A New York City Chinatown Diary I feel like I’m in a James Bond movie: any moment, black-suited Chinese gangsters are going to pop out from behind the curtain. In my mind I keep repeating my new mantra, “the opera singer trusts him, the opera singer trusts him.” There seems to be no sign of medical degree or history on any certificate on the wall. But that’s the way it is with Chinese medicine: you go to Chinese doctors through word of mouth. And so here I am.
I speak Chinese, even lived in Asia for 15 years—and yet have tried
Chinese medicine only once, for my son Linus, who suffered from intense
gastrointestinal problems when we announced seven years ago that we
were moving back to the U.S. from Hong Kong. After visiting all the
western stomach specialists we could find, who prescribed medications
that had no effect, I finally found a Chinese doctor, through a friend,
of course. Linus, who was 10, and I climbed a stairs above the meat
market in Happy Valley, to find an incense-filled room decorated with
Buddhas and dark wood furniture. The doctor felt Linus’ pulse, then
wrote down a total of 14 ingredients—twigs, bark, roots, and dirt, as
far as I could tell. We boiled them down to a bitter black tea, which
Linus drank three days in a row. He never had a stomach ache again.
But I am a Chinese medicine virgin. Dr. Zhang appears, wearing a corduroy padded jacket, and recoils for a moment, startled that a blonde American is sitting in his “office.” He speaks not a word of English, so in my best Chinese, which does not include the words for TMJ, I explain to him that I’m having trouble with my jaw bone and muscle.
He feels my pulse on each arm with three fingers, explaining that each finger is sensing a different pulse and different organs. “You’re having trouble with digestion,” he says. Um, no… “And your kidneys are weak.” Never knew that. “And you are having trouble sleeping,” he offers, hopefully. Actually, if there’s anything wrong in that department, it might be that I sleep too much. So far that’s 0 for 3. He tells me I will need seven treatments, and that the first visit will improve my jaw by perhaps by 20 percent.
“All right, I’m ready to treat you,” says Dr. Zhang, heading for the front door. Where are we going?
Related Reading:
Paging Dr. Zhang: A New York City Chinatown Diary
But I am a Chinese medicine virgin. Dr. Zhang appears, wearing a corduroy padded jacket, and recoils for a moment, startled that a blonde American is sitting in his “office.” He speaks not a word of English, so in my best Chinese, which does not include the words for TMJ, I explain to him that I’m having trouble with my jaw bone and muscle.
He feels my pulse on each arm with three fingers, explaining that each finger is sensing a different pulse and different organs. “You’re having trouble with digestion,” he says. Um, no… “And your kidneys are weak.” Never knew that. “And you are having trouble sleeping,” he offers, hopefully. Actually, if there’s anything wrong in that department, it might be that I sleep too much. So far that’s 0 for 3. He tells me I will need seven treatments, and that the first visit will improve my jaw by perhaps by 20 percent.
“All right, I’m ready to treat you,” says Dr. Zhang, heading for the front door. Where are we going?
Related Reading:
Paging Dr. Zhang: A New York City Chinatown Diary
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