Skyfire Avenue

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I asked you guys who were interested to send in your questions, and I picked out a few to answer. Go ahead and check em out after the jump. Feel free to comment and join in the discussion! Warning, answers are unedited.

Leevi asked

Let’s be honest there is no such thing as qi. It is time to end all religions and ancient beliefs. Eating tiger balls won’t help you no matter how much qi it has inside.

There may not be any such thing as qi, that’s my TCM is called Traditional Chinese Medicine theory. However, that doesn’t mean categorically that it isn’t real, either. There isn’t enough proof either way.

Let’s begin with the scientific method. It is often touted as the discovery that lifted the Western world out of the darkness of ignorance. As a refresher from your elementary school earth-sciences class, the scientific method is the step by step process that we use to determine the validity of a result. We ask a question, craft a hypothesis, test that hypothesis, than reassess. It was ultimately collated in to the system we use today roughly around the seventeenth century.

However, it’s rather silly to believe that evidence-based progress spontaneously sprang in to existence in the eighteen hundreds, or that it was the magical brainchild of the West.

The earliest medicinal theories in China that are still incorporated in to TCM today go back two thousand years. But people get caught up in the age. ‘Look at these backwards quacks refusing to be lifted up in to the modern era.’ That’s why it’s important to understand that TCM is a modern system that builds upon a very old foundation. That foundation, in turn, was built upon careful, academic study of this system, and two thousand years of refinement. Back in the Tang Dynasty circa 650, the government commissioned a collated national registry of medicinal herbs, with the careful scrutiny and testing of their brightest doctors. This is a precedent that was set with the creation of the Huangdi Neijing back at the inception of a unified China, when China’s first emperor gathered all of the medical knowledge from prehistory, so that it could be tested and built upon.

It’s clear by these surviving texts and the history of Chinese innovation (they discovered papermaking and gunpowder a thousand years before the West did) that the Chinese are as analytically-minded as any Westerner. Do not make the mistake of conflating technological advancement with truth or superiority. That’s one of the underlying messages of Skyfire Avenue, actually.

But let’s ignore the history of scientific excellence from China. Let’s instead focus on the stigma that’s been created around it.

Unfortunately, a lot of quack medicine has been attached to the banner of Chinese Medicine because it makes money. Rhino horn will not help make you more fertile, and anyone who tells you different is selling something. This doesn’t mean it’s all garbage, though. Many modern pharmaceuticals are extracts from herbs used in Chinese medicinal formulae, for instance Angelica sinensis (当归) as a treatment for sepsis. Note that these herbs have been in practical use for five thousand years, before modern medicine had the technology to verify according to new standards, and still hold up to modern scrutiny.

Similarly, the United States has a long history of many such practices that have abused quasi-scientific information to sell bullshit. Snake oil is a common trope, but its one of a multi-billion dollar industry of placebos. There’s an entire industry of ‘nutritional supplements’ and ‘superfood’ shills that profit off of obscure science words and unverified claims. This does not tarnish modern medicine because you’re willing to disregard the marketing. One should apply the same critical air to reports of Chinese medicine as ‘just placebo garbage.’

Then you might say that despite access to all of this new technology, no evidence exists of qi or meridians. To that you’re right, somewhat. It’s still a theory, as mentioned above. However, there is compelling evidence that acupoints are anatomically different from their non-acupoint surroundings, have higher partial oxygen pressure, and are more conductive. Here is a study that had confirmed the existence of meridians as early as 1961. I personally believe it goes deeper to a quantum level, but I haven’t tested it.

Any scientist worth their salt will say, rightly, that a few small-scale studies are far from proof of existence. They are, however, enough to show that clearly there is something there that corresponds to the system China has been building on for a very long time.

What it boils down to a lot of the time, are words. Westerns don’t like these mystical Chinese secret-style phrases like ‘phlegm-fire misting the heart.’ If we changed qi to the ‘Bonghan Circulatory System’ like they do in the paper above, it would immediately gain more traction with Western audiences.

