中国文化概论英文版Unit10答案

Unit 10 Traditional Medicine and Health Preservation

Warm-up Activity

1.Watch a video clip about Traditional Chinese Medicine (1’26”).

1) Watch the first 50 seconds of the video and describe the people and the parts of

their work as shown in the video. Who are these people and what parts of their work are shown in the video?

They’re medical practitioners of Traditional Chinese Medicine, one great representative of whom is Li Shizhen, the author of Compendium of Materia Medica (《本草纲目》). The video shows us the process of preparing herbal medicines, from methods of growing, gathering, and drying herbs, to different ways of extracting their vital essences and making healing balms (镇痛软膏), lotions (药液), and the pulse diagnosis and prescription (and treatments).

2) Name all the medical treatments shown in the rest of the video.

Acupuncture, Cupping (Baguan), Scraping (Guasha), Massage

source: UP CLOSE Edition 20090705, video clip from

2. Read an American mother’s account of her experience with TCM and discuss the questions below.

1) What are the different approaches to the daughter’s illness by the pediatrician and

the doctor of Chinese medicine?

Whereas Western medicine tends to focus on eradicating symptoms, the concept behind Chinese medicine is to manipulate the body to heal itself using a combination of acupuncture and herbal medicine.

Chinese medicine treats the body as a whole, so each patient receives a customized treatment. There are literally thousands of herbal combinations and hundreds of acupuncture points that a doctor of Chinese medicine is able to utilize for healing. These techniques and treatments have been perfected over thousands of years of evolving practice.

2) For what other diseases do you think Chinese medicine work well?

Dating back over 5,000 years, the practice of Chinese medicine has proven to be both an effective and beneficial method for dealing with many different types of health concerns.

Introduced to the United States in 1970’s, Chinese medicine is now considered an advantageous addition to traditional Western medicine.

According to the British Medical Journal, Chinese medicine works well for chronic headaches and migraines (偏头痛). Chinese medicine has also proven to work well for allergies, infertility (不孕不育), skin problems, A.D.D. (注意力不足过动症), sinus problems, digestive issues, blood pressure (high or low), back pain, fatigue, prostate problems, asthma, and many more.

Now recognized by the Western medical community as a partner in healing, many physicians refer patients to practitioners of Chinese medicine and many insurance companies include coverage on their policies.

Section A. Cultural Treasures

Task1. Read the passage below and then answer the following questions.

1) What are the five most popular styles of Taijiquan?

Yang, Wu, Wu/Hao, Sun, and Chen.

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