Chinese Beliefs and Traditions in Health Care

In China they have about 1.3 billion people, making up a little more than 20% of the world’s population. It’s no surprise that with that many people in one country that the culture there would hold many different beliefs and traditions. Chinese are known for many things and their health care practices are one of them. They use different medicines to treat the ill, have different techniques to insure that women have a good pregnancy and a healthy baby as well as old family traditions from how a family is ran to what they do when someone passes away. A lot of these traditions can compare to other cultures where many are also so different it takes some understanding to get used to them.
This is just one example of herbal medicine that the Chinese use to cure aliments. The Chinese practice both Western medicine as well as traditional folk medicine. Many of the older Chinese will choose to try naturopathic remedies before they will go to a traditional doctor. These remedies usually consist of some sort of herbal treatment, possibly combined with meditation and praying. The younger generations will usually try the more modern route of a doctor first with Western medicines and then try the treatment of the traditional ways if that does not work. I used to work for an Insurance agent who was Chinese and had many Chinese customers. One of his main customers was a guy named Daniel; Daniel was an herbalist who made the traditional Chinese medicines used. Most of his herb he made into teas for patients who were suffering an ailment. My agent used him many times for small problems rather than going to a normal M.D. He specialized in herbs for things ranging from headaches, to lack of sleep, to allergies and even more serious conditions such as diseases. Even though he was a strong believer in natural cures, he knew that they could not cure everything at least not quickly enough and that traditional western medicine was sometimes needed. Traditional Chinese medicines are made to help benefit your “energy, blood, essence, spirit and body fluids. These are the 5