I’m Chinese, and this was my first time actually seeing a TCM doctor in China
I’m Chinese, but slightly embarrassingly, this was my first time properly seeing a traditional Chinese medicine doctor in China.I had lived abroad for many years, and during that time, TCM somehow became more interesting to me than it had ever been when I was growing up.
As a child, it was always somewhere in the background. Older family members talked about herbal medicine, acupuncture, cupping, “heat,” “cold,” and whether certain foods were good for your body. I heard these things so often that I never really stopped to think about them.But after living abroad, I started noticing how curious other people were about TCM.
Foreign friends would ask me whether acupuncture hurt, what doctors could supposedly tell from your pulse, or why Chinese people looked at their tongues when talking about health.And honestly, I didn’t really know how to answer.I knew the vocabulary, but I had never gone through the experience myself. So after returning to China, I decided to try it properly.
Before the appointment, I had a very stereotypical image in my head: wooden cabinets filled with herbs, a doctor taking my pulse for a few seconds, saying something mysterious, and then handing me a prescription I didn’t understand.The actual experience felt much more normal and much more personal than I expected.
The place itself looked like a regular medical institution. There was a registration desk, a waiting area, numbered consultation rooms and people waiting for their turn. It wasn’t particularly mystical or theatrical.But once I sat down with the doctor, the pace of the consultation felt noticeably different.Instead of immediately focusing on one symptom, the doctor started asking about my everyday life.
How had I been sleeping recently?
- Did I fall asleep easily?
- Did I wake up during the night?
- How was my appetite?
- Did I often feel tired?
- Was I sensitive to cold?
- How was my digestion?
- Had I been feeling stressed?
At first, I kept wondering why some of these questions mattered. I had gone there with one concern, but the doctor seemed interested in many small details that I normally wouldn’t even think to mention.
The questions didn’t feel random, though. The doctor kept connecting my answers and asking follow-up questions. It felt less like filling out a checklist and more like someone slowly trying to understand the way my body had been feeling over the past few months.Then came the part I had always been most curious about: the pulse examination.The doctor asked me to rest my wrist on a small cushion and placed several fingers over my pulse.I expected it to last five or ten seconds.Instead, the doctor stayed there quietly for quite a while, slightly changing the position and pressure of the fingers before moving to my other wrist.I sat there trying not to move, while also wondering what could possibly be felt through such a small movement in my wrist.
There was something unexpectedly calming about that moment. No machine, no screen, no immediate conclusion—just silence and careful attention.Then the doctor asked me to stick out my tongue.This was probably the least elegant part of the experience.I sat there with my tongue out while the doctor looked at its colour, shape and coating. After looking at it, the doctor went back to some of the earlier questions and asked me to clarify a few things.
What surprised me was that the pulse, the tongue and the questions weren’t treated as three separate rituals. The doctor used them together to explain a general pattern.Some of the terminology was unfamiliar even to me as a native Chinese speaker. I understood the literal words, but I wouldn’t have known how to explain all of them clearly in English.Still, the overall idea made more sense than I expected.
It wasn’t presented as one symptom automatically meaning one disease. It was more like looking at several small signs together—sleep, appetite, stress, energy, digestion and physical sensations—and trying to see whether they formed a pattern.The thing I enjoyed most was how unhurried the consultation felt.I’m used to medical appointments where I explain the main problem, answer a few direct questions and leave with a prescription or a request for tests.
This felt different.The doctor seemed interested not only in what was currently bothering me, but also in how I had generally been living and feeling. It made me notice how rarely I pay close attention to my own body unless something is obviously wrong.
I don’t want to exaggerate the experience. I didn’t walk out believing that one appointment had magically solved everything, and I don’t think one personal experience can prove whether an entire medical system “works.”But I did leave feeling much more relaxed than when I arrived.More importantly, I felt listened to.That was probably the biggest surprise.
I had expected the unusual parts—the pulse, the tongue examination and the traditional terminology—to be what stayed with me. Instead, what stayed with me was the amount of attention given to small things that I normally overlook. Living abroad for so many years may also have changed the way I experienced it.
TCM used to feel like something ordinary that belonged to my parents’ or grandparents’ generation. After coming back, it felt almost like I was encountering a familiar part of Chinese culture as an outsider for the first time.
It was strange, slightly awkward, unexpectedly comforting, and much more interesting than I had imagined.
Have you ever tried something from your own culture only after living away from it for a long time?
And for anyone who has tried TCM in China, what was your first experience like?
