Discussion what is it with chinese novels and their traditional medicine?

I mean, every place, ever, has used plants and the like for medicine, and they all worked just as well.

what is it about the chinese novels that makes them get a hard-on at the mere mention of their "traditional chinese medicine"

is it something cultural? like "our ancestors said it was the best so it is"?

because the insistence on such old ways is strange to me. don't get me wrong, it's important to remember such things, and the uses of plants in medicine can not be underestimated.

my grandfather was in WW2, and one of the reasons he lived after being captured was that he and other prisoners knew how to use plants they grabbed on the way to take care of festering injuries and the like.

but still, the whole insistence on the nationalism of the tradicional chinese medicine always strikes me as odd. anyone have a specific reason in mind?

 

You know you want some ground tiger penis for stamina.

 

They like their culture and nation to extreme lengths, you can't help it

 

Seriously using 'oils' for cure all - cancer, autism, blood circulation, diabetes, heart disease etc.

 

And all their ancestors has always believed in "traditional Chinese medicine". Acknowledging other nation "medicine" is better than own ancestors' will make them feel their ancestors is inferior to other nation.

It's part of their culture to respect their ancestors. And sometimes that respect will turn into blind worship.

 

Hm, the only instances of CN novels with all-cure type of traditional medicine I've seen are in story with traditional (historical, xianxia, wuxia) CN settings, think about it

 

No, if you read more modern novel (especially the one with male protagonist) you will know that they always use traditional Chinese medicine as an all-cure medicine.

 

I kinda connect it with mysticism and traditions, at least in the novels I've seen it. Maybe it's not like that everywhere. Same thing with feng shui, exorcists, diviners and so on. And from a more practical point of view, Chinese medicine is easier to compound, given you have the ingredients, than Western medicine where you need a lab, tools, computers and so on... Even if you have all the required knowledge, you can't just make an aspirin, but you can make herbal tea just fine. Not saying Chinese medicine is easier to learn, but it's easier to practice when you're a lone MC doctor.

 

You know, there is usually a grain of truth minimum to ancient medicines. Just because it's ancient, doesn't mean it's not effective. Modern medicine only knows so much, sometimes they rediscover stuff that my family would go...well duh, we knew that already. ^.^

 

but well. . .
it all boil down how the body of a patient will react to certain medicines. . . .

some when having expensive top of the brand medicine won't get cured or won't get better even after a week of usage (cough, fever, etc.)
will suddenly get better when they take in affordable brands and sometime herbal medicine,

 

Chinese medication uses herbs that contain a large number of naturally occurring chemicals. Some of which have biological activity.
These herbs work in a similar fashion to many pharmaceutical medications. In fact, some pharmaceutical medicines are still obtained from these plants. Many prescription medicines used today were originally derived from trees, shrubs or herbs. EX: Malaria medicine Quinine is extracted from the bark of the Cinchona tree
Scource: https://www.mydr.com.au/complementary-medicine/herbal-medicine
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Modern medications just isolated the 'good/useful' parts of the herbal medications. As a Chinese with a very traditional family, personally, I don't like to use Chinese medication as much as traditional medications firstly cause they taste weird, unless they taste good lmao. But at the same time, I'd rather drink some nice tea than swallow pills all day lol.

 

in all the Chinese novels I've read usually Western medicine is useless but a simple Chinese medicine powders cure everything. then there is a paragraph or two about Chinese nationalism and how much better the Chinese are than every other culture; especially stupid barbaric Americans, Evil Japanese, or those Country Bumpkin South Koreans. I am not saying that Chinese medicine doesn't work, sometimes it really does work better/ more gently depending on the person, but in these novels is used to show Chinese superiority rather than actually being about the medicine itself.

 

Of course, for the plots of the novels, they kinda have to make the medication work lmao. Not just for Chinese Medicine Superiority. (Not defending china or anything, lol)
On top of that, things like placebo effects can get into play. (Aka: thinking it'd work and it really works) I think that what Chinese Medication, at least for me, great. It really churns the placebo effect in my brain lol.

 

I’m Chinese. It’s pretty rooted into Chinese culture, it’s not just novels, people still use it in real life too (there’s schools for it too I think). It’s not like we think it’ll cure cancer or something but Herbal medicines/soups are still made today for nutritional value + it’s kinda the mindset of “all natural” vs “processed”, even if it doesn’t truly do anything, it’s not like it’d harm you vs taking a bunch of painkillers. Also most wuxia novels are set in ancient China so what else are they gonna use?

It’s not just China though, I mean there’s plenty of Americans who prefer glass/steel water bottles over plastic due to fear from BPA and the like

 

What kind of novels do you mean?
If it is ancient --> modern, then MCs would prefer to use traditional since they are used to it (ie 1000+ years of knowledge of ancient medicine vs minor medical knowledge from the original host).
If it is modern --> ancient, then there are some MC that uses western medicine, but may need to disguise it as traditional so they won't get caught. Or, they do not have the necessary tools to perform modern medicine (i.e. machines), thus they have to resort to traditional.
If it is only ancient, then it is the norm for MCs to use traditional medicine.
If it is modern, then they seem likely to use modern medicine. However, some seem to favor traditional medicine more because they (must) have acquired some kind of knowledge.

Other than those above, traditional medicine could be used as a way for authors to facilitate their writings in making their readers believe that their characters is powerful and magical that they cannot be confused with the mortal human. Moreover, they are probably not very familiar with the world of medicine and do not want to confuse their readers with modern medical jargon. It is highly likely, they are not that familiar with traditional medicine and making things up at the top of their head. (Maybe mixing up other type of medicine and their effects)

TCM has existed for 2500-3000 years depending on source. However, when western medicines were introduced in the 1900s, they believed that having a fast cure via drugs (one time) was superior compared to the TCM way of taking lots of herbs and acupuncture for a long time (weeks, months, years). One treatment versus several treatments. TCM was then banned by the government for 50 years. It was brought back when China was running out of doctors. western instruments were too heavy to bring to rural areas and expensive to build. TCM colleges were created to produce doctors who can move and attend to rural areas However, a dilemma took place. The term medicine has been associated with western medicine. So, when Chinese medicine resurfaced and brought to the west it was renamed as TCM and was received as a new idea of medicine even though it has existed even longer than the creation of western medicine. When the Chinese had their medicine, the west was blood letting, making a small hole on their arm letting it bleed, (sometimes the patient bleeds to death) and praying to god when one is sick. With the discovery of bacteria and sanitation in the 1800s did western medicine become what it is now. Today in china, there is a department of western medicine and a department of traditional Chinese medicine. Western medicine students take classes on traditional Chinese medicine and traditional Chinese medicine takes western medicine classes. In china, there is not that much distinguish between the two profession but what type of school it focuses on; western or Chinese.

Don't trust what you read in novels, its fiction to the point of chuuni. Real TCM doesn't work just by consuming one time, it requires you to consume many herbs over a long period of time. An example would be herbivores like cows consuming a large amount of grass daily for energy. (herbs is composed of plants after all) If you purchased a formulated herb, some of them require you to consume 8 small pills or bolus 3-4 times a day for one specific problem. Comparing that to aspirin where you only need to consume 1-2 tablets when you feel a headache or other types of pain such as a toothache, it is very convenient.

 

worst is when some military female doctor transmigrates and her expertises are traditional chinese medicine. Imagine a soldier with 10 bullet wounds and she gives him ginseng soup or something. Cool story, bro.

 

LMAO, That's pretty unrealistic lol. They'd usually put herbs directly on the wound.

 

Chinese national pride. It's half psuedoscience. Like feeding pregnant women dinosaur bones.