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039 Discussing Jing Fang with Dr. Huang Huang
Episode 393rd July 2018 • Qiological Podcast • Michael Max
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Fifteen plus years ago when I was living in Beijing and studying medicine and language I was gifted with a copy of Dr. Huang's Ten Key Formula Families in Chinese Medicine.

At the time it was an astonishing read, as I'd never been exposed to his ideas about constitutional type and how certain people have an affinity for a particular herb or formula family.

It changed how I thought about herbal medicine.

And I've been fortunate to have now known Dr. Huang for many years, and had an opportunity to introduce his work to the western world. 

I was recently in Nanjing for a visit and had an opportunity to sit down with him and some of his foreign Ph.D. students and have a discussion around his latest thoughts on the classic formulas and the practice of medicine. 

Please enjoy this podcast in either English or Chinese, as I was able to edit for both languages.

Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview

Transcripts

Michael Max:

The medicine of east Asia is based on a science that does not

Michael Max:

hold itself separate from the phenomenon that it seeks to understand our

Michael Max:

medicine did not grow out of Petri dish, experimentation, or double blind studies.

Michael Max:

It arose from them serving them.

Michael Max:

And our part in, uh, east Asian medicine evolves not from the examination

Michael Max:

of dead structures, but rather from living systems with their complex

Michael Max:

mutually entangled interactions.

Michael Max:

Welcome to chia logical.

Michael Max:

I'm Michael max, the host of this podcast that goes in depth on issues,

Michael Max:

pertinent to practitioners and students of east Asian medicine, dialogue and

Michael Max:

discussion have always been elemental to Chinese and other east Asian medicines.

Michael Max:

Listening to these conversations with.

Michael Max:

Petitioner's that go deep into how this ancient medicine is alive and

Michael Max:

unfolding in the bladder in clinic.

Michael Max:

Before we get into the show today, I've got a question for you when

Michael Max:

you think about, and I'm using air quotes here, business, what

Michael Max:

is it that comes to mind for you?

Michael Max:

I suspect you might've just had a visceral reaction just from hearing the.

Michael Max:

Anyway, chew on this.

Michael Max:

And later in the show, I've got a little Chinese lesson that might help you

Michael Max:

to expand your definition of business

Michael Max:

Well, everybody welcome back to chia logical.

Michael Max:

I am really thrilled today to be bringing you a show live

Michael Max:

on tape from Nanjing, China.

Michael Max:

I am here today with Dr.

Michael Max:

Wong Wong and some of his.

Michael Max:

Uh, doctoral students at the international . Of Nanjing university of Chinese medicine.

Michael Max:

And we're going to have a little discussion about Dr.

Michael Max:

Wong's methods and get some of his history and bring you some of

Michael Max:

his latest thinking on using the classic formulas, the Jing Fong in

Michael Max:

Chinese medicine, I'm joined today.

Michael Max:

First of all, by Dan Ang, who is helping me with translation today.

Michael Max:

Dan, welcome.

Michael Max:

Good to have you here.

Michael Max:

And there's also around Evan and mark gearing.

Michael Max:

Those of you that are frequent listeners to geological we'll recognize those

Michael Max:

names because these two characters have been on the show before.

Michael Max:

So here we are with Dr.

Michael Max:

Kwan.

Michael Max:

Uh, this show is primarily going to be done in English.

Michael Max:

Although of course, we're going to have to do some translation back and forth.

Michael Max:

So please bear with us through some of the Chinese I'm going to edit it as best as

Michael Max:

I can to make it as Englishy as possible.

Michael Max:

And please enjoy the show with.

Michael Max:

gender

Michael Max:

and we would say, make war with timeline.

Michael Max:

Darrin can't be

Dr. Huang Huang:

cheap.

Dr. Huang Huang:

So it's only you can't be institutes and we all should.

Michael Max:

It needs these.

Michael Max:

I do social Disher hall leader learn when she was sure.

Michael Max:

Gurn Mancha.

Michael Max:

I know that you did your master's thesis on the monkhood group.

Michael Max:

And I'm wondering what the influence of the thesis and the influence of your

Michael Max:

study of the manga doctors has been on your thinking and on your practice.

Dr. Huang Huang:

What the source along when mung her

Dr. Huang Huang:

iPad, uh, shin Chan, if I tap,

Dan Ang:

uh, his master's thesis was on the, among her current.

Dan Ang:

Establishment and the development of the manga Monaghan current, and

Dan Ang:

it gave him a very deep impression.

