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Miss Char Siu Bau
Joined: 27 Feb 2003
Posts: 2
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 Posted: Fri Feb 28, 2003 3:24 pm Post subject: Chinese Doctors |
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Lately, I have been unable to avoid noticing the increasing number of herbal Chinese doctors opening up in shopping centres across the country. They offer on the spot diagnosis and send you home with paper bags packed with some dried out leaves, grass and goodness knows whatever and tell you to boil it and drink, no matter how bad it tastes! All in return for lightening your purse rather spectacularly!
In fact, I did visit one of these shops recently (with a bad cough) because my mother had been nagging at me after I had been trying some "western" medication and not experienced any improvement. The examination was interesting...sat on a plastic seat in the middle of the open front shop, the doc looked at my tongue and read my pulse. Given that I don't speak Mandarin, our conversation was translated through a girl who spoke broken English. Hoping they were able to ascertain my symptoms, I came away with my bags of weed for a week and a bottle of cough syrup. The latter for which I was charged a tenner. I saw it shortly after in a local Chinese supermarket for a mere £3! That'll be "private" healthcare for you!
Anyway, while I do believe in alternative forms of medicine and healing, and am happy to drink whatever concoctions my mother brews up for me at home, I am just curious to hear what you think about these physicians and shops? Are they regulated? Do you trust or maybe even rely on these docs? Would you parents choose them over a trip to the GP and local chemist? Do you really know what they are packing in your paper bags? When would you use one?
Answers on a postacrd please...
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Miss Char Siu Bau |
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porkscratchings
Joined: 27 Feb 2003
Posts: 112
Location: BirmingHAM
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| Posted: Fri Feb 28, 2003 3:24 pm Post subject: |
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Chinese medicine is very popular right now - so every student with a 2 yr diploma from China is setting up shop. They are not regulated as there isn't an organisation like the BMA dealing with alternative medicine.
Real doctors of chinese medicine require at least a 10 year apprenticeship b4 they can open their own place. And the latter is only done when the Sifu gives permission. Some docs won't treat anyone who turns up, u have to be recommended by someone they know to be treated by them. I have no probs using Chinese medicine - it works better than conventional medicine with less side effects. I won't use any of those shops that have sprung up from nowhere. They are no better than cowboy builder, they take ur money leaving u with something dodgy.
(Edited by porkscratchings at 6:52 am on Jan. 24, 2003)
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Porkscratchings |
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Pheonix Event
Joined: 27 Feb 2003
Posts: 4
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| Posted: Fri Feb 28, 2003 3:26 pm Post subject: |
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| I actually need a yisang after that post. It made me ill oh porky one! |
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dianauni
Joined: 25 Feb 2003
Posts: 15
Location: Gibraltar/Spain
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| Posted: Sat Mar 01, 2003 6:22 am Post subject: |
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Only today I asked my daughter what were the brown nut looking objects she had in a plastic bag in the kitchen and she told me they cured sore throats. Apparently you immerse them in boiling water, they open up and one drinks the infusion which she said is pretty ghastly but seems to work. She bought them at a large herbal store in Beijing - it is a very famous shop and there is a branch in Shaftesbury Avenue (London) just before you turn off to enter China Town.
I have visited both shops - in London I bought pills which I was told were a diuretic - but I never took them as my niece who is a nurse told me they contained something revolting - I forget what it was - sheeps brains? cows urine? - whatever it was it was written on the box and she knew the medical term.
In Beijing I was rather put off by the fact that one sat in a chair outside the shop to be examined and diagnosed! In any case both shops displayed revolting animal body parts which did not inspire confidence.
I am sure that there are many Chinese remedies which work but I think one has to be very careful. I have read articles in the British press concerning some remedies which actually include deadly poisons and since they are not regulated that is very worrying.
I still have my diuretic pills if anyone is braver than me and would like to have them!!
What I DID enjoy in China was a body massage! I was pinched, rubbed, pummelled and shaken - it was exhausting but so invigorating! |
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porkscratchings
Joined: 27 Feb 2003
Posts: 112
Location: BirmingHAM
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| Posted: Sun Mar 02, 2003 4:56 am Post subject: |
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| dianauni wrote: | Only today I asked my daughter what were the brown nut looking objects she had in a plastic bag in the kitchen and she told me they cured sore throats. Apparently you immerse them in boiling water, they open up and one drinks the infusion which she said is pretty ghastly but seems to work. She bought them at a large herbal store in Beijing - it is a very famous shop and there is a branch in Shaftesbury Avenue (London) just before you turn off to enter China Town.
I have visited both shops - in London I bought pills which I was told were a diuretic - but I never took them as my niece who is a nurse told me they contained something revolting - I forget what it was - sheeps brains? cows urine? - whatever it was it was written on the box and she knew the medical term.
In Beijing I was rather put off by the fact that one sat in a chair outside the shop to be examined and diagnosed! In any case both shops displayed revolting animal body parts which did not inspire confidence.
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It interesting how we judge something as rubbish based on superficiality. sitting outside the shop to be examined is normal if the shop is small. Also hanging stuff on windows show the doctor is using natural ingredients which he has sourced himself so he knows wot they consist of and what effects they will have on the body. I can't imagine a Western doctor knowing the medicine he gives in that much detail, nor can he treat me as an individual when i see him for a paricular problem.
Judging chinese medical establishments based on appearences is silly - the judging should be based on whether it works. As if a nice clean clinic is proof that the doctor is qualified!! Or that a nice clean restaurant means the food is clean and fresh. The proof in the puddling is the tasting. |
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sp
Joined: 27 Feb 2003
Posts: 218
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| Posted: Thu Apr 03, 2003 10:43 pm Post subject: |
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| How can you judge if a Chinese herbalist is any good? Traditional Chinese herbal remedy places seem to be opening all the time. Are they all qualified? |
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dianauni
Joined: 25 Feb 2003
Posts: 15
Location: Gibraltar/Spain
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| Posted: Fri Apr 04, 2003 3:47 am Post subject: Chinese medicine |
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There is, Porkscratchings, a world of difference between the words revolting and rubbish. I used the former which you interpreted as being the latter. I can find something revolting but not necessarily rubbish. Whether I understand Chinese medicine or not I have no desire to swallow parts of animals which look revolting to me.
There is more chance of a clean restaurant providing decent food cooked in a clean kitchen than a dirty restaurant, however, I have, in my time, taken my chances in less than clean restaurants in both Europe and China and lived to tell the tale but, given the choice, I would prefer to eat in a clean restaurant. I certainly don't think that judging an establishment on appearances is silly - does it follow therefore that you have no qualms about entering a dirty clinic or restaurant? The proof of the pudding may be in the tasting but you have to taste first before you have the proof and by then it might be too late!
The only reason I would prefer not to be examined in the street is modesty. I don't really want the whole world and his wife to crowd round listening and watching even tho it might be amusing for them! Would you like to have your teeth pulled out by a street dentist? It's one thing to have your shoes cleaned in the street, or your hair cut or face shaved but the dentist? Oh no, I prefer to cower in private!
Anyway, Porkscratchings, I believe you say half these things just to stir up controversy - after all you even tho you are Chinese, you were born in Britain, so you must have picked up some of our idiosyncracies along the way!! |
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