Take your Chinese medicine...

Fellow tour members being diagnosed.

I was reminded of my trip to China when I saw this post at chineseamericanprincess.com.

That's how it works -- I don't sit around and just decide to reminisce about the trip; I'm usually just minding my own business and I'll see something that just kind of triggers the way-back machine.

Anyway, when we were in Beijing, we signed up for tour that visited the Ming Tombs and a section of the Great Wall. As with all tours, it included lunch, but also a few side trips that were designed to "educate" the visitor about various aspects of Chinese culture. On our tour (from Hell) of Hangzhou, we received a presentation about the production of tea (with an opportunity to buy some of the super-grade-A-superior-awesome tea that we had just tasted). On our Beijing city tour, we went to a pearl center and another tea house, both with informative presentations and plentiful shopping opportunities afterwards.

So, on the Tomb/Wall tour, we visited a jade store information center and something like "the National Institute of Traditional Chinese Medicine."

At the Institute, we were first led into a reception area with several display cases which provided information about various aspects of Chinese medicine, the history of the Institute, as well as several accounts (with photographs) of Chairman Mao being successfully treated for different ailments in his later life. We get taken upstairs into a small room where we hear a brief presentation and are then told that we can have an evaluation performed by one of their top practitioners, if we are so inclined.

I should say now, I do believe in this stuff, at least to a certain extent. I believe that as a system, the body operates as a whole and that it is possible for it to manifest problems in ways that go beyond what can be observed via X-rays, MRIs or blood tests. And I certainly don't believe that there's anything particularly magical about Western medicine. That is, just because we use science and technology to develop our drugs, I don't assume that they're necessarily superior to substances found in nature -- herbs, critters or what have you. Ironic use of the word, I know, considering the common (although potentially diminishing) Western view of eastern medicine as being largely based in superstition. That it's effectively believing in magic. And as far as drugs go, I'm really no fan of pills, whether they're from Glaxo-Squabb-Merl-Co or some herbal supplement. But I'm getting ahead of myself. (And I realize that it seems like I'm fixating on the drug-thing, but the reason for that will become clear shortly.)

Anyway, I sit down, and after giving the obligatory duibuqi, wo shi meiguoren (sorry, I'm an American), we get down to business through the translator. From across the table, the doctor takes my wrists in his hands and checks my pulse, sitting quietly for a few moments. [I have a friend up in Vermont who practices eastern medicine and who's done this with me, and explained it... but sadly, most of the details have faded. What I do remember is that they're checking multiple pulses (that I think are tied to different organs); checking quality, checking strength.] He asks me (through the translator) if I have any back pain. I say yes. He tells me that it's because my kidneys are weak. (Funny, I thought it was because I have two herniated discs between some of my lumbar vertebrae.) He then marks a piece of paper in front of him and passes it to me to read. He's marked two paragraphs on it and the translator explains that they describe the appropriate herbal remedies that I can take to cure my problem.

And, of course, at this point in the story, you're probably wondering to yourself, "Gee, where on earth is he going to be able to get these obscure traditional herbs?" (All together now...)

Where can you get them? Planet Ten! Right here!
When can I get them? Real Soon! Right now!

So, they told me that I should get a month's worth of their special, concentrated herbal supplement (not available in stores!) and I would be all better. A month's worth of these supplements turned out to be two bottles that my crappy long-term memory is telling me would cost 1000RMB a bottle, or roughly US$240. Um, yeah. Like, no job. Not so much with the disposable income at this point. Not to mention that I don't like spending large sums of money without some careful consideration. And maybe it was 1000RMB for the two, but I'm pretty sure it was for each bottle, because I remember it still costing over a hundred bucks when the translator helpfully suggested that I just buy half the dose. (and get half better?)

She tried another tack:

It is your health, after all. Can you put a value on that? Isn't that worth the money?

Well, yeah.

But, taking pills? Wrong sell. Maybe they're just trying to appeal to the Western market. Or just human nature. We naturally gravitate to the quick fix, the easy, the accessible. Sure, I can change how I do things. Sure I can do it the hard way, the long way. But why should I, if I don't have to?

At our core, we're lazy -- it's what drives us to optimize processes, to become more efficient.

I guess I was hoping they'd tell me why my kidneys were bad. Is it something I'm eating? Something I'm doing? What was wrong with them? What can I do to make things better? It seemed to me that if there was something wrong with my kidneys, something made them that way. And even if one month of pills would make them better, wouldn't whatever it was that made them bad in the first place just make them bad again? [I'd put a nice little analogy in right here, but frankly, I'm feeling a little lazy and not coming up with anything that seems sufficiently engaging or amusing. And I want to publish this post sooner rather than later. Feel free to come up with something on your own. Sorry.]

I guess I was just a little disappointed. It felt like Western medicine with Chinese characteristics. (Although admittedly, I may have just been over-reacting to the pill meme.)

And then there's context -- I suspect that in general, I'd be much more inclined to believe somebody when they aren't trying to sell me something.

So, me and my bad kidneys took a pass.

The End

Alright, now I gotta go pee.

Huh...

Speaking of peeing, I'd just like to note that when I spell-checked this post, it wanted to change "herniated" to "urinated."

Sorry, I just found that amusing.