Traditional Chinese Medicine Is a Modern Invention

I avoided acupuncture for decades. I trust a study over a story, and the needles always seemed like something to be polite about, not something to try. Then last winter my neck seized up. A friend pushed me toward acupuncture (针灸, zhēnjiǔ), and I finally went.The doctor put a needle in my forehead, not my neck, somewhere above the brow. Within a few minutes my neck loosened. I still have no good account of why.I grew up with Chinese medicine the way most Chinese families do, as herbs and medicine, boiled bitter soups from a TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine) doctor prescription/recipes. That was Chinese medicine to me: something you drank, not something that was done to your body.The other surprise came from the doctor herself. She was from Taiwan, learnt TCM there, but practicing fully licensed in a neighborhood public hospital in Shanghai. A Taiwan doctor holds a Chinese state license to practice in a mainland public hospital.Subscribe for deep, weekly essays on the complexities of…