Dan Ang:

And one of the main things was that these among the doctors were

Dan Ang:

not just people who wrote books, they were very clinically oriented.

Dan Ang:

Um, so it really, one of the main impressions that it gave

Dan Ang:

him was that it taught him that.

Dan Ang:

Research in Chinese medicine is not just about, you know, theoretic, theoretical

Dan Ang:

and academic things, but it really has to, you know, clinic is what comes first.

Dr. Huang Huang:

Communist

Dr. Huang Huang:

Suna and Outerknown sender

Dan Ang:

Ypsi.

Dan Ang:

So they were in the Southern part of, uh, John SU province.

Dan Ang:

They were, uh, these Monga doctors.

Dan Ang:

They, they knew how to do, you know, they were generalists.

Dan Ang:

So they knew how to do an internal medicine.

Dan Ang:

Why could I go, would roughly translate as surgery and dermatology.

Dan Ang:

They knew how to do, you know, that throat diseases and all

Dan Ang:

kinds of different things.

Dan Ang:

They knew how to do acupuncture too.

Dan Ang:

Um, so they, they were they're really generalists.

Dan Ang:

So they would see a lot of patients in a day and they had

Dan Ang:

to be really practical because ethicacy was their bread and butter.

Dan Ang:

So only if.

Dan Ang:

Only if you can really see patients effectively treat patients

Dan Ang:

effectively, um, Kenya really be a good Chinese medicine doctor.

Michael Max:

Just,

Dr. Huang Huang:

just do one in, ShaoYin say, dad, there you go.

Dr. Huang Huang:

You go, you go, you go one year.

Dan Ang:

So that is the main thing that, uh, that the man had doctors, uh,

Dan Ang:

influenced him where there is this idea.

Dan Ang:

That clinic is number one.

Dan Ang:

Um, Dr.

Dan Ang:

Wong says he is a, primarily a clinic, a clinician.

Michael Max:

So, correct me if I'm wrong in this, but it sounds like what

Michael Max:

you're saying is that our clinic and our patients are really our greatest teachers.

Michael Max:

No.

Michael Max:

Okay.

Dr. Huang Huang:

being Lynch's woman.

Dan Ang:

That's right.

Dan Ang:

Know, our, our patients are very important teachers and you know, a lot

Dan Ang:

of our experience is learned from our.

Michael Max:

My experience has been in the beginning with studying Chinese medicine.

Michael Max:

That there's some things that we learn and it helps us to get started.

Michael Max:

It gives us, it gives us a place to begin, but very often we

Michael Max:

learn by the things that we do.

Michael Max:

Sometimes in English, we like to say things like getting it wrong

Michael Max:

as part of getting it right.

Michael Max:

And so in the process of becoming a good practitioner, we have

Michael Max:

to become comfortable with being wrong about what we do.

Michael Max:

And then we have to learn from our mistakes and learn to improve them.

Michael Max:

My question is how can we in the midst of a moment of being wrong and

Michael Max:

maybe feeling very anxious about it, still be able to keep our wits about.

Michael Max:

So that we can learn the lessons that we need to learn from our patients.

Dr. Huang Huang:

Uh, she said

Dr. Huang Huang:

hadn't Humphries either being, and she showed the beam.

Dan Ang:

Uh, so all of us run into that, that issue sometimes.

Dan Ang:

Um, we always, you know, whether it's a complex disease that we're treating

Dan Ang:

or, you know, the patient comes back in the second time, the second visit.

Dan Ang:

And it turns out that while we did it didn't work, or there was a bad

Dan Ang:

result, then we can feel nervous.

Dan Ang:

Um, but what we have to do is we have to keep trying and keep, uh, you

Dan Ang:

know, keep trying to learn from that.

Dan Ang:

You know, each patient Dr.

Dan Ang:

Vaughn believes is, is a new.

Dan Ang:

Topic in our learning.

Dan Ang:

So, uh, every single patient that comes in the door is completely new for us.

Dan Ang:

Um, so we need to research and we need to keep the spirit of always researching

Dan Ang:

and learning from these experiences.

Dan Ang:

Uh, he's suggesting to experience.

Dan Ang:

Two methods that we could use to kind of try to learn more about situations

Dan Ang:

like this that are difficult, a clinical situation that are difficult.

Dan Ang:

One of them is we can read cases, uh, reading case studies from previous

Dan Ang:

doctors, famous doctors, and the more reread we might find some that

Dan Ang:

have connections to these cases that we're seeing ourselves in clinic.

