Beijing TCM Tour

The source page describes TCM as the surviving classical Chinese field, alongside astronomy, arithmetic, and agronomy, that still plays an active role in daily medical life. The Beijing study program introduces TCM concepts through English-speaking doctors and educators, with clinical observation at Guang'anmen Hospital, including acupuncture, Tuina massage, and pharmacy practice.

The legacy page lists Half Day Experience TCM ABC (TCM-01), Full Day Experience TCM ABC (TCM-02), TCM ABC plus Hutong and Foot Massage Day Tour (TCM-04), and a liaison service for travelers who need help finding a TCM expert in Beijing. The first three are linked as tour records; the expert liaison is preserved here as service context rather than a normal itinerary.

TCM ABC explains how Chinese doctors view the body and diagnose imbalance. Core subjects include Yin and Yang, Five Elements (Wu Xing), viscera and manifestations, TCM etiology, diagnostics, acupuncture, Tuina massage, prescriptions, materia medica, food-as-medicine, seasonal health cultivation, sports and health, and the relation between emotion and disease.

The original page explains Yin and Yang as the law of alternation and balance. Yin is associated with static, internal, descending, cold, and shaded qualities; Yang with dynamic, external, ascending, warm, and bright qualities. TCM treatment is described as restoring balance between these two forces.

The Five Elements are Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, and Water. The source page links them to seasons, directions, tastes, colors, and body correspondences such as liver and gallbladder for Wood, heart and small intestine for Fire, spleen and stomach for Earth, lung and large intestine for Metal, and kidney and bladder for Water.

Viscera, or zang-fu organs, are presented as more than anatomical organs. TCM connects internal organ systems with external signs, physiological patterns, and pathological phenomena, so the same organ names do not always map directly to modern anatomy.

TCM etiology on the old page groups causes into external climate factors, internal emotional and lifestyle factors, and non-external/non-internal causes such as wounds, animal or insect injury, poisoning, and hereditary factors. Diagnostics include inspection, listening and smelling, inquiry, pulse taking, and palpation.

Acupuncture and moxibustion are described as ancient Chinese therapies connected with channels and acupoints. Tuina is a hands-on Chinese manipulative therapy often used with acupuncture and cupping to help move qi and restore muscular and systemic balance.

The source page explains prescriptions as combinations of medicinal substances based on theory and experience. Materia medica focuses on herbs, minerals, and animal materials, with herbs as the dominant tradition. Food therapy is introduced through the idea that foods and medicines both come from natural plants and can be understood through hot, warm, cool, or cold properties.

Seasonal health cultivation is presented as adapting life to climatic change. The page also connects physical activity and qigong with digestion, circulation, and disease prevention, and explains how extreme emotions such as anger, joy, grief, and terror may affect the viscera in TCM theory.