Insights and Updates

Skills, knowledge, and organizations all change, but human vulnerability to disease does not. Infectious diseases, which existed before the first humans, will always be with humankind and, as ever, remain one of the basic parameters and determinants shaping human history. ——Adapted from William H. McNeill,…

On April 18, sensing trouble, I gave up the shared community garden I had been renting. On April 19, I ordered online all kinds of balcony-gadgets and fertilizer. On April 20, I bought some vegetable seedlings suited to balcony growing and planted them on the…

In the early hours of today, my little nephew was born in Shenzhen. My older brother, having a son in middle age, has the whole family overjoyed; I called my father first thing this morning to share the good news, and he is beyond happy.

The late Professor Zhu Chenyu, former head of the TCM department at Peking Union Medical College Hospital, produced many research findings on the TCM treatment of diabetes, and his commonly used Jiangtang Shengmai Fang (Blood-Sugar-Lowering Pulse-Generating Formula) is one of them. Jiangtang Shengmai Fang is…

When I got up this morning, I saw my son's homeroom teacher post a notice in the class group: in Haidian District, except for the few subdistricts and towns where cases have appeared, which still need continued testing over the next two days, daily testing…

Yunv Jian (Jade Woman Decoction) comes from Jingyue Quanshu (Complete Works of Zhang Jingyue). Zhang Jingyue used it to treat “water deficiency with fire exuberance, all six pulses floating, surging, slippery and large, lesser-yin deficiency, yangming excess, vexing heat and dry thirst, headache and toothache,…

Tuoli Xiaodu San (Interior-Supporting Toxin-Expelling Powder) comes from Waike Zhengzong (Orthodox Manual of External Medicine) by the Ming-dynasty surgical master Chen Shigong, volume 1. Its composition is: Renshen (Ginseng), Chuanxiong (Ligusticum), Baishao (white Paeonia), Huangqi (Astragalus), Danggui (Angelica), Baizhu (Atractylodes), Fuling (Poria), Jinyinhua (honeysuckle), each…

Yesterday was the first day of universal nucleic acid testing for all residents across twelve districts of Beijing. This morning, before my result had even come out, I had to queue up to be tested again. What is the point of such testing? This shows…

Three years into the epidemic, lockdown has finally come to us. From May 1, cases began appearing one after another in the compounds around here, spreading across a wide area; more than 500 residents in our community had pop-up warnings on their Health Kit. My…

Why was Tao Yuanming so open-minded? One of his poems gives the answer: “Drifting freely in the great transformation of nature, I feel neither joy nor fear. What should end must end; there is no need for further anxious thought.” Many people fear death, but…