Dan Ang:

Um, and that can be very useful and give us some kind of new

Dan Ang:

ideas what to do on this.

Dan Ang:

Suggesting that he has is you can talk to colleagues and teachers,

Dan Ang:

especially colleagues and teachers that are experienced and they

Dan Ang:

can offer you ideas as well.

Dan Ang:

And maybe you hadn't thought of them.

Dr. Huang Huang:

So, yeah.

Dr. Huang Huang:

Was, it actually was a case, just all mushy, so many, they could

Dr. Huang Huang:

be time, something like the look.

Dan Ang:

Oh, so he believes that studying case studies is very important

Dan Ang:

in studying Chinese medicine, Dr.

Dan Ang:

Hong himself in the past, he's called.

Dan Ang:

Numerous case studies.

Dan Ang:

He, he would copy them down from famous doctors, from his teachers,

Dan Ang:

even copied his own case studies.

Dan Ang:

Um, and he thinks that everyone in Chinese medicine should be studying case studies

Dan Ang:

is a traditional method of studying Chinese medicine is a very important one.

Dr. Huang Huang:

So you still answered just totally, totally, totally changed.

Dr. Huang Huang:

Yeah.

Dan Ang:

So this comes back to the idea that you can't, you can't get

Dan Ang:

away from the fact that the medicine is primarily clinical in nature.

Dan Ang:

So you can't leave.

Dan Ang:

The clinic cases are clinical, you know, by definition.

Mark Gearing:

And he said something to say on that topic of focusing on clinic.

Mark Gearing:

My impression like with studying with Dr.

Mark Gearing:

Wong, there's many different ways to study DJing fan, but when we're.

Mark Gearing:

Studying Fung, Jen, the formula pattern and y'all Jang, the hood pattern.

Mark Gearing:

The diagnosis is already the treatment.

Mark Gearing:

So once we've established a clear formula pattern, that's already the treatment.

Mark Gearing:

We went already know which direction we're going to go in in that sense.

Mark Gearing:

And that's so it's very versus there's some, as many different ways, as I said,

Mark Gearing:

like many different theories out there.

Mark Gearing:

So it's sort of, for me, Doing that cuts through that.

Mark Gearing:

A lot of the theory to make it very, um, easily, um, applicable.

Dan Ang:

Good

Dr. Huang Huang:

to go.

Dr. Huang Huang:

the

Dr. Huang Huang:

Yeah.

Dan Ang:

Uh, so.

Dan Ang:

Uh, Fung Junger formula presentation is, uh, it comes

Dan Ang:

from a bunch of cases basically.

Dan Ang:

Um, so there's clinical cases and if you study enough of them, then you

Dan Ang:

find common characteristics among those cases, and that can be put

Dan Ang:

together into a formula presentation.

Dan Ang:

Um, that's, that's really what a formula presentation is.

Dan Ang:

It comes from these cases and he believes that the ShaoYin.

Dan Ang:

Is actually, you could look at it as a case study book.

Dan Ang:

So even though the case study is in there, they're kind of written

Dan Ang:

in all different kinds of ways.

Dan Ang:

Uh, but it's really, you know, a, basically a bunch of

Dan Ang:

clinical experiences in a book.

Dan Ang:

Uh, Dr.

Dan Ang:

Kwan, I was wondering if, uh, you've been working on any new formula

Dan Ang:

families or formula categories.

Mark Gearing:

Uh, Quanisha

Dan Ang:

two 80 in New York, a nigga

Dr. Huang Huang:

Hmm

Dr. Huang Huang:

uh

Dr. Huang Huang:

I guess.

Dan Ang:

So when he wrote the 10 key formula families, Uh, there were 10

Dan Ang:

formula families that he mentioned it was

Dan Ang:

foods that by.

Dan Ang:

Taiyang and Wangan.

Dan Ang:

And since then that was around 1995 and it's been more than 20 years already.

Dan Ang:

So there are of course, a bunch of new ones that he's kind of thought of or

Dan Ang:

developed, and he gave some examples.

Dan Ang:

So there's gun Sal format, formula family could include formulas, like

Dan Ang:

can tell she has in tongue drew guns, her tongue, God, my dad's all town.

Dan Ang:

Gogan formula family could include formulas like gun, tongue, uh, Gogan,

Dan Ang:

chin, Anton and Don gray formula family.

Dan Ang:

Good have Dunway shaoyang son Dunway son dungaree, SUNY tongue, et cetera.

