Jingmin Wang, Grade 12, the International School Bangkok Locked by the shackles I consider the first memories of my childhood from before I was 5 years old to be unconventional. To most, one’s early childhood represents a time of fondness. But not mine. Rather than the memory of an event or experience, I remember a feeling. And that feeling was the cold IV needle that constantly seemed to be in my arm. A feeling of pain, which my 4-year-old body wasn’t quite ready to handle. A feeling of fear, as my grandmother and I prayed and pleaded that the illness would halt its rampage. But most of all, it was a sense of helplessness. Knowing that I could do nothing against the fever, but watch the slow drip, drip, drip, of the IV, as if it was a countdown to something terrible. I could do nothing except plead to the nurse to give me the smallest needle possible if someone else wasn’t using it that day so that the pain could be slightly less. I could only hope and pray, as fruitless as that may be. I was born in Bangkok but moved to Fuzhou, the capital of the Fujian Province, to live with my grandparents to allow my parents to work. My body was always weak and was constantly overwhelmed by the myriad diseases that lurked in every corner. My hospital visits averaged one time a month, including sometimes having to stay over several nights. Needless to say, I did not have many friends during this time. But more than that, I could not bear the effect that my non-stop sickness had on my family. It shattered my heart to see my grandparents running around, scrambling to get me the medication, sending me to the hospital, and performing tasks that were well beyond the capabilities of their then septuagenarian bodies. They cried with me, prayed with me, and were there when I needed them the most. For these things, I am perpetually thankful. Finding the key I moved back to Bangkok with my parents when I was 5 and a half years old, and I did so without a very positive outlook on my future. Instead, I was filled with resentment. I resented the feeling as the IV needle found its way into the back of my hand. I resented the hospitals. Eventually, I began to resent the world for creating disease and prolonging adversity. When I got my first fever in Bangkok, I mentally braced myself for what was to come. The headaches, the medication, the constant temperature checks. I just hoped that the IV needles in Bangkok were smaller than those in Fujian. But to my surprise, none of that happened. The day I got the fever, my father summoned me to his room. I watched as he examined my radial pulses, took a look at my tongue, and he then made a bowl of Chinese medicine to drink. I remember the timeline clearly. I drank the medicine at around 4 p.m. When I woke up the next morning, not only had my fever completely vanished, but there was no sign that I had been sick at all; my body felt strengthened, and my mind sharp. Whatever my father fed me, it had rejuvenated me, faster, more effective, and more painless than any hospital appointment I had ever had. Magic? I thought to myself. After all, I was still very young then — such concepts were not outside my infantile realm of reality. And, it seemed to be the only possible explanation as to what just occurred. I rushed over to my father and demanded an explanation. He told me what I had just taken was a bowl of traditional Chinese medicine or TCM for short. It was a form of herbal-based medicine that had been cultivated by Chinese doctors for millennia, and that he had spent the past few years learning from one of the best doctors in Shenzhen, China. He then went on to explain the principles of TCM, but I didn’t care at the time. All I wanted to know was whether or not I had to go to another hospital ever again. My father looked down, patted me on the head, and replied, with a voice of tenderness yet absolute certainty and conviction: “No, you do not.” He was right. Ever since my father learned TCM, apart from dental reasons or a physical injury, I never had to go to the hospital. There was never an illness that his bowl of medicine could not vanquish. Now, a decade later, I am starting to forget what an IV needle felt like. But most importantly, I was no longer a subordinate of my fear and helplessness towards the world. I had a method to fight back. The impulse to reject From my experiences, I hope to show two things. The first is that TCM is an incredible medical discipline with almost supernatural curative effects. I base this statement off my numerous miraculous experiences, including but not limited to the stories I have told above. The second reason is that I wish to show how TCM is not simply a medical field of study. My father has said many times that Chinese medicine was a culture and philosophy in itself. At first, I did not understand what this meant. But through my life growing up and my endeavors to understand TCM, I am now beginning to see. I believe that it is the representation of the wisdom of ancient Chinese philosophy. It is an unprecedented set of ideas, which resulted from the union of thousands of exceptional minds, all under the guidance of a great culture, an unwavering philosophy, and the will to discover, to take leaps into the unknown. The image of mankind’s unquenchable desire for advancement. One of the most fundamental of TCM principles is that of holism, or the idea that our bodily systems should be considered as a whole, rather than a collection of parts. For instance, with conventional modern medicine, a headache may be considered a localized issue in the head, but to TCM, it may be merely a small reflection of a larger underlying condition. This leads TCM doctors to the practice of holistic treatment, or the treatment and strengthening of the entire body through the balancing and promotion of harmony between internal elements such as yin and yang. The idea of holism I summarized above is in actuality much more complex than the several sentences I just used to describe it. It is a principle which practitioners may spend their entire careers attempting to understand and master. But for us, the patients and beneficiaries, we do not have to reach those depths. To appreciate the discipline, to recognize its value, and to reap its benefits, we can be content with admiring its abstract beauty in a simplified form. If we make the attempt, we can discover just how fascinating TCM really is. All the seemingly complex and disconnected ideas will start clearly fitting together like a giant, magical puzzle. A new look into medicine This is simply another look at our wide and wonderful world. The offering of another method, one which I truly think is effective and powerful, as a tool for humanity’s constant battle for supremacy against the illnesses of our world, and more exposure to a culture, a philosophy, and the ideals within said culture and philosophy which I believe are essential to human development. A new look into the world of medicine. I trust that if TCM is adopted into the medical mainstream and potentially used in conjunction with other forms of medicine, such as Western medicine, a certain future can be created. A future where the first memories of a child will not be that of an IV needle, but rather a first day at the beach. A first toy. A playful fight with siblings. A future for all that is devoid of those heavy shackles. A future that is bright and lively. I hope that this article may be a first step towards this. That, upon reading this to the end, you, the reader, may be more inclined to remove that blindfold and lift the curtain. I promise that you will not regret it. | 