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^ Lu Hsun and Maxine Hong Kingston: Medicine as a Symbol in Chinese and Chinese American Literature Alfred S. Wang I. Traditional Chinese Medicine Chinese medical practices are steeped in the concept of preserving vitality. For five millennia the Chinese have combed the animal and plant kingdoms for esculent cures to maintain the balance between yin and yang and to promote harmony between their bodies and the universe through the Five Elements: metal, wood, water, fire, and earth. When the Chinese— doctors and lay persons alike—talk about medical cures, they usually mean "foods and medicines" as a unit rather than as separate entities. And when they talk about health and disease, they mean prevention of disease and the welfare of the whole human being rather than individual organic functions. A doctor would look at the coating of a patient's tongue, feel the pulse, examine the facial color before prescribing herbal medicines and instructing the patient what to eat or avoid. To avoid itchiness, a person with any skin infection should not eat seafoods; one suffering from colds should shun cold-natured foods, including seafoods, so as not to accumulate too much yin. Many Chinese savor tofulike hog-blood curd in soup to nourish their blood; drink whiskey with tiger bones or whips soaked in it to strengthen their bones or male reproductive organs; crush croaking toads for the base of lozenges to relieve bronchial congestion; and make pills from deer and even human fetuses as remedies for gynecological disorders. A competent doctor or apothecary can whip up myriad cures from herbal and faunal ingredients, from the humble house lizards, Literature and Medicine 8 (1989) 1-21 © 1989 by The Iohns Hopkins University Press LU HSUN AND MAXINE HONG KINGSTON scorpions, centipedes, cicada shells, chrysanthemums, and orange peels, to the more exotic turtles, deer antlers, ginseng roots, and "dragon bones" (fossils of prehistoric creatures). Sometimes, they even resort to products of the human body, such as blood. Thus, what one eats not only nourishes the body; it cures it as well by expunging one poison with another.1 The Chinese also turn superstitiously to midwives, shamans, and Taoist priests to exorcise "ghosts" from their bodies, pacify the jealous and pain-dealing gods, balance yin and yang, and mystically link bodily functions with astrological concepts concerning the Five Elements. Thus, the Chinese concepts of medicine and health are not confined to organic functions; rather, they connect with the workings of the universe, bodily organs forming part of this holistic unity. The concept of yin and yang gained its popularity probably in the fourth century b.c. The opposite female/male forces of yin and yang incorporate the idea that life is a form of energy in constant motion. All things partake of, and can be categorized as, yin or yang: earth, water, the moon are yin; heaven, fire, the sun are yang. As succinctly illustrated by H. G. Creel in Chinese Thought from Confucius to Mao Tsê-tung: "... a burning-glass will draw fire from the sun, while a mirror left out at night will collect dew, that is, water, from the moon. . . . this was not a dualism of the Occidental sort, like that between good and evil or spirit and matter. On the contrary, yin and yang complemented each other to maintain the cosmic harmony, and might transform into each other; thus winter, which is yin, changes into summer, which is yang."2 The concept of the Five Elements is Taoist in nature. Metal, wood, water, fire, and earth correlate with the five directions—the four cardinal points and the center; they also correspond to five colors, flavors, odors, visceral organs of the body, and so forth. In Taoism, numerology, yin and yang, and the Five Elements combine in a highly complex system for analyzing and controlling natural phenomena. The result is such divination techniques as those mentioned in the I-Ching (Book of Changes) and Huai Nan Tzü. The latter gives a glimpse of the Chinese holistic concept of the human body in its relation to the universe: "Heaven has the four seasons, five forces, nine cardinal points, and three hundred sixty-six days. Man similarly has four limbs...

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