by Annie Chen
“We’re obsessed with rational thinking in school, science, medicine. We want measurable solutions: the scientific method, epidemiology, statistics, graphs to show tumor decline. But we are irrational beings. We love randomly, cry at strangers and imaginary worlds in movies and books, get angry at small events. We eat trash and expect to live long and healthy. We are then, irrational beings trying to live rationally.”
Memories from my childhood that never fail to leave me, that always resurface- are ones that revolve around my grandmother. Whenever it was summertime, we munched on sugar canes while we heard green beans being poured into a pot to make the hot soup that you claim would cool our bodies. When winter came, we drank tea and ate rice dough balls filled with sesame and love, the warmth surging to our souls. And all year round: tomatoes with eggs, congee, stir-fry, dumplings, soup. These memories of food remain with me in both healthy and sick times. You made us gurgle vinegar water for the sores in our mouths, drink black chicken soup during our periods, ox bone soup to help us grow, and boiled pears for our coughs. Even now, you prioritize us, reminding us to stay healthy and sending us packages of sesame powder, goji berries, red dates.
I never asked why because this was your way of life and it became mine.
Your food became the physical incarnation of the warmth of your heart, the power that raised salt and pepper shakers, dripped sesame oil, poured vinegar and cooking wine, warmed steaming hot rice—and you taught us:
This is medicine. This is life.
Out of curiosity to explore the country that raised you and a romantic urge to travel the world, I applied to study abroad in a rural province in China. Literally translated to the southern cloud, Yunnan (云南) sits at a high elevation- bright sunshine all year round. Even though I was the farthest from my grandmother, I was perhaps the closest to her roots. And here’s the thing about roots: you never know how far down the earth they go.
In the small city of Kunming, the small roads and alleyways gave way to humble shops selling homemade congee, xiaolongbao, buns, soups, and soybean milk. It became a morning ritual- to stop at that small shop across our hotel to buy a bun and soymilk on our way to the Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) teaching hospital. With a traditional roof for the first floor and a more modern structure on top, the 12-floor-tall hospital would be where we would learn TCM for two months. With a constantly open-door rain or shine, the first floor of the hospital welcomed everyone: young and old, rich and poor. When you enter, the smell of herbs, of warmth, hits you and you know you’re in a place full of people who care.
These five weeks would be full of topics ranging from minority health, womens’ health, HIV/AIDS, acupuncture, rural health, herbal medicine, taichi, food, and much more; the abundance of knowledge baffled me. However, what made me fall in love with the program was
the basic principle that what we learned was incorporated in all aspects of our lives; from the time we woke up at 7:30AM to do taichi with our instructor, to the meals that we ate, and the way that we interacted with people in our town – we were learning and ultimately, engaging with and living the Chinese way of life.
Just as our learning was connected with our daily lives in Kunming, the basic tenet of TCM is that everything is connected; no symptom or pain in the body is the cause of one factor, but rather the intersection of both internal and external factors contributing to the manifestation of disease. As such, food, weather, drinks, and even the way we dress, talk, and think, all affect our health and wellbeing. This holistic way of thinking about health is also personalized from person to person; no individual experience is the same and thus treatment should also be personalized. Health then, is cultivated constantly; it is not something to “fix,” but rather a lifestyle.
And with this understanding of interconnectedness in mind, we learned and lived these couple of weeks with awareness of our own health. How does the time we wake up affect our mental health? How does the way we face the world in the morning affect the rest of our day? How do the ways we interact with the humans around us heal or hurt us? The foods that we put into our bodies- how do they make us feel and how do they nourish our bodies? What about the attitudes we have when we wake up to perform taichi in the early mornings or when we hike mountains?
After two weeks of living in the routine I have set for myself, I truly understood that everything we do- from the way we think, to the foods we eat, and the activities we choose to engage in-affects our wellbeing and health. This realization was so simple, yet it was complex. It was this balance, the yin-yang dichotomy, between not only you and the environment, but also positive and negative thinking, that is the key to wellbeing. When one is more present than the other, and one overpowers the other, that’s when I become distraught and the harmony between my body, mind, emotions, and spirit become a thunderstorm; that’s when I shut everything out and spiral. It had only been two weeks but I felt myself understanding not only the roots of my grandma’s culture but also my own roots as an individual, as a young adult trying to understand the world and the very way in which I should live.
June 21st 2017
It was a long bus ride on a cloudy day. We woke up with the sun and the bus was full of quiet murmurs but we were all still really excited: today was food day.
We arrived at a small village on the outskirts of town and the restaurant we stepped foot in was an open structure with a small pond, trees, flowers, and bushes. Although we stepped inside, the world outside still peeped in: a clean breeze blowing in, the tree branches piercing through the windows, and the calm chirping of birds in the distance. Unlike any meal before, Charles, our translator told us to be aware of the food that we were going to be eating.
“Think of the colors, the different textures and flavors. Think about how they complement each other or clash with each other,” he said.
We shared a pot of chrysanthemum and goji berry tea, pineapple rice, indigo vegetables, rice, potato and veggie soup, bone broth, bitter melon with eggs…
The goji berries that would heal our eyes and nourish our bodies were paired with the light and smooth chrysanthemum flower that cooled our bodies in the summer heat. The bitter melon that made our taste buds cry were balanced with the sweet and savory eggs. This yin and yang concept was clear: sweet pineapple rice and the salty soups; the soft vegetables and the hard meat. And of course, the main staple of rice that balanced all the strong flavors and ultimately this represented home. I was thrown back into my childhood and remembered my grandmother who thought the same and did the same but I wasn’t aware back then and threw your words under the bus.
Centuries before the idea of food groups came into existence in literature, before nutrition recommendations or the idea of communicable diseases, the Chinese were practicing the very idea of balance in foods. And it all originated, not from scientific experiments but basic awareness, cognition, and a deeper understanding of the world around them. To put together bitter and sweet tastes, dark and light colors, intense and light flavors- this was the philosophy of Chinese food, the philosophy of Chinese medicine.
When all the food arrived, we ate like we normally did but all I wanted to do was engage in a passionate discussion about Chinese food, its flavors, its roots, its meanings, its significance to all of us. Perhaps others did as well, but this meal was what all meals were meant to be: a way of bonding and gathering.
It also struck me then, that even though food in Chinese medicine was one lesson, we were and we would learn about it all summer. From the first group dinners to the small meals that we ate as separate groups- the basic principle of balance, the yin and yang between colors, tastes, textures, and food groups was omnipresent. It also meant more than just health and nourishment, it was life, medicine, family, respect, a welcoming, a goodbye, celebration, and perhaps ultimately, love.
I came to China to learn, explore, and meet new people. On the way, I discovered the roots of my own family, intertwining with every aspect of their lives and ultimately, mine. The holistic nature of Chinese Medicine inspires me to also live in a holistic, all-encompassing way: to be aware of my own body and mind as I live and interact with others and my environment. It’s been a year now, since I lived in China and as time goes by, it gets harder and harder to remember the values that I’ve learned that summer. But with intention comes fruition and as I reflect, I remember and ground myself once more.
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Photos by Annie Chen
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