Write Chinese Medical Characters

The Character Writing workbooks are finally finished and available! This project took much longer than anticipated, but they are finally done. The characters from all three books are available together or separately (see below). The samples are still available here if you want to review the first four chapters from Volume I first.

Please note that while more than 90% of the characters are included, a few had to be left out because they are so rare that no computer program would recognize them. The good thing  is: if you learn to write all of the characters in these workbooks, you should be able to write any character you see. This is part of the point, actually-once you can write these characters, you will be able to write any character you come across. Once you can do that, the process for memorizing characters will become much easier.

Here are the links to buy!

Chinese Medical Characters (Vol. 1, 2, & 3 Combined): $19.99

Chinese Medical Characters (Vol. 1): $9.99

Chinese Medical Characters (Vol 2): $9.99

Chinese Medical Characters (Vol. 3): $9.99

You will be sent an email with a download link. Please not that these workbooks are only available as PDF documents and there are no plans to put them into print. This will allow you to print the pages you want to practice on so as not to waste any paper.

Also, some of my time is now freed up to finish the free writing guide available on this site. I will have this finished by the end of the year, so keep checking back for updates. The free guide on this page will help you learn to use the worksheets in a more productive way.

IMPORTANT: If you have trouble viewing the documents correctly, please make sure you have the most recent version of Adobe PDF Reader installed, which is free and  available here.

Some short announcements

I have a lot of mini announcements, so here I go:

First, I have recently realized that for what I want to do, a blog is not the right format. I get a lot of ideas, but they end up being WAY too long to put into blog posts. I also need a muse, and people are usually not so eager to interact on a blog. Therefore, I am going to spend less time here and more time at the Deepest Health Forum. I am likely going to move the content from this site to a separate page at Windstone Press- I will keep writing articles, but they will probably be available as free PDF’s instead of in a blog format. I have a lot I would like to say, especially recently. I just need to find the right format.

Second, the idea I had for doing on online class isn’t working out. I have tried to put together more to say, but I think for a book like this, audio just does not cut it. People can only get so much from that format, and video probably would have been a better way to go. The three volumes of Classical Chinese Medical Texts are reading books, so without video, there is nothing I can really say that is not already in the books. I recorded a few more classes, but I just don’t think they do much but repeat what has already been written. Instead, I am working on some other freebies that will be more helpful directly with all of the books instead of focusing on just the one volume. More on that to come!

Finally, I was told the other day that Volume III might be a few days late. I was told why, but kind of disassociated when I started hearing words I didn’t understand, like rasterized, distilling, and bit something or other. I am told the problem is under control….

The good news is that means the ability to pre-order at a discount will go on for a few more days. You can still get Volume III at a deep discount from BN.com. It won’t be available elsewhere until it is ready to go!

I am happy to hear any suggestions on what you need in order to help you get through all three volumes. That was the idea behind this blog, but (and I take responsibility for this) it never went as I wanted it to, despite getting many more hits everyday than I thought it would.

I firmly believe the Chinese medicine community will be served as a whole if a good number of practitioners become fluent in reading classical texts. To this end, I have a publishing schedule that is going to keep me busy for at least the next two years. Books are a big part of what I want to do, but the goal of those books is to increase the knowledge of Chinese language among Chinese medicine practitioners. Anything that can be done outside of writing books to help with this, I am certainly willing to do!

Final Volume Available for Pre-order

$29.99 List price

$20.24 Online Price

Classical Chinese Medical Texts Vol III is now available for pre-order exclusively through Barnes and Noble online. They currently have a nice discount for pre-orders, which will last only until the book becomes available on June 15.

This volume focuses heavily on herbal theory, including monographs of single herbs, theories of qi, flavors and herb combining, and the modification of formulas. There is also an entire unit dedicated to acupuncture, channel, and acupoint theory and practice.

My goal in doing this series was to lay a strong foundation with the most basic and essential characters and grammar particles to better grasp not just the language, but to increase readers’ understanding of Chinese medicine in general. While working on this series, my editor left a comment in one of the chapters that said “You know, this makes so much more sense in Chinese.” That was the best editorial comment I could have received because this is the most important thing people can get from this series: the medicine just makes more sense in the original language. People’s questions get answered and ideas that once seemed so foreign suddenly make sense.

