Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM)

February, 14th, 2012

I have caught a cold and today my program director made me an appointment at a traditional Chinese medicine clinic in Beijing that specializes in moxibustion. Moxibustion is a type of treatment that deals with applying heat to the body in areas where a sickness occurs. Traditional Chinese medicine mostly entails treatments like moxibustion, acupuncture, and medicines made out of natural ingredients. It is a holistic approach to curing disease and illness. It pays attention to qi energy in the body and yin and yang – opposites (hot and cold, energetic and calm etc.)

 The people who work at this clinic are also apparently all Buddhists. I am trying to get an apprenticeship here for my independent study on Buddhism so my program director and I decided that it would be a good idea for me to go in person and to get treated for my cold (gan mao).

It was my first experience travelling in Beijing completely on my own using the public transportation, namely the bus system. In my mind, this is the most challenging form of public transportation for a foreigner in a country that does not speak your language. Initially I did get lost. I got on a bus going in the wrong direction because my teacher didn’t tell me which direction to go in. I didn’t know how to read the bus signs either so I wasn’t sure what direction to go in. I must have entered the wrong bus or the right bus depending on how you look at it. The bus driver kicked me off the bus at the second stop. I didn’t understand exactly what she was saying in Chinese but it had to do with not being able to ride on the bus anymore and pointing at the door. It was actually a good thing I got off the bus because I was going the wrong direction!

I called my teacher and she helped me figure out that I was going the wrong direction so I got on a bus going the opposite direction. A lot of people on the bus were staring at me, this is what I imagined going on in their heads, “A foreigner using the bus all by herself?! What is this? And she looks so young!”

The buses are not the best form of transportation here but they do come quite promptly – about every five minutes or even every two minutes. But upon getting on the bus, there was a huge amount of traffic and it wasn’t rush hour. It took me an hour and a half to get to this clinic and I ended up being almost an hour late because of getting lost. My teacher didn’t warn me or even tell me how long the trip would take. The directions she gave me were according to her the way people give directions in China, all based on landmarks. Boy do I wish my brain worked this way, but no, google maps! Why do you spoil me so!!! I am incapable of finding things based on landmarks. It wasn’t all my fault, the directions also didn’t say how far or where to turn, they just said, look for this big super market in the southern direction…super helpful…not.

So I went around the city once I got off the bus asking people where this one supermarket was and finally someone pointed me in a precise and correct direction where I found the supermarket and luckily the clinic was right next to it.

My treatment was pretty awesome. It was heat and massage, and this was for treating a cold! First they offered me tea then they asked me what areas were hurting. I had to talk in Chinese only, but had definitely forgotten some terms so as you can imagine there was a lot of pointing involved.

In the treatment room there was a massage table. Imagine a room in America that is in a typical spa; that was the room. At first my doctor massaged some areas in my chest in order to release the cold. Then he massaged some, what I am guessing are typical acupressure points in the body. He then applied heat with what looked like a huge incense stick burning, and held it up near my skin. After applying heat he was basically massaging the sickness out of me. The sickness I have, since it is a cold, is considered a sickness containing too much yin, because yin is cold. When yin and yang get out of balance, that it is when one catches a sickness or a disease. My yin in my body is at a higher level then my yang – heat. Therefore he was using yang – heat therapy in order to extract the yin from my body. It is all very spiritual and holistic and extremely interesting.

After my massage therapy I had to drink a soup/oatmeal like drink that was purple and had something mashed up in it. I can’t say it was delicious, but it was drinkable. The people at the clinic talked to me a lot and seemed to like me. They told me that my Chinese was good, which I am always surprised to hear because I feel like I don’t know anything here and that people are always speaking too fast for me to understand.

Upon leaving I once again took the bus and I could tell that I smelled like an 8 pack a day smoker because of the burning incense that they applied at the clinic. I could even smell myself, which is always a bad sign.

This adventure turned into a five-hour journey. It was totally worth it, and nothing I could have ever experienced as a tourist. I love not being a tourist.