Dan Ang:

He also mentioned a D one formula family, uh, uh, shunt Chiwan Fonzi to Hong

Dan Ang:

town, CGRP, Hong Taiyang, et cetera.

Dan Ang:

And there's a lot more.

Dan Ang:

He said

Dr. Huang Huang:

I ain't hung up.

Dan Ang:

my family saw y'all shaoyang

Dr. Huang Huang:

formulas, family.

Dr. Huang Huang:

Okay.

Dan Ang:

So back in the day, when he was just kind of developing his, his

Dan Ang:

thoughts about China's medicine, his, his thoughts were not as, as refined as they

Dan Ang:

are now because it's been a long time.

Dan Ang:

They were kind of course, and kind of unrefined a little bit.

Dan Ang:

And now they're kind of more refined.

Dan Ang:

Uh, but his, his, his basic model of thinking about Chinese

Dan Ang:

medicine is still relevant.

Dan Ang:

And that is,

Dr. Huang Huang:

which is a fun being

Dr. Huang Huang:

So

Dan Ang:

his basic, uh, way of thinking about China's medicine is

Dan Ang:

still relevant and that can be kind of summed up in a triangle of formula,

Dan Ang:

uh, disease and the person, the three aspects of, of looking at things.

Dan Ang:

Should I leave

Dr. Huang Huang:

to go to mean the damn beats on that?

Dan Ang:

So that the 10 key formula family's book from a long time ago, it

Dan Ang:

has sold quite a lot of copies by now.

Dan Ang:

It's been reprinted a bunch of times and originally he wanted to

Dan Ang:

revise it, but then he decided he was just going to keep it the same.

Dan Ang:

It's he's going to keep it the same.

Dan Ang:

And his new ideas will go into new books.

Dan Ang:

Uh, so they have, they have a bunch of new books now, and one of them

Dan Ang:

wants, he, that he mentioned that, that I guess they're working on is a.

Dan Ang:

It is called a gene Fung formula presentation textbook.

Dan Ang:

And it goes a lot deeper and into formula presentations.

Dan Ang:

And it's a lot more refined, uh, in what it covers

Dr. Huang Huang:

the email wall.

Dr. Huang Huang:

How does that change or

Dan Ang:

and because he's still getting better and better every day,

Dan Ang:

he's, he's always researching and learning and getting better himself.

Dan Ang:

So.

Michael Max:

Dr.

Michael Max:

Wang.

Michael Max:

Some of us that have studied with you are familiar with this triangle

Michael Max:

of person illness and formula for those who might be new to your work.

Michael Max:

We're listening to this podcast for the first time and hearing about your methods.

Michael Max:

Could you explain a little bit about this triangle

Dr. Huang Huang:

waddling song or can be not just things found, being ran.

Dan Ang:

When he's a clinic, he looks at things from three points.

Dan Ang:

It's the formula, the disease and the person.

Dan Ang:

And these are things that are, they're not abstract, they're real things,

Dan Ang:

um, that have a basis in reality.

Dan Ang:

And they're also relatively objective and they're relatively

Dan Ang:

distinct from each other.

Dan Ang:

So we can talk about them in.

Dan Ang:

And think about them in clear ways.

Dan Ang:

The first thing is formulas.

Dan Ang:

So what does formula mean?

Dan Ang:

It basically mostly refers to classical formulas, uh, like and the classical

Dan Ang:

formula is kind of in their original form.

Dan Ang:

The, the ingredients, for example, a greater tongue.

Dan Ang:

If you take one out, then it's a different formula.

Dan Ang:

Um, if you modify the dosages, then it's a different formula.

Dan Ang:

He gave a couple examples.

Dan Ang:

The one that I remember is, uh, so gentle on tongue.

Dan Ang:

If you, if you increase the dose of shaoyang in the formula, then

Dan Ang:

it's not quite your tongue anymore.

Dan Ang:

Know gentlemen.

Dan Ang:

Huh?

Dan Ang:

When he talks about formula is he's talking about the original formulas, not.

Dan Ang:

Not something that's been modified in some way.

Dan Ang:

So it's a very clear idea of what a formula is being there,

Dr. Huang Huang:

being some digest.

Dr. Huang Huang:

So sushi that you got

Dr. Huang Huang:

so an attorney, if a cheap at the time way.

Dan Ang:

So then we come to the second point, which is disease.

Dan Ang:

Uh, so a disease is an important concept when, with regard to diagnosis,

Dan Ang:

Diseases can mean ancient diseases.

Dan Ang:

So diseases as defined in ancient times.

