經方學

We all know that translation is rarely a well balanced algebraic equation. Norms, habit, personal preference and worldview all play a role in how meaning crosses between language and culture.

If any of you have inclination toward reading Chinese, then you probably are familiar with Pleco software. Yes, that is their logo on the iPhone app in the picture. No, it is not yet available. But, from participating in the beta-test I can tell you that if you have an iPhone in your pocket, and have some kind of relationship with the Chinese language, this application is going to rock your world.

Unlike the PDA versions, you use your finger to write directly on the screen. The word lookup is blinding fast and startlingly accurate. The handwriting input system is also smart enough to differentiate simple and traditional characters on the fly. While the initial release will not support flashcards, an update that does will not be far behind.

For a glimpse at the magic click here.

The back of Richard Goodman’s book says it best “Why not go deeper?”

I ran into Rick back in 2005. He was just arriving in Taiwan, I was on my way back to the USA; he rented the penthouse studio that overlooked Eternal Harmony City and the Xin Dian river that I’d been living in for the past year plus. Our paths crossed again when I purchased his book. Journeys through Chinese into medicine have a way of crisscrossing from time to time.

Anyone who has read the Mitchell/Wiseman/Feng translation of the Shang Han Lun knows that there are appendixes in the back that are a treasure trove of translation gold. Especially, for understanding the Chinese of The Discussion of Cold Damage.

Rick Goodman gives us some basic vocabulary, and more importantly, grammatical parsing that helps us to crack the code of Classic Chinese. Is it a comprehensive text that spills out all the gems of the Nei Jing, Nan Jing, and Jia Yi Jing? Of course not, the process of learning Chinese can in no way be captured in one book. Does it give us some keys that coax open those doors? Absolutely! It is a clearly written, carefully explained text that gives the reader access to the treasure house of Chinese medicine. Indeed, this book will give the dedicated reader an opportunity to go deeper.

Rick also has a second volume of what will be a three part series that will be published soon. Get the details here on his blog.

Thanks Rick for your contribution!

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There is a great saying in Chinese 一步一步來; 
keep putting one foot in front of the other.

It is good advice for any endeavor, but especially apropos for those projects that span years, or for journeys where the destination can barely be imagined, let alone seen, from the point of departure.

Five years ago The Ten Key Formula Families made its way into my hands. Two years ago I received Dr Huang’s permission to translate it into English. This past week my final proofing was completed, and it is now in the hands of my publisher, Eastland Press.

Look for it in the first quarter of 2009. It should be available soon after we have celebrated the year of Ox here in China.

滑 hua

It means slippery.
Like ice is slippery.
Or like summer oil coated roads in Seattle, when they get their first misting of a fall rain.

In Chinese medicine we use 滑 to describe a kind of pulse that has a certain feeling of phlegmy force. But, it is also used to describe a coating on the tongue.

Describing the slippery coating on the tongue (tongue not in cheek) is a rather slippery issue.

As with most everything in Chinese medicine (and language for that matter) it depends on context. The slippery tongue coat can be a slightly greasy, slightly glossy, almost shellacked like coating. Like the one often seen in the presentation for ban xia formulas. But, the tongue coating in dried ginger formulas is also often described as slippery, but here it is actually a bit more of a slimy coat.

Consulting the Chinese dictionary tells us that slippery also can mean glossy, as in shiny.

It would be convienant if there was always a one to one corraspondence between words, between languages, a gold standard  firm and unchanging rule. But, language is, well, more slippery than that.

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Whether you call it epigastic focal distention, glomus, an indistinct  feeling of discomfort in the chest, or any of the other various ways that we try to translate 痞 in English, this term seems to have a slippery and elusive meaning.

Often doctors in China will say this is a feeling on the part of the patient, while Japanese practitioners with their habit of abdominal palpation will say it is a feeling the hands of the practitioner can discern.

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In the Ban Xia Xie Xin Tang chapter of The Ten Major Formula Families, Doctor Huang has this to say:

Epigastric focal distention is a subjective feeling on the part of the patient where there is a feeling of discomfort or pain in the upper abdominal region; epigastric focal distention with firmness includes the afore mentioned subjective feelings on the part of the patient, plus a palpable feeling of firmness on the part of the practitioner.

I suspect that 痞 (pi) is one of those terms, that much like phlegm itself, that can be slippery and the cause of all kinds of distortion. There are terms in Chinese medicine which are more like puzzles, than answers. While I would not suggest that Doctor Huang has the definative answer to this particular question, his point of view does give us some guidelines to pay attention to in our own clinical practice. From that we can form our own ideas about what constitutes 痞, and how to treat it.