The Wellness Retreat for "Gifted and Eccentric" Individuals

Saturday morning, my wife and I did some work in our vegetable plot. Afterward, I suddenly wanted to drive into the mountains of Mentougou. She agreed to come along, so we drove to Yanchi Town.

Yanchi is all mountains; we had cycled there once before. From our home at the West Third Ring Road in Haidian, cycling to Yanchi takes about four hours. The round trip is roughly 70 km and very taxing, so last time we arrived breathless and never had the courage to cycle there again.

But the scenery at Yanchi is beautiful, and I love the place. There are green hills and clear streams running straight into the Yongding River. Beijing does environmental protection well; the streams here are crystal clear. Yanchi also has a great gorge. Deep mountains, canyons, streams, and waterfalls together hold great appeal for us.

Yanchi is even more remote than Miaofengshan; many mountain villages are untouched by industry. I have always liked Yanchi and once thought about retiring there or in the even more remote Qingshui Town, having eyed several spots.

But that hermit dream is hard to realize in the short term; I still have life tasks to finish. So each trip into the mountains is just a taste.

On this trip, on the road leading to Nanshiyang Great Gorge in Yanchi, we spotted a beautiful spot halfway up a hill with some antique-style buildings. We parked at the foot and walked up.

Once up, we found a man from Fujian had leased the land and developed it into a fine residential community, building houses. They were typical northern courtyard homes (siheyuan). Though small, the courtyards were exquisitely built. I did not count exactly, but I estimated around thirty courtyard homes.

Besides the courtyards, he had built a fitness and cultural-activity center containing ten or twenty tables for copying sutras and some exercise equipment. Beside it were two small partitioned rooms: a tea room and a chess-and-cards room. Apart from the fitness center, there was a shared kitchen. The owner told me he planned to source the finest regional ingredients from across China and cook delicious food for residents in that kitchen.

The owner was a middle-aged man born in 1980, only a year younger than I, but he looked at least ten years older. Running such a large business in Beijing (and he said this was not even his only site) showed he had a sharp business mind. He warmly received me, a purely incidental visitor, invited me for tea, and chatted.

From our talk I learned he rents out the houses on long-term leases. Each courtyard rents for 30,000–60,000 yuan a year, but the tenant must commit to 20 years upfront. During my visit I saw some occupied courtyards. He had rented out perhaps three or four so far; the tenants were retired or soon-to-retire Beijingers of the middle class.

On learning I was a medical person, the owner grew even more interested and tried hard to persuade me to rent a courtyard. I was not unmoved, but something he said next dissuaded me.

To win me over, he painted a rosy picture. He wanted to turn the place into a wellness retreat: he would invite an old Daoist priest to teach Xisui Jing (Marrow-Washing Classic) and Yijin Jing (Muscle/Tendon Change Classic), offer medicinal cuisine, and set aside several courtyards for patients coming to recuperate. Each patient would pay at least 100,000 yuan as an entry fee, plus 1,400–1,500 yuan per night. He wanted to make it the best place for patients to recover.

The more I heard, the more wrong it felt, as I watched him drift on in his fantasy. I told him directly that, from my experience, just looking at his build and face I could basically tell he had chronic problems like high blood lipids. He was candid, admitting he had high lipids, high blood sugar, and hypertension, with both kidney and liver problems. People who feel unwell usually want to befriend doctors, so he was quite open.

I bit my tongue on a few points because they would have been impolite. I wanted to ask: given your own health, what makes you think you can design a healthy lifestyle for others rather than sell them a scam? Charging 100,000 yuan entry fees—are you not afraid that patients who waste their money will cause trouble? If you really gather gourmet food from across the country, are you not afraid your "three highs" will worsen? Won't long-term medicinal-cuisine wellness damage your liver and kidneys?

Clearly his understanding of health and wellness was superficial—the very superficial view peddled by popular wellness gurus. Promoted by video bloggers, many people take for granted that such things are useful and wondrous. I believe his commercial model will succeed, but I personally have no regard for it.

Of the three occupied families, one was barbecuing in its courtyard. Around the grill sat a group of middle-aged and elderly people with severe abdominal obesity. Another housed a quieter middle-aged man enjoying a cigarette in his lounge chair. The third housed a female physician; after a few words she warmly invited my wife and me to stay for an iron-pot fish dinner. She was stout but still enthusiastic about good food. I wondered how such a group could live healthily together.

Leaving, I told my wife we should never set foot in such a place again. She smiled and asked whether I was just protecting my reputation and refusing to associate with the owner.

That is part of it, but there are two more important reasons. First, I simply cannot bear to make patients pay such a steep price. Second, I fundamentally reject the wellness philosophy of these so-called wellness villas.

What I want most is, after graduation, to work at a township health center or village clinic as a rural doctor, do some cross-border e-commerce on the side, farm a little, and quietly do research in my spare time. I do not want to add physical or mental burdens on myself, nor add financial burdens on my patients.

I have studied for years under a TCM apprenticeship and am now studying Western medicine full-time at university. The medicine I understand means putting myself in the patient's shoes and considering safety, efficacy, and economy. If doctors do not do this, doctor–patient disputes will keep arising.

The safety, efficacy, and economy of these wellness retreats are unreliable, yet their advertising is exaggerated. Once involved, accidents are likely.

Having seen the operations of these popular wellness retreats firsthand, I sincerely warn readers not to be fooled by surface appearances into such wellness lies. To be healthy and long-lived, the most reliable path is to read serious popular-science works, reduce high-sugar, high-fat, and high-protein intake, exercise or work moderately, and keep a balanced mind—not to worship commercially packaged wellness gurus and wellness myths.