A brief history of Chinese Herbalism

February 24, 2015

The use of herbal medicines in China has been traced to the Zhou Dynasty, late Bronze/early Iron Age, about 2500 to 3000 years ago.

In 1596, hundreds of years before the age of modern Western medicine, Li Shizhen spent decades documenting the vast knowledge of herbal lore.

His book, the Ben Cao Gang Mu (1596), has been used as a pharmacopoeia, but it was also a treatise on botany, zoology, mineralogy and metallurgy.

The Ben Cao Gang Mu mentions 1,892 different herbs and is divided into 6 sections, 52 scrolls and 60 different categories.

It has been reported that Darwin had a copy of the Ben Cao Gang Mu with him on his voyage of discovery in 1831.

The World Health Organization says, “Traditional herbal medicines are naturally occurring, plant-derived substances with minimal or no industrial processing that have been used to treat illness within local or regional healing practices.”

I think that today’s profit-based corporations that produce modern medicine probably don’t want people to be free to use herbal medicine. because it cuts into their profits, but—if given a choice—I’d rather use herbal medicine first and modern medicine as a last resort.

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of My Splendid Concubine [3rd edition]. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the lusty love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

Finalist in Fiction & Literature – Historical Fiction
The National “Best Books 2010” Awards

Kindle_LR_e-book_cover_MSC_July_25_2013

Honorable Mentions in General Fiction
2012 San Francisco Book Festival
2012 New York Book Festival
2012 London Book Festival
2009 Los Angeles Book Festival
2009 Hollywood Book Festival

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China’s Holistic Historical Timeline

 

 

19 Comments | China, Chinese history, health care, science | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

What Honor Means to Most Chinese: part 3 of 3

February 12, 2015

In 1935, Lin Yutang said, “Face cannot be translated or defined. It is like honor and is not honor. It cannot be purchased with money, and gives a man or a woman a material pride. It is hollow and is what men fight for and what many women die for.

“It is invisible and yet by definition exists by being shown to the public. It exists in the ether and yet can be heard, and sounds eminently respectable and solid. It is amenable, not to reason but to social convention.

“It protracts lawsuits, breaks up family fortunes, causes murders and suicides, and yet it often makes man out of a renegade who has been insulted by his fellow townsmen, and it is prized above all earthy possession.”

“It is more powerful than fate and favor,” Lin Yutang said, “and more respected than the constitution. It often decides a military victory or defeat, and can demolish a whole government ministry. It is that hollow thing which men in China live by.” (Lin Yutang, My Country and My People, Halcyon House, New York, NY, 1938, page 200)

Chinese like Yue Fei and Guan Yu were honorable men and gained much face/respect because of their beliefs and behavior.

When anyone in China reacts to anything, politically or personally, honor plays a large role. It doesn’t matter if one is a member of the Communist Party, a farmer or a factory worker or one of the wealthiest members of the new capitalist elite.

Most Chinese measure what is important in life by a different standard than the rest of the world.

Return to Part 2 or start with Part 1

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_______________

Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of My Splendid Concubine [3rd edition]. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the lusty love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

Finalist in Fiction & Literature – Historical Fiction
The National “Best Books 2010” Awards

Low-Res_E-book_cover_MSC_July_24_2013

Honorable Mentions in General Fiction
2012 San Francisco Book Festival
2012 New York Book Festival
2012 London Book Festival
2009 Los Angeles Book Festival
2009 Hollywood Book Festival

Subscribe to “iLook China”!
Sign up for an E-mail Subscription at the top of this page, or click on the “Following” tab in the WordPress toolbar at the top of the screen.

About iLook China

China’s Holistic Historical Timeline

6 Comments | China, Chinese Culture, Chinese history, Chinese men, Chinese women, cultural differences, family values, parenting | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

What Honor Means to Most Chinese: part 2 of 3

February 11, 2015

Although the Communist Chinese government has made it illegal to spit on those statues for public health reasons, hundreds defy the law on a daily basis, and continue to insult those traitors while honoring Yue Fei.

There is another moral hero from China’s history. During the Three Kingdoms era (220-265 A.D.) after the fall of the Han Dynasty, there was a period of civil war. Out of this era came the story of Guan Yu, who was another moral model of loyalty and righteousness.

Guan Yu lived almost eighteen hundred years ago, but it is easy to find carvings and statues of him in China. In fact, I have several hand carved in wood, and here are two of them.

Photo of Guan Yu wood carvings

It doesn’t matter if one is a member of the Communist Party, because role models like Yue Fei and Guan Yu still play an important part in how many Chinese behave and what they think. Anyone in China holding a position of power is measured against men like Yue Fei and Guan Yu.

To help gain a better understanding of what honor means to the Chinese, here’s a link to a piece published in the Los Angeles Times.