Here are some highlights of what is in Vol. III:

• 針灸大成 (Great Compendium of Acupuncture): Instructions on needle depth insertion and retention organized by a discussion of the channels according the the six levels.
• 靈樞一 (Ling Shu One): A discussion of the Shu points and their importance regarding the twelve regular and fifteen network vessels.
• 難經二十九 (Classical of Difficulties 29): A discussion of the Eight Extra (or Extraordinary) vessels and their related illnesses.
• 靈樞五十六 (Ling Shu 56): Questions and answers on the flavors, their relationship to channel entry, and how Qi is assimilated and circulated throughout the body.
• 湯液本草 (Tang-ye Materia Medica): A discussion on the interactions and combinations of qi and flavors.
• 醫學津梁 (A Guide to Medical Studies): Specific single herb choices for supplementing and draining qi for each of the five zang organs and incorporating five phase theory for mother-son treatments.
• 神農本草經 (Shen Nong’s Materia Medica): Numerous herb descriptions from the different classes of herbs in this early classic.
• 儒門事親 (How a Confucian Adept Serves His Parents):  Combines ideas  from Shen Nong’s Materia Medica and theories of ruler, deputy, assistant, and envoy herbs.
• Plus texts from the 石室秘錄, 萬病回春, and 瘟疫明辦, all discussing various aspects of herbal medicine and treatment of disease with herbs and more.

Order now from BN.com

Note: As of this writing, the BN.com website does not have a cover image and does not specifically say “Vol III”. Follow the links on this site to order and you will definitely get the correct book.

Communicating Meaning

I have a rather long story to make a rather simple point, so bare with me. . .

After being in Taiwan for about a year, my ATM card stopped working. This was stressful because I was far from home, without cash, and sick. The ATM machine kept spitting out a piece of paper that said my card was 異常, which basically means out of the ordinary. I figured out that this probably meant the machine could not read my card.

Fast forward to today. I live in a building where I have to use a “smart” card to get into the public areas, elevator, and the main door to my building. The smart card was not working and I went and told the door man that my card was 異常. He smiled and said the words that I have learned do not mean what they say: Your Chinese is so good. Translation: that was too formal, too weird, and you didn’t really use that correctly. Someone later told me that this is normal for written language, but probably not many people would say it.

When I first came to Taiwan, my Chinese was awful, but people often told me how good I was. It is a joke among Westerners here that if someone keeps telling you your Chinese is good, it’s time to go back to school. They use this as an encouragement to keep studying. If it’s really good, then they usually just talk to you. The point is that in communication, meaning is not always to be taken at face value.

How does this relate to reading classical Chinese and medical texts? Well, maybe it doesn’t, but I’m going to try!

In verbal communication, I’m facing the person and I can usually pick up on several cues to let me know what the meaning behind the words is. Do they really mean my Chinese is good? Actually, sometimes they do and I can usually pick up on this. Equally obvious is when they don’t mean this, like when I say “uh” more frequently than comprehensible words.

In reading, trying to understand meaning takes away that face-to-face advantage. Add that we are dealing with not only a different culture, but a completely different time, and this becomes a big challenge. We have to know as much as we can about character definitions and classical Chinese grammar, or from the very beginning we will be completely lost and misunderstand passages.

One of my better habits is to pick up a source text (say the Su Wen or Nan Jing) and take some notes on my own interpretation. Then I pick up some of the classical commentaries and read as much of that as I can. Then, I pick up a translation into modern Chinese and later in English, if one exists. What fascinates me is how different all of our interpretations are (and how I can be completely wrong). Sometimes, authors allude to even more ancient literature or written works of their time. Sometimes, I have to search meticulously through ancient dictionaries to find a very rare use of a character before it makes sense. I still have notebooks filled with things I have not yet figured out.

The point is, it takes a lot more work to understand meanings in classical texts. It’s not as simple as a facial expression or tone of voice. I have found that when I come across sentences or chapters that are initially confusing, my first impressions are almost always wrong (or at least a little off) and I chalk this up to the fact that I live in a different time and culture. The good news is: after some time, it is easy to pick up on certain patterns and character uses and with practice, sentences where the meaning is not clear or just plain takes research to figure out become less frequent. With practice, the number of completely mind boggling phrases/sentences will lessen.

I set none of my conclusions in stone simply because I have went back to something many times and found something new or found out that I was completely wrong.  What I find sad is when people are so convinced they are “right” that there is no chance to learn anything further (and there is a lot of this in Chinese medicine!).

If all of this sounds too challenging, then I understand. It takes a lot of work to really arrive at a solid understanding of an ancient language. You may not have the smirk of another person to tip you off, but with a lot of patience, hard work, and the desire to learn a variety of skills, anyone can improve.

Busy! But it’s almost over

OK, it has been too long….let me explain.

I am moving, and most of you know what that does to one’s life. If I were only moving, that would probably be ok. But up until yesterday, I was in almost daily contact with painters and contractors who were…well, let’s just say some problems are quite international!

Ah, but yesterday I checked things out and I can move this weekend. SO, that means I will be able to focus more on what I love doing, which is writing and finishing the class I promised so long ago.

I am going to first focus on finishing the class and do not plan on writing anything else until it is completely done. I will probably spend at least the first full week in my new office doing nothing but recording and posting classes-I owe you all that much. When the class is finished and all posted, I will move on to finishing Volume III and expect that it will be available in early 2010. I have selected all of the texts for this volume already, and they are quite a bit longer. The focus will be primarily on herbs, herbal theory, and prescriptions, with some other interesting stuff as well.

