they ever, anywhere in China, see blue sky these days.

It does exist.
At 33,000 feet on the way from Chengdu to Nanjing.

“中國通!”
It’s the phrase they use here to say “your Chinese is good, you know how to communicate”. I hear, and ignore it all the time. It’s a throw away, like “what country are you from?”

中國通, often translated as “old China hand”. Someone who knows their way around. Someone who gets the meaning beneath the words that are not spoken. I hear it as I step off the airport bus in the middle of Nanjing, from the guy with flat top, sharky predator eyes and black VW. Never trust these guys. I know this from that place of knowledge that has been painfully acquired.

“Where are you going?”
“I don’t need any help, thank you”
“Cheap cheap for you”
“Thanks, you are very kind”

My Chinese is good enough now that I don’t travel with the backup of an English map.
My Chinese is bad enough that I don’t always understand directions from Chinese people. Partly this is due to my ears that still miss hearing essential moments of a sentence. Partly, could also be directly related to the fact that most Chinese people could not find their way out of paper bag.
It is a major curiosity to me that Chinese people have wandered all over the world. Because most of the ones I’ve met in China, can’t tell you how to get to the post office 3 blocks away.

Over to the newsstand to try with an impartial 3rd party…

“Nanjing school of Chinese medicine, you know how to get there?”
He pulls out a map and looks confused through blue cigarette smoke.

“20 kuai, I take you there, 20 kuai”. Says sharky eyes.
These guys are like fleas on a dog, and if they are overpricing by 400%, they are off their game.

I’ve yet to figure out why they think they can cheat a Chinese speaking foreigner the same as one who has no language. We have obviously lived here long enough to have been fleeced more than a few times.

Flag the green and yellow, “Nanjing school of Chinese medicine, you know it?”
The driver gives me a goofy stare, “it’s just right there the other side of that stoplight up ahead”.

Maybe I am a 中國通 after all, thinks me, as I walk past Mr. Flattop, toward the intersection ahead.

Nanjing was not on the original itinerary. But, something happened in Yangshuo. I was reading “10 major formula groups in Chinese medicine”. It is a book that was slipped into my hands by Craig Mitchell a few years ago in Beijing, when I complained about how my crappy Chinese was getting me nowhere with studying the “Classic of Damage by Cold”.

“Try reading this, it’s simple, to the point and full of some interesting ideas”. I’ve been through it once plus over these past few years. I like the author’s conversational style. It seemed like the perfect throw in a daypack to keep me company on the road kind of book.
And it has been.

It happened as I was commenting out loud to Keller, one of the students at the Outdoor English Language School where I always rent a cheap flat when in Yangshuo. “This stuff is great, I wish other English speaking Chinese doctors could see this. Someday I’d like to translate this”.

“So…. what’s stopping you?”

That is probably one of the better questions that should be trotted out more often in life. What is stopping you? What keeps you from doing what you want? Or dream? Or desire?

What would you dare, if you simply choose the goal,
and let go of needing to know first how you would achieve it?

“I need to contact the author, I know roughly where he lives, because he is a teacher at the Nanjing Chinese medicine school”

“Why not call the publisher?
They would know where to find him”.

Thanks to the twin miracles of Google and mobile phones, within 25 minutes I am talking to Professor Huang. Lucky for me, he speaks a very standard brand of Chinese. I hate making phone calls in Chinese, it is as if the ears have been set to random.
Words without all the non-verbal nudges are much harder to understand.

In short order, he agrees to let me translate his little treasure.

For me, the obvious usually creeps up quietly over a period of time before announcing itself. While Nanjing was not on the plan, this project with Dr. Huang changes the landscape. To be here in China and not visit him would be a wasted opportunity. I scratch the trip to see the Leshan Buddha carved into a mountain, and fly east 3 provinces see Dr. Huang instead.

I love watching Chinese doctors work a busy crowd of patients. Anyone can see a patient an hour, try seeing seven! And for a doctor, it is fun to watch another doc put into the motion the words from the book he wrote.

Dinner with Dongbei food and beer.
Conversation peppered with practice and philosophy, medicine and history.

Dr. Huang, is like so many of the thoughtful doctors I’ve met. He’s not ashamed to admit that he spent years of practice, getting mediocre results. Then took the original stuff he learned, added further study, revisited the classics, and history.
Found another corner of perspective to view it from, and in so doing discovered something new about the medicine that allowed him to help patients more effectively.

His book “10 major formula groups in Chinese medicine” is an introduction into that kind thinking.

And soon, will be available in English!