Mum, you were right
By Vincent Leung
6 minute read
Ever get into an argument with your parents about Chinese medicine?
My first memory of Chinese medicine was the overwhelmingly pungent smell of dried fungi and herbs in the cramped, musty shop off the main road in Box Hill. Walking into the office, the tinkly little bell sadly announced our arrival to a middle-aged, jovial-looking man. On our left was the faded, dirty glass that served as the countertop, set up in front of the wall-to-wall shelves packed in the traditional style.
I think the set up is mostly to scare you. Firstly, the shelves: know what any of these ingredients do? No? Well I do, so you better listen up - your life depends on it. Secondly, the dirtiness: sending the message that 'we're so busy helping you that we don't have time to clean'.
That makes sense, right?
The consultation always started with a three-finger pulse check on the smallest, flimsiest pillow in the world, and is usually followed up by looking at your tongue, looking at your general demeanour, asking about any particular injuries you've had, and then somehow telling you things about your body you never knew.
Mum would get the new soup recipe for the next few weeks, and then this particular Chinese doctor would prepare a set of small, black, spherical pills to take - 10(!) a day - that would help slowly improve your body's health.
The gnashing of teeth and wails of a young Asian kid who was bad at swallowing pills and hated drinking soups must be some of my mother's favourite memories. Imagine toiling away to find the exact list of 20 different ingredients that you can only get from the dingy back-sections of Chinese stores or apothecaries, boiling up some soup with the chicken bones you got for cheap at the butcher, and your kid is ungrateful for all this effort?! Parenting sounds like fun, hey?
I remember specifically that my qualm with Chinese medicine was how unexplainable it was. Western medicine is extremely good at proving that it works through a scientific method - randomised control trials over multiple clinical trials - and explaining how your body is going to respond to the medicine (including side effects and recommended treatment stages). The medicine will usually have a well defined action mechanism. It'll work quickly, and it'll work pretty much exactly how they say it will. On a cellular level, they can explain exactly what they're trying to target and what your experience is going to be.
Chinese medicine takes four months, it might or might not work, and the only explanation is 'yeah, it's going to make your liver feel better'. If you go back for your monthly check-up, and it hasn't worked well, then 'oh well, you'll just have to keep drinking it 'til it works'.
What?!
All I hear in my head is my Mum's exasperated tone telling me that it's useful, it works, and that 'there's no harm taking this at the same time!' and, 'look, it worked after these four months while you were also taking your Western medicine as well'. I feel like I have Stockholm Syndrome from drinking all these damn soups, but I think I've argued every single little thing that I can about why Chinese medicine makes absolutely no sense at all and why it should be struck from the Earth. You're wrong, Mum!
And yet...
I had a medical emergency last year, and the doctors couldn't work out what it was. It was too fleeting and sporadic to understand, the blood tests didn't really show anything, and there was no real course of treatment that they could recommend. I also survived, which meant it wasn't deadly, but still, it was a scary time. In my moment of weakness, I agreed to try Chinese medicine.
We did a combination of Western and Chinese medicine, and this time round...well, I thought more about whether I wanted that Chinese medicine or not (mainly because I was paying - that dried stuff ain't cheap!).
This time, I tried asking the doctor a lot more about why and how they were deciding what to give me. No black pills this time (it was packets of pre-packed ingredients to be boiled in soup twice daily), but definitely a lot more thought into understanding why certain soups were being boiled, why ingredients were being changed and adapted every month, and what was going to happen to my body.
And honestly, I still didn't understand it all.
However, as I slowly improved over time, I thought a lot about it. Why had I been so against it for so much of my life? This is the medicinal culture of my heritage, and I was deciding it wouldn't work because it couldn't be empirically proved through the Western medicinal lens. Why did that matter so much? The evidence in front of my eyes is that it works. Maybe not exactly the same as Western medicine, and maybe not as quickly, but it still works, right? Why? How?!
What I landed on was that the key reason that Chinese medicine has persisted so long is because it's been the longest trial and error experiment ever. This complicated set of metaphors and conceptualisations of qi (氣) and bodily yin-yang (陰陽) have persisted across millennia. Chinese people have used the combination of their observations over years to build a framework of ingredients and medicines that will heal people, and solve health problems using the natural ingredients at hand.
I'm not a doctor, and this isn't medical advice. I understand that Western medicine is much better at dealing with the symptoms of health problems, and I'd much prefer to go to an emergency department at a hospital rather than a Chinese doctor in the middle of a medical emergency.
But for long term health, Chinese medicine is still a valid choice in my mind. I might not have to go see a doctor, but I'm growing more of an appreciation of soups and the herbal, medicinal properties they provide.
I look back on the arguments I've had with my Mum and realise that maybe there was something to what she was talking about. Not all the way, but some of it - both of us fighting for what we think is true in a clash between Chinese tradition and Western science, and both coming away with a better understanding on the other side.
Unfortunately, as much as I hate to say it - Mum, you were right.