Until then, there is a very interesting discussion going on at http://www.deepesthealth.com about learning to read classical Chinese medical texts, plus an interview with me. I’m sure some of you will have something very worthwhile to contribute to the discussion as to the relevance of reading the classics with modern Chinese medical practice. While there, check out the offer on ordering both books together at a discount through Eric’s site.

Two websites are currently offering a bundle of Vol I and II together at a discount, plus free shipping. Read their websites and if you have any desire to have both books, please feel free to order through them. They have great content and I am very excited to be offering through them-plus it helps them keep their sites going.

Chinese Medicine Notes

Deepest Health

Wish me luck this weekend! I’m really ready to get back to work (the fun kind).

Class Five

Class Five Podcast:

The first part of Class Five will not be on a podcast, but the podcast will still be used to talk about Chapter five of Volume I. The reason I am not doing a podcast is because the subject of this class-writing characters-is best left to a post like this. If someone’s primary purpose in studying Chinese is learning to read, then writing is not a necessary skill to learn. However, I have found personally that learning to write the characters makes it MUCH easier to recall them later for reading. I have probably forgotten how to write (literally) thousands of characters that I had been able to write at one point; however, I can still pick them out of a book because the process of learning to write them ingrained them into my brain. Let me say that in learning to write them, you don’t have to go for perfection. If you are doing this on your own, the characters you write probably won’t be pretty-but that’s ok. No one has to see what you are writing anyway. It’s for you and for memorization of characters. The first thing you will need to know is a little something about stroke order. In general, characters are written from left to right, and up to down. This is pretty simple to see with the following example: Notice that the first stroke is the upper most stroke, and the long line under it is next (written from left to right). Below, there are two similar strokes, and the one on the left is first. This is a simple character meaning “six” and is quite simple to write. Things get a little more complicated with more complex characters, and you can see that the simple rules above do not apply: I think for those serious about developing a long-term ability to read, learning the basics of writing is essential. The reason I did not teach this in the first volume is simple-there is so much free information about writing characters that I didn’t feel it was necessary. I could not have provided anything more valuable than information that is already free online, and the only way to get more valuable information is to take a class with a teacher who helps you in person (or through the program I will mention below). Here are some of the resources I have found that can help you learn to write characters:

Zhongwen.com: A great introduction to all of the basics. Read this first.

Yellow Bridge: This free online dictionary includes stroke order animations so you can see how a specific character is written. I did a spot check, and most of the characters from Vol I are there. I suggest searching by pinyin and tone, as the classical medical meanings contained in Vol I won’t always be found in a dictionary like this. (This site is a little buggy, but it might be my browser)

Skritter: This program isn’t free, but it may be well-worth the monthly charge. Youcan sign up for a free trial to see if it works for you. We have uploaded all of the characters for Vol I to this service and Vol II should be available shortly. This program allows users to create a their own online tests with whatever book they want to use (or whatever characters).  At least sign up for the free trial so you can see how some of the more difficult characters from the book are written.

Updates and Pre-order

I have several updates. First, Windstone Press is now making Vol. II available for pre-order. They are giving a nice discount and shipping options for international residents. For more information, visit Windstone Press.

Second, the publication date has officially been moved to October 15th, 2009. This is mostly due to some last minute changes I decided to make with a few of the texts. I wanted to make sure this volume was as easy to follow as the first, and that was proving difficult with some of the texts I had chosen. I moved some things around and replaced some of the texts that were far too abstract for this type of book.  Hopefully, you will be very happy with the wait in the end-I know I feel a lot more at ease having made the changes I did.

Finally, I am hoping to start a more regular blogging and class schedule in mid-September. By then, the book will be out of my hands and I will have more time. The schedule for Volume III is tight, but I already have selected many of the texts for that volume and yet am in no rush to get at it yet.

Name Change

I have changed the name of this site from “Classical Chinese Medicine” to “Classical Chinese & Medicine.” This is not a big change, but the reasons for doing so have multiplied recently.

I do not belong to any modern (or classical) school of thought when I think, write, or talk about Chinese medicine. My interests are in the studying the medicine through classical texts. When I said Classical Chinese Medicine, I was referring to the language: “Classical Chinese” Medicine.

The main reason I take this stance (or non-stance) is because the classics have a very diverse set of ideas which many modern people see as contradictions. I do not want to attach to any one book or group of ancient practitioners who can be lumped together and decide that is how to best proceed. I equally enjoy reading Han and Ming dynasty texts and see neither time period as superior. I also enjoy Xu Da-chun and Li Dong-yuan equally, even thought the former severely criticized that latter. I enjoy the criticisms, but do not necessarily need to take them as fact.

