There are two types of medical schools in China: medical
schools that are completely westernized, these schools teach and study western
medicine; and medical schools that teach and study Chinese herbal
medicine. I went to a westernized
medical school. My cousin went to a Chinese medicine medical school. We often debate about treatment difference
under these two systems.
Once, I was sick. I
told my cousin that my immune system was down, that why I was sick. My cousin answer was that I had too much
stress, my body was imbalanced; specifically, Ying was too strong in my
case. At the time, we were vacationing
at countryside. So, I had access to
limited amount of medications. We all
know that—some diseases such as a bad episode of flu, you just have to suffer
through it. Medication may provide
certain symptomatic relieve but they really do not help much for curing the
disease. Usually, it’s our immune system
that will eventually catch up and rid of the disease for us. In that case, I decided to wait for my immune
system to do the trick.
However, my cousin finally had enough with me holed up all
day in the cabin. One day, he declared
that I was ruining his vacation and he was going to take the matter into his
own hand. He went out into the woods. A few hours late, he came back with a collection
of various herbs that he found in the woods!
He stewed the herbs mixture, drained out the herbs, and made me drink
the liquid. I still remembered staring
at that clear yellowish liquid suspiciously for full five minutes before I
finally decided to drink it. I figured
that was probably a better choice than dealing with my cousin’s wrath. Amazingly, my condition significantly
improved only after a day or so of receiving my cousin’s herbal therapy. I was hooked ever since.
Don’t get me wrong—I do go to regular doctors even though I
am guilty of forgetting my annual physical checkup often. However, I also believe that there are a lot
of collective wisdoms and experiences in Chinese herbal medicine. Chinese has survived and thrived for
thousands of years studying and benefiting from various herbal
concoctions. I fully intend to tap into
this wealth of knowledge for inspirations on taking care of my body and my
skin.
In future posts, often, I will provide recipes and tips
about skincare and general well care based on the Chinese medicine. I developed some recipes on my own. Other recipes may be directly from ancient
Chinese herbal medicine books. If that’s
the case, I will provide citation to the book.
I will try to provide as much explanation on the herbal ingredients as
possible. I understand that you might
not be able to find these ingredients in regular supermarket. However, all these ingredients should be
available in your local Chinese supermarkets.
Better yet, copy-paste an ingredient name to your search engine, you
might be able to buy it online.
Thanks for reading!
Chinese Herbal Medicines are really very effective in many chronic conditions.
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