Continued in Part 3 on February 12, 2015, or start with Part 1

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_______________

Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of My Splendid Concubine [3rd edition]. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the lusty love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

Finalist in Fiction & Literature – Historical Fiction
The National “Best Books 2010” Awards

Low-Res_E-book_cover_MSC_July_24_2013

Honorable Mentions in General Fiction
2012 San Francisco Book Festival
2012 New York Book Festival
2012 London Book Festival
2009 Los Angeles Book Festival
2009 Hollywood Book Festival

Subscribe to “iLook China”!
Sign up for an E-mail Subscription at the top of this page, or click on the “Following” tab in the WordPress toolbar at the top of the screen.

About iLook China

China’s Holistic Historical Timeline

1 Comment | China, Chinese history, history, politics | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

What Honor Means to Many Chinese: part 1 of 3

February 10, 2015

We visited General Yue Fei’s tomb in Hangzhou, and hundreds of Chinese tourists were there. It was early October 2008. This was our third trip to the city in a decade, and I was watching people spitting on the kneeling, life sized metal statues of men dead for more than eight centuries. Those metal effigies with their hands tied behind their backs had been traitors.

It may be difficult to understand what honor means to most of the Chinese if one isn’t Chinese. One way to possibly understand the importance of this concept is to examine two of China’s historical heroes.

General Yue Fei died on January 27, 1142. He was a famous Chinese patriot and military general who fought for the Southern Song Dynasty against the Jurchen armies of the Jin Dynasty.

Several jealous Song ministers lied to the emperor saying that Yue Fei was planning to kill him and take over. The emperor believed these lies and had General Yue Fei executed. When the truth came out, Yue Fei became a model for loyalty in Chinese culture. By spitting on those statues of those ministers who lied, the Chinese honor Yue Fei’s memory.

Continued in Part 2 on February 11, 2015

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_______________

Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of My Splendid Concubine [3rd edition]. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the lusty love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

Finalist in Fiction & Literature – Historical Fiction
The National “Best Books 2010” Awards

E-book_cover_MSC_July_24_2013

Honorable Mentions in General Fiction
2012 San Francisco Book Festival
2012 New York Book Festival
2012 London Book Festival
2009 Los Angeles Book Festival
2009 Hollywood Book Festival

Subscribe to “iLook China”!
Sign up for an E-mail Subscription at the top of this page, or click on the “Following” tab in the WordPress toolbar at the top of the screen.

About iLook China

China’s Holistic Historical Timeline

1 Comment | China, Chinese history, Chinese men, history, politics | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

The Jade Culture of China

January 28, 2015

Cultures I know of that valued jade more than gold were the Aztecs, Incas, Mayans and Chinese.

In fact, China’s history with jade has been documented back more than 7,000 years, as Archaeologists have discovered jade objects dating from the early Neolithic period (about 5000 BC).


On the Road of Jade

Experts of the Zhejiang Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology found a 6,000 year-old jade workshop in China. Inside the ruins, piles of stone slices and primitive tools were found along with twenty jade rings.

Xinhua reported that the ruins were located in Tonglu county in Zhejiang province.

In 12th century China, a treatise was written about the property of jade, which resulted in 100 volumes with 700 color illustrations.

Confucius believed jade was the symbol of intelligence, humanity, loyalty and truthfulness, and the Chinese have called it eternal, divine, the Stone of Heaven and Earth, and the stone of tranquility.


Chinese Jade Culture

Peter Luca wrote on the Health Properties of Jade in China on Suite101.com, and he said, “for centuries, imperial households and courts, ate jade, wore jade, sucked on jade and were buried with it.”

Luca says, “Scientific research has confirmed that the stone contains elements such as: Zinc, Iron, Copper, Manganese, Cobalt, Selenium, Chromium, Titanium, Lithium, Calcium and Sodium. A current line of thinking is that, wearing natural products for a long period of time can supplement the body’s diet in its requirement for these elements.”

Jade also absorbs the sun’s energy and lets it out at night.

The finest Jadeite comes from Myanmar while Nephrite (another type of jade) is found in China, Guatemala, New Zealand and Canada.

As you can see, we have barely scratched the surface of this stone.

_______________

Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of My Splendid Concubine [3rd edition]. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the lusty love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

Honorable Mentions in General Fiction
2012 San Francisco Book Festival
2012 New York Book Festival
2012 London Book Festival
2009 Los Angeles Book Festival
2009 Hollywood Book Festival

Finalist in Fiction & Literature – Historical Fiction
The National “Best Books 2010” Awards

 E-book_cover_MSC_July_24_2013

Subscribe to “iLook China”!
Sign up for an E-mail Subscription at the top of this page, or click on the “Following” tab in the WordPress toolbar at the top of the screen.

About iLook China

China’s Holistic Historical Timeline

11 Comments | China, Chinese Culture, Chinese history | Tagged: , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

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