Traditional Chinese Medicine: In the Field

After weeks spent on reading repetitious material for Traditional Chinese Medicine class, we finally went to the hospital to work in the field! We have been learning about qi, yin and yang, and the five elements. 
Most of the treatment for Chinese medicine are acupuncture, cupping, and mixtures of natural plants and other materials from the earth. 
Traditional Chinese medicine is a lot different from western medicine because it is a holistic practice, it treats the whole person and the root of the disease, whereas western medicine treats the symptoms. 
Our teacher took us to her hospital where we had to put on white lab coats and face masks. We looked really professional:

In fact, we looked so professional that people came up to us and tried to ask us questions, none of us understood however, and we were quickly found out as the foreign students who didn't really know anything.

In the clinic I found out what cupping is. Cupping is a method often used in Traditional Chinese medicine to treat kidney disorders, back pain, insomnia, and many other disorders. The patient lays face down with their back facing up towards the doctor, and the doctor has glass cups that she puts fire into and then puts onto the patients back, with the mouth of the cup facing the back and the cup attaches to the back and the heat pulls the skin up into a bubble. It's actually quite a wretched site, and some patients said that it hurt terribly, while others said that it didn't hurt too badly. I for one don't think that I could do it.
After the cups are attached to the patients back, they are left like that for 30 minutes and then pulled right off. The skin becomes purple and red.
Here is a picture of the pre-cupping patient's back, I'll spare you a picture of the actual cups on the back:

The doctor (our teacher) is holding the fire in one hand and a cup in the other, preparing to put the cup on the woman's back. Before hand she spread a cup with heat in it around the woman's back and that is why it is red and purple already.
It is fun to learn Traditional Chinese medicine in the actual field instead of in a class room learning from textbooks. 
Here is a video from a Traditional Chinese medicine shop:

Chinese hospitals are very different from American hospitals. I think that acupuncture and things like traditional chinese medicine are romanticized in the west, because people usually go to a place that specializes in acupuncture and it has private rooms for the patients with a nice ambiance. But in China the rooms are just beds placed right next to each other with curtains for walls. There isn't as much privacy, and everyone is in the same small room.