PETER HUSTON
Recently the Public Broadcasting Service aired a five-part television special, "Healing and the Mind," produced by the highly respected broadcast journalist Bill Moyers. Overall, I think it was an excellent series, covering aspects of how science is beginning to explore the ways in which our minds and feelings affect our health.
Curiously, the first program of the series was not on modern medicine at all. Titled "The Mystery of Chi," it dealt with the ways in which Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) has been used in the People's Republic of China. The hour-long program introduced TCM, showed how it was widely accepted and used even today, and then proceeded to delve into Chi and Chi theory. In doing so it gave a rather credulous account of some of society in which we live will change even more rapidly as we leave the century of physics and enter the century of biology. Compared to the supernatural nincompoopery that gushes forth from Hollywood, cloning Tyrannosaurus rex doesn't seem so farfetched. If there is a concern raised by Jurassic Park, it is not that the new biology will create monsters, but that its enormous power will be wasted on such trivial undertakings. Robert L. Park is professor of physics at the University of Maryland and director of the Washington office of the American Physical Society. This is a slightly expanded version of a column published in the New York Times. the more surprising claims regarding the alleged powers of Chi and Chi kung (also spelled Qi and Qigong), the art of manipulating Chi.
First, why do the Chinese continue to practice TCM? The answer given was a simple one: "Because for the Chinese it obviously works." This is only partially true. China is a very large, very poor country, with a people, a history, and conditions that are very different from our own. Traditionally the Chinese had been rather self-assured about having a superior level of culture when compared with their neighbors. Therefore when it became obvious over the past 150 years that there were many apsects of their civilization that were inferior to what the West had to offer (for instance, military science) it caused what would be something of an understatement to describe as a national trauma. Combining East and West has never been easy, and it is even more difficult in a tradition oriented culture like China's.
In the eyes of many Chinese, TCM is part of their national identity and tradition. To abandon it and accept another form of medicine would be to question or deny this identity, an almost sacrilegious act in the eyes of some Chinese.
Second, there's the matter of economics and the unique medical situation in much of Asia today. Economically, it is difficult to replace a traditional health system that serves such a large population with a different system, even if change is desired by the people it serves (and in China it is only partially desired). When China became a republic in 1912, the government proceeded to embark on a naively ambitious program to modernize the country. It considered banning TCM, but decided against it, since to do so would be to deprive the majority of the population of any sort of health care. When Mao and the Communists took over in 1949, they had no desire to turn China into a carbon copy of the West and so strove to present TCM as an alternative to Western medicine.
Furthermore, Western-style medicine did not evolve naturally in Asia. It was imported piece by piece, medical school by medical school, and at times, doctor by doctor, This has led to uneven medical systems, and often TCM has been quite useful in filling in the gaps.
For instance, if a returning Chinese medical student was quite advanced in cardiology and able to perform, say, a particularly new and impressive sort of open heart surgery, he or she would be greeted with respect and great rewards in terms of money, prestige, and career opportunities. On the other hand, if a student returned as a general practitioner of superior skill and ability, but with no particularly impressive specialization, opportunities would be limited. If the rewards are small in a given area, then that aspect of medicine would be less developed. One result of this is a patchwork, ad-hoc feel to much of modern medicine outside the developed world. This becomes most obvious in a place like Taiwan. Although complex procedures, such as open heart surgery and the separation of Siamese twins, are routinely practiced there, ambulances often lack rudimentary first-aid kits and qualified attendants.
Under these conditions, TCM can serve as a somewhat useful substitute for underdeveloped aspects of health care, such as mental health, general practice, and the treatment of nonthreatening illnesses like digestive problems. TCM uses a wide variety of herbal and other treatments for emotional disturbances, and even if one were to take the extreme view that they have no validity whatsoever, the patient's belief that they do often produces a beneficial effect.
China is a big and complex country. Listening to various Westerners describe it is reminiscent of that old parable about the four blind men and the elephant. Each sees only a small part but thinks he understands the whole. As one looks at a given aspect of Chinese culture it must be seen in the proper context in order to be properly understood. Even then, it can become quite difficult to understand completely.
Peter Huston has a degree in Asian studies, has traveled throughout Asia and China, and lived in Taiwan for three years, where he taught English. He is currently working on a book, Beyond Chinese Mysticism.