Dan Ang:

So that might include like deficiency, taxation, or blood impediments, um, water

Dan Ang:

amassment, blot amassment these kinds of traditional terms, but from a modern

Dan Ang:

clinical perspective, what we see more.

Dan Ang:

Of usually is a modern disease categories.

Dan Ang:

So like diabetes, hypertension, uh, heart and heart attack, heart failure.

Dan Ang:

Hashimoto's those are the ones he mentioned.

Dan Ang:

Um, so what he's interested in, in, in is what formula is, can treat

Dan Ang:

this disease or what diseases can be treated by a certain formula.

Dan Ang:

He is.

Dan Ang:

In the relationship between formula and disease

Dr. Huang Huang:

handling the

Dr. Huang Huang:

and big

Dr. Huang Huang:

. Dan Ang: Uh, so a lot of people

Dr. Huang Huang:

diagnosing, they want to know, you know, what, what formula is can treat

Dr. Huang Huang:

a specific disease and then that's it.

Dr. Huang Huang:

But we want to go a step further.

Dr. Huang Huang:

And that brings us to the third point, which is the person.

Dr. Huang Huang:

What this means is what kind of person can this formula treat or what kind of

Dr. Huang Huang:

formulas can treat this type of person?

Dr. Huang Huang:

So this is very important.

Dr. Huang Huang:

So Dr.

Dr. Huang Huang:

Long has come up with idea of the formula person, which means, uh, it

Dr. Huang Huang:

basically means, you know, what kind of person kind of specific formula treat

Dr. Huang Huang:

Canada.

Dan Ang:

So as far as.

Dan Ang:

Determining, what kind of person we're looking at?

Dan Ang:

This is he's referring to things that we can actually see with our eyes

Dan Ang:

and actually feel with our hands.

Dan Ang:

So objective things.

Dan Ang:

Is this person fat or thin?

Dan Ang:

Is the person tall or short as the person dark complexion or light complexion?

Dan Ang:

Uh, are their muscles developed or are they atrophied?

Dan Ang:

Is the, is the spirit, you know, excited or kind of subdued, you

Dan Ang:

know, there's the face sallow and withered kind of, or, or is it.

Dan Ang:

Bright red.

Dan Ang:

And when we, we also have to feel the abdomen is the belly.

Dan Ang:

Is it big?

Dan Ang:

Is it or.

Dan Ang:

Dan and flat is the pulse floating or sinking.

Dan Ang:

Um, we also pay attention to the person's past disease history, and

Dan Ang:

also their family history of diseases.

Dan Ang:

And we want to get a sense of what symptoms do they get easily.

Dan Ang:

Like if they're exposed to cold or wind, what happens to them?

Dan Ang:

What foods did they like?

Dan Ang:

What foods do they react to?

Dan Ang:

What's their sleep lag?

Dan Ang:

What are their bowels like?

Dan Ang:

And, and through the four pillars of diagnosis.

Dan Ang:

The, uh, visual observation, listening and smelling the questioning and palpating.

Dan Ang:

We take all that information together.

Dan Ang:

And then we kind of paint a picture of a person

Dr. Huang Huang:

falling being then possibly your son,

Dan Ang:

Joe.

Dan Ang:

In this triangle of, uh, formula disease and person, we've mostly described

Dan Ang:

two relationships, the relationship between formula and disease and the

Dan Ang:

residence between formula and person, uh, the relationship between formula

Dan Ang:

and disease, it mainly tells us is this going to be an effective treatment?

Dan Ang:

And is it going to be effective very quickly?

Dan Ang:

The relationship between the formula and the person.

Dan Ang:

Mainly tells us is it's going to be safe.

Dan Ang:

And also is it going to be very precise?

Dan Ang:

So those two relationships, the relationship between the formula

Dan Ang:

and the disease and the relationship between the formula and the person are

Dan Ang:

two very important parts of tartar.

Dan Ang:

Mark's thinking

Michael Max:

we're going to take a little break for a moment.

Michael Max:

I hope you've been enjoying this podcast conversation.

Michael Max:

It already gleaned something useful from it.

Michael Max:

So back for a moment to this thing about business and how you.

Michael Max:

You know how you define something profoundly colors,

Michael Max:

how you view it in Chinese.

Michael Max:

The word for business is made up of two characters, Shung E Shung.

Michael Max:

It means to create like the shaoyang cycle of the five elements, E

Michael Max:

means meaning it's made up of the characters for sound and heart.

Michael Max:

It's the same E as the spirit of the spleen.

