Aryana Libris

Author : Rossi Elisa
Title : Plant names A guide to botanical nomenclature
Year : 2007

Link download : Rossi_Elisa_-_Shen_Psycho-Emotional_aspects_of_chinese_medicine.zip

Foreword by Volker Scheid. Chinese medicine in China is referred to as ‘Chinese medicine’ (zhongyi). Transferred to the West it changes into ‘Traditional Chinese Medicine’ (TCM). Whence this emphasis on tradition, we might ask? The immediate historical events surrounding this choice are easy to trace and take us to China in the 1950s. Charged with promoting their medicine abroad also once it had been declared a national treasure a group of Chinese translators felt this might be more easily achieved if the adjective ‘traditional’ was prefixed to the indigenous designation. The label was accepted – in the main uncritically – and proved to be a potent force in the promotion of Chinese medicine. The more important second question is what this judicious assessment of Western sensibilities says about ourselves and our relationship to Chinese medicine. I believe that the label ‘TCM’ has been so successful because by offering a double negation it holds out a treble promise. TCM offers itself up to be non-Western and non-modern at the same time but also, and this is the crucial point, as somehow universal and therefore more easily acquired by ourselves. What could be more appealing to Westerners searching for alternatives to their own way of running the world who do not, when all is said and done, want to give up their own identity? In the long run, however, one cannot have one’s cake and eat it. Just as the rest of the world needed to westernise in order to utilise Western biomedicine, we will only ever become meaningful participants of the Chinese medical community by becoming more Chinese. The first step in this direction would be to let go of the ‘T’ in TCM, to consider it not as an asset but as a problem. And there are, indeed, many problems associated with being traditional. ...