After the summer break, I did arrange to start meeting Sun Lao Shi again, but our first class had to be postponed due to rain. Then it was the week-long National Day holiday, when we were both away. I called yesterday, and spoke to his wife. It turns out that Sun Lao Shi will now be away until the end of the month. So, no classes…

Of course, I should still be practising on my own. Now that the semester’s schedule is settling down, I have a clearer idea of when I’m free to do that. I’ve just bought a new bicycle, so it’ll be possible for me to get down to the lakeside in the mornings, which should be the best option, I think. Beijing’s getting chilly in the mornings now, though…

In other news, my shoulders are still aching like crazy after that first yiquan lesson! On top of that, a girl who wasn’t looking where she was going ran into me at speed on her bike, and a big bruise is starting to show on my knee. Ouch! Fortuitously, I’ve just discovered that the pharmacy next to the campus gate sells Tiger Balm, the strong red version. I have bought some….

Q: What’s the biggest obstacle to finding a possible cure for Alzheimer’s Disease?

A: The traffic in Shanghai.

Only a few days ago, I was writing about how Traditional Chinese Medicine has been found to be useful in IVF.

Today’s London Times has even bigger news: it’s very likely that TCM can help to treat, or even cure, Alzheimer’s Disease.

Key quotes for me:

“China is going like gang-busters, particularly if you’re thinking in terms of medicine and pharmaceuticals. In many cases their labs are as good, if not better, than labs here or in the US. A lot of Chinese scientists also are moving back. When you ask them why, they say it’s too good a place not to be right now.”

and

“I think it just takes a little bit of open-mindedness.”

There are two lessons here: first, China is going to be huge in the pharmaceuticals industry. Second, TCM may not be phrased in the language and concepts of Western medicine, but at some point the doubters will have to accept that the Chinese are neither stupid nor primitive and, over 4000 years of civilization, have actually learned something about treating disease and maintaining health. The fact that TCM uses a different paradigm does not invalidate it. Sadly, the vitriol has already begun to appear in the article’s comments section.

Heh. Although I have to give the Times kudos for publishing this article, I do have to wonder why it appeared in the Women’s section!

A lot of people I knew in the UK were extremely sceptical about Chinese medicine - and that’s putting it politely. The Observer, a Sunday broadsheet newspaper, ran a column on TCM for a couple of years, written by Stephen Russell under the pseudonym ‘Barefoot Doctor‘. He didn’t do the cause much good, as you’ll see if your read the wikipedia article, but his column was actually pretty good - but caused much hilarity amongst some of my friends, who found ideas such as “the eyes are the flower of the liver” to be preposterous…

It seems that TCM is actually gaining more credibility in the West, though. When I went back to visit my parents after several years away from the UK, I was astonished to see a TCM herbal medicine store on Cardiff’s main shopping street (I didn’t think to ask at the time who their market was, though).

Today’s Times also has a really interesting piece - apparently, acupuncture can raise the success rate of IVF by 65%.

Raffles Hospital here in Singapore is also now pioneering a lot of TCM treatments, using China-trained physicians - which is perhaps a bit of a turnaround, as Western medicine has always been Singapore’s preferred standard.

This is a trend to watch; I wonder if we will in the future see qigong treaments becoming more widespread?