Riddle

A little girl glanced at a car, then continued walking past me. I looked at the car as well, when I passed it, but couldn't see what she was looking at.

What was the little girl looking at? :)

Transmission at school?

What role does oral transmission play in education at TCM universities? What happens when a teacher is teaching a subject that they struggle to understand themselves? When SHL is taught as an exercise in philology, rather than a clinical text?

Here is a thought- SHL is both a 'basic principles' and a 'clinical application' book, and should be taught as such.

What about 甲乙经? How does this book fit into a university curriculum? It includes both philosophical content that would take a lifetime to absorb, and directly applicable clinical content.

Getting back to the original question, is a teacher who lacks experience in the clinical application of a particular subject qualified to teach the subject?

I would say no, because these texts are clinical texts, not ...

Hold on, thought here: teachers nowadays are not supposed to pass on what they know, they are supposed to teach a fixed set of knowledge, that they may or may not personally understand.

What about a school that teaches what it's teachers understand?

memorization vs understanding

Memorization can take place without understanding, but understanding results in remembering.

I think it is my US educational background that makes it hard for me to memorize things without trying to understand them on a deeper level.

(yikes...am I going to fail this exam?)

Trust/faith

For me, there is a huge trust issue when reading modern textbooks. Does a particular line represent the authors personal experience? Or that of another author who used the method in question?

Or does it represent an effort to make a better looking book by an academic with no clinical experience and low ethical standards, whose salary grade depends on getting this book published? (or even worse, a student of the above academic?)

From what I've seen, the Chinese book market is FLOODED with books published in the latter situation.

standardization vs individualization

There is a big push to standardize Chinese medicine in China today. It has been going on for at least 6 decades, and is still a guiding principle in the ongoing reform and development of how CM is taught and practiced.

Comparing Western and Chinese medicine, one of the most noticeable differences is in the degree of standardization and individualization apparent in education and practice. WM is highly standardized, across all fields and disciplines, and is taught in more or less the same way in every school and every country. In CM, on the other hand, even the basic knowledge is interpreted and used in different ways in different fields and by different teachers, even within the 'Academic School' style of Chinese medicine that is taught at universities in China. When you look at how CM is taught in other countries, some with ancient traditions of their own, the contrast with WM becomes even more apparent.

Now, is this because 'standardization as a guiding principle for development' is a new phenomenon in Chinese medicine? Has the opposite been true? Is CM an example of a medical art where individualism has been celebrated and taken to an extreme?

A quick glance at the textual evidence shows that the latter is impossible - throughout the long history of CM we can see remarkable consistency in the basic knowledge, including the location of acupoints, the functions of individual herbs, and the associations of the five phase elements.

The bronze man statue, for example, and the book of the same name, are examples of a push towards standardization of acupoint names and location.

The Ben Cao Gang Mu is an example of the same push towards standardization in the effects of individual medicinals.

However, do these represent a deliberate effort to standardize, or do they represent an effort to record the collective knowledge of the time, in order that it not be lost?

a good question, very good question indeed...

easier to explain

I was sitting between a Chinese artist and an American teacher at a concert the other day. The teacher had seen a brochure of the artists work, and was asking him many questions (slowed by my translating) about them. The artist, frustrated by his inability to answer, said that we should meet up at his gallery, where in the presence of the works he would be better able to answer.

It isn't easy for a teacher to teach yin-yang and the 5 elements from the head of a classroom with only a chalkboard, and it isn't easy to teach clinical material outside of the clinic.

Folk use of fuzi

I was talking to a guy who used 15g of fuzi to treat his 86 year old grandmother when she had a stroke. He said that after the treatment she didn't have any signs of hemiplegia.

He also did channel massage for her.

Two years later she died from heart failure and other complications at the age of 88. He said he gave her up to 30g of fuzi at that time, but didn't dare give her any more.

He is a fan of Li Ke (李可), makes his own medicinal wine for personal consumption, and has had no formal medical training.