From May 15 to 29, 2017, under the care and guidance of leaders at all levels of the hospital department, Wang Yinghui, deputy director of the Department of Endocrinology, conducted a two-week TCM (Traditional Chinese Culture) health cultural exchange activity in Warsaw. Here’s what she learned during her trip to Poland.
Cultural Confidence
As a country in Eastern Europe, Poland has the general characteristics of European countries, with beautiful natural environment, clean social environment, relatively low population density and high education level for the whole people. However, due to historical reasons, it has countless similarities with modern Oriental society. The Poles have a high enthusiasm for traditional eastern culture. The capital city of Warsaw has the Asia-Pacific Cultural Museum. On weekends, there is a special Asian-Pacific cultural market. Ancient books and cultural toys can be seen in the market.
At the same time, because of the complexity of the society evaluation, the Polish people’s attention to health is very high. With the promotion of traditional Chinese medicine overseas, more and more local people are beginning to understand Chinese culture. They are especially willing to try traditional Chinese medicine and practice TCM health care methods. I have found that people will pay attention to the lifestyle under Chinese culture from all aspects and pay attention to traditional Chinese medicine’s understanding of physical health, diet and exercise. Even the life we take for granted, in their view, is full of culture and health connotation.
During the exchange, a lady asked me: “I heard that Chinese women had sitting month after giving birth, what it looked like? We started to have cold drinks and activities after giving birth. I heard that you were not like this?” After listening to the introduction of the sitting month, they repeatedly praised: “Yours are healthy, we don’t understand, our elders don’t know, no one has taught us.” They were also very interested in Chinese food. They even thought that all Chinese food had the function of keeping health. For breakfast such as jellied bean curd, soy milk and other breakfasts, they had to ask for the function of keeping health until to know. There are books about Chinese porridge and Chinese food therapy written by foreign authors in the bookstore.
A person in charge of the Polish Health Association said that some people in China now disliked their own culture and only knew how to learn Western culture. Actually it was wrong, your culture was very good. Once upon a time, we also advocated Western lifestyles, diet, sports and medical concepts. However, the pursuit of Eastern culture by Westerners far exceeded our love for our own culture. The cultural accumulation of thousands of years was full of wisdom and should be truly inherited.
TCM health care combines with diet, exercise and medicine
Public health in Poland requires appointments and a long wait time. Local people in Warsaw said that if they were really sick, they would die when they saw the doctors, so they looked for other natural remedies to maintain themselves. In the Polish view, traditional Chinese medicine treatment is a combination of diet, exercise and medical, so it is suitable as a method of maintaining oneself. They not only learn the health effects of diet, but also learn to exercise guidance, and also ask Chinese herbal practitioners to indicate some herbs for daily treatment. The local traditional diet is mainly meat and dairy products, followed by vegetables and fruits, and again the grain. The locals describe this diet as “very heavy”, which is difficult to digest. So they want to learn Chinese eating habits.
In the process of communication, I still borrowed the pagoda of the dietary structure of the Polish residents. The bottom layer of the pagoda they came to was vegetables and fruits, the second to the bottom was the grain, and the three to the bottom was the meat and dairy products. And as explained in the Inner Canon of Huangdi, the five cereals are for raising, the five fruits are for help, the five livestock are for benefit, the five vegetables are for supplement, and when the aroma is consistent, take it to be good for health. Combined with modern recommendations, the Chinese residents’ dietary pagodas were elaborated. In sports, one of the contents of the exchange was to explain the fitness guide. The locals are very passionate about traditional guides. Many people practice Eight Trigrams Boxing, Six-character Formula and Five-animal Boxing, etc. every day. They think that these sports can relax the mind and body and make them “feel good”. For drugs, they think that herbal medicine is a natural medicine, which is helpful for the conditioning of the body. It needs to find a special doctor for conditioning.
I deeply felt that the development of traditional Chinese medicine in foreign countries was very consistent with the idea of “preventive treatment of disease” of traditional Chinese medicine. In the process before the disease occurs, the disease has already occurred while needs to prevent its further progress and post-illness rehabilitation, the advantages of traditional Chinese medicine can be used to distinguish the physical quality, disease and syndrome and give the corresponding diet, exercise and drug-assisted treatment.
Traditional Chinese Medicine Development in Poland
For traditional Chinese medicine education, the Polish government does not support or oppose. There is only a private traditional Chinese medicine school in the capital Warsaw. There are teachers to teach traditional Chinese medicine, Chinese herbs and acupuncture regularly, and there is no full-time teacher. After the students graduate, if they pass the examination, they can diagnose. There is no special admission system. There is no Chinese medicine license currently. Although not highly valued by the authorities, with the knowledge and pioneering spirit of the Poles, the quality of students on traditional Chinese medicine is very good. There are many kinds of local Chinese patent medicines. I briefly looked at more than 300, covering all commonly used Chinese patent medicines. Chinese herbal medicines are mainly from Prague. Poisonous Chinese herbal slices are not allowed to be sold, such as scorpions, etc. Traditional Chinese medicine contains both prepared slices and granules, and local people prefer granules. Generally speaking, traditional Chinese medicine in Poland is still in the primary development stage. The practitioners are mainly local Poles. They are very willing to learn traditional Chinese medicine and learn from Chinese medicine practitioners.
The two-week exchange tour has sent me a lot of emotions. The overseas camp of traditional Chinese medicine is being formed. Our local traditional Chinese medicine practitioners should be more confident in their own culture and fully inherit the essence of traditional Chinese medicine. At the same time, we should be all-embracing and learn more from overseas exchanges to contribute to the inheritance and development of Chinese medicine.