Michael Max:

And it's also often translated as significant.

Michael Max:

Show him, he means business, but you can also read it as making meaning or

Michael Max:

creating something of significance.

Michael Max:

So the next time you have your tail in and out about business issues,

Michael Max:

consider that your task is to create deeper meaning in your work or

Michael Max:

generate something of significance.

Dan Ang:

So in that triangle, there's still one relationship

Dan Ang:

that we haven't talked about yet.

Dan Ang:

And that's, what's the relationship between the disease and the person.

Dan Ang:

So that means what kind of person could easily get this disease or what kind of

Dan Ang:

diseases could this person easily get?

Dan Ang:

Uh, so that's an important subject of research as well.

Dan Ang:

Dr.

Dan Ang:

Hong is researching it.

Dan Ang:

He's still learning more about it.

Dan Ang:

Um, he's researched more the first two relationships between the, the, uh, the

Dan Ang:

ones that we just talked about between the M formula and the disease and the

Dan Ang:

formula and the person, uh, but this third relationship between the disease

Dan Ang:

and the person is also very important.

Dan Ang:

We need to learn more about it

Dr. Huang Huang:

now, because then you may air

Dan Ang:

uh, so as you may have noticed these three things, the

Dan Ang:

formula, the disease and the person, they're all real things with no basis.

Dan Ang:

In actual reality, we can see them, we can feel them they're objective.

Dan Ang:

So his triangle of the formula, the disease and the person, it

Dan Ang:

emphasizes the objectivity of the information that we're talking about.

Dan Ang:

So for example, The formula.

Dan Ang:

We're not talking about methods in Chinese medicine, for example, like,

Dan Ang:

uh, strengthening the spleen or tonifying G or tonifying the kidneys.

Dan Ang:

We're not talking about methods like that, which are kind of,

Dan Ang:

you know, different people might have different interpretations of

Dan Ang:

what that actually means when it comes to, to clinic the formula.

Dan Ang:

In this triangle, it actually means something that you can see.

Dan Ang:

It's a bowl of medicine in front of us, or it's a, you know, it's a bottle

Dan Ang:

of medicine, something like that.

Dan Ang:

So it's something, you know, actually has a basis in reality, the, the disease

Dan Ang:

also, it has to be something that is not.

Dan Ang:

Too vague.

Dan Ang:

So for example, like aids or diabetes or something like that, there there's

Dan Ang:

internationally recognized standards of diagnosis for these things.

Dan Ang:

So it's relatively, you know, it's, it's recognized widely.

Dan Ang:

And if you say that in, if, say the name of some disease in Japan or in the

Dan Ang:

U S or somewhere else, then it doesn't matter where you are in the world, then

Dan Ang:

people know what you're talking about.

Dan Ang:

Um, it's not something like kidney deficiency.

Dan Ang:

Every person might have a slightly different idea about

Dan Ang:

what that actually means.

Dan Ang:

So some people, when you say condensed efficiency, they might think of hair

Dan Ang:

loss and low back pain, or somebody else might think of poor sexual function.

Dan Ang:

So it means kind of different things to different people.

Dan Ang:

And then for people also, you know, the, the third part of the triangle,

Dan Ang:

the person, like he already mentioned.

Dan Ang:

It's things it's characteristics with the person that are

Dan Ang:

objective and easily recognizable.

Dan Ang:

Like is the person fat or thin, you know, dark or light or, you know, et

Dan Ang:

cetera, objective things, no matter what

Dr. Huang Huang:

city hire so many, no number.

Dr. Huang Huang:

ego.

Dr. Huang Huang:

You answer

Dan Ang:

so.

Dan Ang:

In the study of classical formulas, there's an important concept.

Dan Ang:

That's called the correspondence between the formula and the presentation

Dan Ang:

and the formula presentation.

Dan Ang:

When you take those two words, formula in presentation, some people ask Dr.

Dan Ang:

Huang.

Dan Ang:

Well, you've talked about formulas.

Dan Ang:

Why don't you talk about the presentation?

Dan Ang:

Cause he hasn't met.

Dan Ang:

Uh, that as a concept yet.

Dan Ang:

Well, he just explained that if we take this triangle and we take, if formulas

Dan Ang:

is at the top of the triangle and disease and person are the two lower

Dan Ang:

corners of the triangle, if we take those two lower corners and we squish them

Dan Ang:

together into one, that means taking disease and person, and kind of squish

Dan Ang:

them together into one concept together, those things make up the presentation.

Dan Ang:

Therefore his, his philosophy also fits.