Remember that this system had its roots back when a unified system of scientific vocabulary didn’t exist. Telescopes didn’t exist. The first acupuncture needles were sharpened rocks. Much like Grecians, then, people were forced to make their best guess.

An example: Fire is an important concept in Chinese medicine, that can manifest and be created in different ways. ‘Fire’ as its defined in TCM, is inflammation, redness, pain, increase in BP and heartrate, among other things. Now what does that sound like? If you said ‘infection!’ then you win a million imagi-bucks, congratulations. It’s another way to say the same thing, because they didn’t know what the hell an infection was – only what it did and how jabbing people in certain spots seemed to make them feel better.

I can’t tell you if qi exists, but a lot of smart people are working on some very interesting things that says it might. But whether or not it does, there is five thousand years of anecdotal evidence that has proven time after time to have positive effects on health. Whether or not qi is we know it is a thing, something inside us is responding to this stuff. Just like the God Particle, it may take us some time but we’ll get to the bottom of it. And then I’m sure there will be more to learn, because science never says ‘good enough.’

Count Grey asked;

As far as questions go this might be a bit off topic, but how does Chinese culture view superheros such as Superman and Batman? I wonder if someone has tried to convert American heroes into a Chinese Wuxia/Xianxia setting. Like, Superman has some crazy-strong solar-powered innate constitution that lets him do crazy things.

McGver. He once made a heat-seeking gun decoy out of batteries, an electric mixer, a rubber band, a serving cart and half a suit of armor. This sort of rampant ridiculousness is modern superheroism. China is super in to Chines and Japanese manga, and not so much comic books although that’s changing. A lot of their stories involve mystical people who are gods or magical talking monkeys. Everyone loves Iron Man.

I can’t think of anyone who is like a copy-pasted superhero we’d know, but we could look at the superpowers;

Flight – Practically any martial-artist. If they can’t fly, then they can leap and wall-climb better than spiderman. A la Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon.

Laser Vision – None popular enough that I can remember.

Super Strength – A Chinese PLA soldier ripped a Japanese soldier in half with his bare hands on a modern Chinese TV drama.

Super toys – You know, interestingly enough I don’t think so. The Chinese love to show strength through their own physical ability and not high technology. Also a trope in Skyfire Avenue. I guess the closes would be Jackie Chan movies like the spy next door or something.

Demons are also popular. I’ve forgotten a lot of the details, but there are immensely popular tales of superhuman demons or magical animals that can do incredible things. The post popular that I can recall is the White Snake, who was a snake that took the form of a beautiful woman. 画皮 is more modern but still probably out of date – a story about a demon that could wear human skin? I forget. But they can do all the cool superhuman things you’d expect from superheroes/villains.

Andrew1115 asked:

How about puberty?

That’s a good question, I’m going to have to look it up, but before I do, let’s look at the symptoms from a TCM perspective.

Acne is the most visible. To TCM doctors things that present as red, painful and inflamed are due to heat. The case of acne, this is endogenous (internal) heat manifesting on the face, with the accumulation of toxins. Weird old-timey talk for skin inflammation with bacterial infection. The treatment, then, is to purge Heat from the skin and drain or dry out the toxins depending on the case.

Acne is actually an important tell for us. The specific location of a breakout on the face indicates the state of an internal system. For instance, acne around the mouth is indicative of poor digestive health. Some women will get acne around their chin and jawline during menstruation, and acne in the upper cheeks might indicate respiratory issues.

Sexy dreams and the sudden raging hormones are a result of the imbalance between one’s Essence (from the kidneys, which are the root of development) and yuan qi which we’ve discussed before. This creates alternating excess heat and deficient heat in the body that stimulates. This reorginzation of energies also is the onset of menstruation, which they call ‘the arrival of heavenly dew.’

Interestingly, the Chinese have a schedule for the development of men and women. Here’s an article about it.