Blogs from Kunming, Yunnan, China, Asia - page 11

Another few weeks of being unusually busy have now passed, and I'm finding myself scattered in the head. With no clear idea of what exactly to write about, I'll just catch up on some ideas that've been running around in there. Qu Yuan and his Magical Weekend-Altering Powers Dragon Boat Festival (in Chinese, 端午节, or "Duanwu Festival," which does not mean "dragon boat" but instead something along the lines of "Solar Maximus") is celebrated annually in accordance with the Chinese lunar calendar, usually falling in June of the Gregorian calendar. It's a traditional holiday celebrating an ancient royal scholar called Qu Yuan who was a super good guy, but was falsely accused of treason and threw himself into the Miluo River after his exile. The local peasants still liked him, and tried to save him by ... read more

6/18/10 This was a fairly uneventful day, so I will include two days into this blog entry. Also, the days earlier this week before this entry were mainly centered on our classes. The lectures we had included China’s medical care system and its reform, causes of disease and diagnosis, HIV/AIDS prevention, Chinese medicine theory and meridians, introduction to TCM herbal medicine, and Chinese birth control policy. If you have any questions about these topics, feel free to ask! Today we signed up for departments from which we would shadow a doctor. I signed up for Internal Medicine along with Grayson and Kat. The other departments were Massage, Acupuncture, and Pediatrics. Massage and Acupuncture sounded interesting to me as well, but I thought Internal Medicine would be interesting to see from a TCM point of view. It ... read more

6/12/10 Since people were hung over from drinking and clubbing late last night, there were a lot of people who arrived late to the lobby in the morning. We were supposed to meet in the hotel lobby at 10am, but we did not end up leaving until 11am, which was really irritating for me at least. Since they were out partying, the rest of us who did not party would suffer by being able to spend less time in the Stone Forest. We also had to move out of our hotel rooms that morning because we were switching rooms to the 14th floor where we would be able to get constant internet access. We had to have our luggage in Mr. Bi’s room by 9:30am, but some people did not get their luggage in until 10:30am, ... read more

6/10/10 This morning we rode a bus outside of the city to the Western Hills, where we visited a Buddhist temple. That was where we met Sam, who was much to our surprise the program director’s husband. He is a middle-aged American who speaks in slow, drawn out words with a slight Southern accent. He was our lecturer that morning on Daoism and its influence in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). He made a point that at a lot of temples in China there are areas to worship Buddhism and Daoism in the same temple because the Chinese do not really care about excluding religions from one another. This is obviously different from other religions like Christianity where churches are dedicated exclusively to one religion. Unfortunately, I was not allowed to take pictures inside the temple, so ... read more

6/8/10 In the morning we were taken to the Yunnan Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital, where we will be learning about traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) during the program. First we had orientation in the lecture room on the 12th floor. The next few paragraphs will contain my briefing of the notes I took, so feel free to skip over them if they are uninteresting. According to a study conducted by WHO, roughly 80% of people in the world have used TCM herbal remedies for treatment. TCM is expected to further expand its influence as China itself expands. Although the social gap in China between the rich and poor is only getting bigger and bigger, China’s economy is booming. China is also experiencing changes to the traditional way of life it held before. In the past, most Chinese ... read more