Dan Ang:

With this concept, the traditional concept of formula presentation correspondence.

Dan Ang:

Um, so th this presentation is objective.

Dan Ang:

It means what proof do you have, you know, in clinic?

Dan Ang:

Um, what kind of person is it?

Dan Ang:

What kind of diseases?

Dan Ang:

It, so for example, with greater tongue, um, the greater tongue person

Dan Ang:

and, you know, the, the list of Quakertown diseases, it's not just one

Dan Ang:

disease that greater tongue can treat.

Dan Ang:

It's a bunch of them.

Dan Ang:

So he has a concept called not sure exactly how to translate this, but the,

Dan Ang:

the, uh, it's like, um, a map or like a.

Dan Ang:

Of diseases that belong to any particular formula, it's like a chart or a map or

Dan Ang:

something that tells you, once you look at it, you can see what kinds of diseases

Dan Ang:

in general can this formula and treat.

Michael Max:

So she Fung Halldor and Shaw render Ching shoe GaN, Tom, and

Michael Max:

being harsher just a few moments ago.

Michael Max:

You were talking about.

Michael Max:

That you're still researching.

Michael Max:

You're still doing some research and some exploration on the relationship

Michael Max:

between person and disease.

Michael Max:

And one of the things that we hear a lot about in the west, I'm not

Michael Max:

sure if this is true in China.

Michael Max:

So I'd like to ask you, but one of the things we talk about a lot in the west

Michael Max:

is that the emotions often play a very big role in the ways that people get sick

Michael Max:

or the kinds of illnesses people get.

Michael Max:

Some times

Dr. Huang Huang:

Sydney.

Dr. Huang Huang:

You're had a change.

Dan Ang:

Uh, so yes, absolutely.

Dan Ang:

They're related a person is a living thing.

Dan Ang:

It's a person has a moods and a person, you know, has, has their,

Dan Ang:

their own personal psychology.

Dan Ang:

So that's a main point of ours and clinic is, is looking at that relationship in

Dan Ang:

the mood and, and, and what's going on with a person, uh, as far as their health.

Dan Ang:

So he gave an example of the formula dot chai.

Dan Ang:

Hutong, uh, the Tai Chi who tongue person is typically, they.

Dan Ang:

Have a bad temper there easily.

Dan Ang:

They're very tense.

Dan Ang:

Their abdomen is tense and, you know, they might be tense psychologically, too.

Dan Ang:

They might easily get kind of wound up about things.

Dan Ang:

So, and then when they take that child tongue dacha, Hutong the formula.

Dan Ang:

They often feel more relaxed.

Dan Ang:

Are

Dr. Huang Huang:

you doing shoes?

Dr. Huang Huang:

You've been in lots of ways.

Dr. Huang Huang:

The sense of being are lots of . Uh, either 10 home.

Dr. Huang Huang:

He

Dan Ang:

gave another example of the formula, bunch of hope, a tongue.

Dan Ang:

So that's this person is, tends to be kind of a hypochondriac.

Dan Ang:

They all.

Dan Ang:

Are thinking, do I have this disease or do I have that disease?

Dan Ang:

They might complain of something in their throat or them.

Dan Ang:

I can explain of some feeling on their skin.

Dan Ang:

Like their skin might be, uh, itchy or, or numb or something, or they

Dan Ang:

might have kind of some, you know, gas in their abdomen or something.

Dan Ang:

And they have all these different complaints.

Dan Ang:

But when you do tests on them, nothing comes back positive.

Dan Ang:

Like they're, they're on paper.

Dan Ang:

They're fine.

Dan Ang:

A lot of times with this person, uh it's it's

Dr. Huang Huang:

being was the saw mill its own yard.

Dr. Huang Huang:

You'd sit down.

Dan Ang:

so this is not to say that there's necessarily like a one-to-one

Dan Ang:

relationship between certain types of moods and certain formulas.

Dan Ang:

It's more complex than that.

Dan Ang:

Uh, you have to look at the person.

Dan Ang:

So he gave an example of anxiety.

Dan Ang:

So anxiety being one, you know, category of, of psychological issues.

Dan Ang:

If it's a child who person, or if it's a bad chat person or a sick

Dan Ang:

wagered person or a Taiyang person.

Dan Ang:

They might all take different formulas for, for their, their anxiety, even though

Dan Ang:

the anxiety itself might be similar.

Dan Ang:

Uh, so for example, a child who person might take for example, anxiety, a

Dan Ang:

punch-out person might take bunch of hope, a tongue or one downtown, a graded

Dan Ang:

person might take and adopt one person.

