Chinese Medicine Excursion

The students traveled to a hospital after lunch on the day of the traditional Chinese medicine lecture. Upon arriving at the hospital, the students were taken to a room where they watched an older woman being placed into traction on a hospital bed. The students were told that the woman had arrived at the hospital three days before and couldn’t walk. Having gone through three days of traction treatments, she was walking again and feeling much better. Her husband sat in the room with her while she underwent the treatment.

Students were separated into two groups for visiting the traditional medicine prescription center. A man in a white lab coat explained where the various herbs and plants used in traditional medicine prescriptions came from. He informed the group that the Ginseng used in China mainly comes from fields in the mid-western states of America. It is also the most expensive of the ingredients because of the long journey it must make before finding a home in teas and poultices.

One student asked whether choice of treatment belonged to the patient or the doctor, as the hospital had prescription centers for both traditional medicine and Western medicine. The technician responded that treatment was up to the patient. He noticed that several students were surprised by this answer and used pregnant women as an example, stating that many women don’t trust Western medicine when they are pregnant, afraid that the chemicals will hurt the baby’s development. In these cases, the patients much prefer taking herbal, natural treatments.

After both groups had finished viewing the prescription center, Qin Laoshi hosted another dinner off campus. This dinner consisted of hotpot with mutton and various other dishes, both familiar favorites and new delicacies. Once dinner was finished, the group piled into the bus and departed for the masseuse.

The students arrived at a facility that could easily accommodate one hundred people at a time for massage therapy. Qin Laoshi hosted a foot massage experience that involved reflexology and hot-cupping. Reflexology is a form of massage that, while physically focusing on the feet, actually massages many of the internal organs because humans have pressure points in the feet that correspond to almost all parts of the body.

Hot-cupping is a toxin-reducing procedure where a piece of fiber is lit on fire and dropped into a round, glass cup that is then suctioned to the skin. The suction comes from the fire dying as the oxygen disappears. The sensation is very awkward and though it doesn’t hurt, it can be very uncomfortable the first time. Some students imagined that the hour long experience would be stress reducing, but many felt more stressed out after the massage and especially after the hot-cupping. Several students have returned to the massage facility in search of a more traditional body massage since that first night.