From lectures and readings this week, I have learned that the Westerners have a great passion on the structure, the beauty and the nature of human body since hundreds of years ago.
The interest in our body and how it works is one of the most important and intrinsic interest of human beings, shared across the race, across the culture and across the history.
However, in Oriental cultures, especially in China, the view of human body and the interest in human body have a different approach than those in the Western cultures. I think that can be introduced as a great supplemental idea of our learning this week.
On contrary to the interest by the Western cultures which have great interest in anatomy, the physical structure and the physical beauty of human body. The Chinese and Oriental culture have emphasized their interest on invisible features and specifications of human body. This includes the "chi" called by Chinese people, which means "energy flow" expressed in English.
The Chinese culture did not focus on the anatomy and structure of human body. Chinese culture classifies the human body as the dynamic combination of five elements, they are metal, wood, water, fire and earth. The Chinese culture links several organs into these elements, and believes all the disease of human body is a result of the unbalance of these five elements, and use herbs and traditional medicine or food therapy to fix, rejuvenate any single element in human body and reach balance state.
The Chinese culture and medicine also uses needle therapy, which insert needles into acupuncture points on human body to help the healthy flow of energy in our body. （It doesn't hurt at all!)
The Chinese culture's view on human body is rather "soft" than Western cultures' "hard" anatomical view on human bodies.
In my view, the Chinese culture's view on human body and the Chinese medicine and therapies have more art characteristics than the Western view.
Chinese medicine, most of them are herbs and some are food instead of medicine
Work Cited:
The Photo 1: Needle Therapy: http://www.jzsos.com/cure/xstj/1530.htm, The editorial team
The photo 2 : http://www.bayvoice.net/gb/popular-programs/pp-bestdoctor/2015/03/03/382895.html, Discussion on Chinese medicine,BAYVOICE.NET, the editorial team
Hi there,
回复删除First off, great post! It's very interesting that you bring in an Eastern vs Western medicine standpoint, and I fully agree that the approach to medicine in Eastern cultures does embrace the art (and the unphysical) aspect more.
Just a tip; you might want to switch your language settings to English as all the UI buttons for me are in Chinese, which I do not know how to read. It might be difficult for other classmates to post on your blog like this as posting a comment is somewhat of a guessing game.
Great job An!