People were also assuming I am affiliated with a group of practitioners who call themselves practitioners of CCM, which I am not. This is not a snub of people who do practice CCM, it’s just that I do not wish to define what I do in that way. Recently, someone tried to insist that I must have a school of thought I subscribe to saying, “You have to be believe in something!”  Actually, I am equally comfortable studying with Toyohari practitioners as those who practice TCM, CCM, or Kototama styles.

My goal with this website is to support people in learning to read the classics in whatever way that I can. My ability to read classical Chinese in no way makes me feel superior to those who do not and I am not here with an agenda to push a movement, but to support people who also enjoy or want to learn to enjoy the knowledge contained within classical texts.

I do not wish to debate people about different schools of thought. People can believe whatever interpretations they want to believe, whether they are rooted in the classics or not. I’m not interested in changing anyone’s mind, nor am I interested in being converted into believing other people’s interpretations. Debating means people take a position of being “right”, and the only time I need to take a position that matters is when a patient is in front of me, and they don’t care about the debate.

I encourage your feedback about this and hope that this will clarify where I’m coming from.

Feeling Qi

“Don’t feel the pulse. Feel the Qi behind the pulse.” I was told this many times during one of my internships with a teacher trained in a unique style of acupuncture. Prior to this, I had thought feeling the pulse was just a matter of feeling the bumping of the vessel against my fingers and then giving that sensation a quality description. I had no idea how to feel the Qi behind the pulse, but I was trying with all of my might to figure it out.

One day I offered to cover a sick student’s clinic shift, which meant for the first time I was pulling a double shift. Eight hours of treating is a lot for anyone, but as a student I was overwhelmed. I went in to see my last patient of the day at 8 pm and at this point had no intention but to get through the day. I didn’t want to figure anything out, and I remember thinking “I’m too tired to learn anything today.” I was completely exhausted and could no longer think clearly. The patient talked about her problem, I scribbled some notes, and went to feel her pulse.

I suddenly awoke from a daze. I had completely zoned out and had no idea how long I had my hand on the patient’s wrist. I noticed immediately a sensation in the pulse that I had never noticed before. It was alive and buzzing. I was still aware of the vessel moving, but it had become the background. At first, I thought there was something wrong with the patient-very wrong. I kept feeling and realized I was feeling the Qi, not the vessel.

I had spent so much time trying to figure out how to feel Qi, and looking back I know that it was my trying to figure it out that was preventing me from feeling it. Feeling Qi is not an intellectual pursuit. I love philosophical discussions about Chinese medicine and I think they are very important, and until this point I thought that was all there was to it.

FEEL is the key word here. I heard, “Feel the Qi” and all I could do was think about what Qi was and how I could go about finding it to feel it. We don’t need to look for it or define it clearly to feel it. As students, we are taught to look for something in the pulse and through other examinations. I invite everyone to let Qi find you.

5,000 Years

Have you ever noticed that everything in China has a 5,000 year history? Chinese medicine is said to have started 5,000 years ago-it says so on most practitioners’ websites. Qi Gong also has an apparent history of 5,000 years. According to a quick google search, art, massage, tea, calligraphy, culture, government, farming methods, herbs, language, and probably a few more things I am missing share this. It seems everything in China started in about 3,000 BC.

One would guess, given this claim, that museums are filled with medical artifacts from 3,000 BC. Books galore, right? Bowls, pottery, inscriptions-all of this would prove the 5,000 year history. So what do we have? Nothing! Not one known piece of writing, pottery, needle, or even a lone bowl exists to my knowledge.

Starting in 2,500 BC, there is the period known as the Xia Dynasty. Even calling this period a dynasty makes little sense, as there was no cohesive government nor was there any known unified culture. The people in the area we now call China knew little of people in different regions at this time. In fact, if you look at this map of the Xia and the later map of the Shang, you will see that the region covered by these “dynasties” is tiny compared to the ever expanding China we know of today.

The earliest medical records I know of come from the late Warring States period. The earliest ones I have read come from the early Han Dynasty and include texts excavated from the Mawangdui and Wuwei tombs. People who study Chinese medicine today would be quite disappointed with the contents of these books, as there is no real cohesive theoretical underpinning in them. From what I have read, problems are described with very clever adjectives (such as “A person coughs ‘wee wee like a bird’ then give them XYZ herbs).

The 5,000 year history of China is a complete fabrication. I do not know exactly when medicine in China began, but I’m pretty sure that as long as there have been people they have been trying to find ways to relieve themselves of illness and lengthen their lives. The bigger question for me is, why do we need to justify our practices with a time frame? Do we feel better thinking we have time on our side?

I beg the thousands of you who have this on your websites: delete it for the sake of the credibility of our profession (or your own profession). Anyone with access to wikipedia, which is everyone, will potentially know you are off by several thousand years.