Dan Ang:

You might give them

Dan Ang:

. Mark Gearing: So, Michael and

Dan Ang:

recently and it's, it's basically there's two parts first.

Dan Ang:

It's been many years since you've written the chalet farm,

Dan Ang:

the 10 key formula families.

Dan Ang:

What are some of the things that you believe about Chinese medicine now that

Dan Ang:

you don't, that you did not believe?

Dan Ang:

10 years ago.

Dan Ang:

And also, how has your view of using formulas and treating disease

Dan Ang:

changed over these last 20 years?

Dr. Huang Huang:

Ta-da you answers some, you thought the function meal?

Dr. Huang Huang:

Yeah.

Dr. Huang Huang:

It's only, you

Dan Ang:

Well, first of all, he answered the question as saying that as far as

Dan Ang:

the big things go, the big ideas that he has about Chinese medicine, the

Dan Ang:

main directions of his thought, there haven't been that many big changes.

Dan Ang:

Um, he also mentioned that that Chinese medicine is also like a life experience.

Dan Ang:

Uh, it's like a.

Dan Ang:

It's like a lifestyle culture, uh, for Chinese people.

Dan Ang:

For example, when, you know, when they get headaches, they might take certain

Dan Ang:

formulas like c'mon foods, decision tongue, or, or, or we'll go again.

Dan Ang:

Taiyang, it's, it's a, it's an experience of the Chinese people.

Dan Ang:

That people know about.

Dan Ang:

There's also the, you know, the habits the Chinese people have of taking your tonic

Dan Ang:

medicines, like tonic, herbal medicines.

Dan Ang:

Like they have these things called , which are like tonic jelly type things and

Dan Ang:

drinking hot water and not drinking cold water is also like a Chinese cultural

Dan Ang:

thing that has to do with, you know, it's based on Chinese people's experience

Dan Ang:

and, and has a cultural element.

Dan Ang:

Um, he also mentioned that there's differences in this,

Dan Ang:

like for example, Mongolian people might think that drinking.

Dan Ang:

Drinking milk tea is, is healthy for you.

Dan Ang:

And then southerners might thinking that, uh, drinking

Dan Ang:

cool tea is, is healthy for you.

Dan Ang:

Um, it's it's like a lifestyle culture.

Dr. Huang Huang:

That's your way I challenge outages.

Dan Ang:

So the reason he brought that up is he has two, two fervent

Dan Ang:

hopes for Chinese medicine.

Dan Ang:

And as time goes on, he's more and more passionate about the

Dan Ang:

passionate about these two things.

Dan Ang:

The first one is he wants TCM to become something, not just for

Dan Ang:

Chinese people in Chinese culture, but he wants it to go worldwide.

Dan Ang:

So he wants it to be relevant to people all over the world.

Dan Ang:

He wants it to be, you know, kind of more widely.

Dan Ang:

So he wants his, his classes and his books to be translated into

Dan Ang:

as many languages as possible.

Dan Ang:

He wants everyone to be able to understand

Dan Ang:

his second hope, which is, uh, he's equally passionate about and more

Dan Ang:

and more passionate as, as every day goes by, is that he wants Chinese

Dan Ang:

medicine to be systematic or, uh, yeah, standardized standard standardized.

Dan Ang:

Um, otherwise it can't really go worldwide.

Dan Ang:

Like he's hoping.

Dan Ang:

And along with that hope of, of DCM becoming standardized.

Dan Ang:

Is that goes along with classical prescriptions that are standardized.

Dan Ang:

So Fon.

Dr. Huang Huang:

So Ching these,

Dan Ang:

so the word gene Fang, classical formulas or classical prescriptions,

Dan Ang:

the first word of that DJing, it means.

Dan Ang:

Standard or, you know, one of the ways that looking at it, it

Dan Ang:

means standard or standardized.

Dan Ang:

It doesn't just mean the classics, uh, in terms of like being specific books, but it

Dan Ang:

means standardized because these formulas are standardized they're well-known

Dan Ang:

so he, he now prefers to use the word

Dan Ang:

In Chinese, you know, J I N G F a N G, instead of saying in English

Dan Ang:

classical formulas, because then we can really get the meaning.

Dan Ang:

And it also, that's a way of standardizing the term, standardize

Dan Ang:

it in Chinese at Jing Fong and not call it all different things.

Dan Ang:

So in summary, his two hopes for the medicine is that becomes world.

Dan Ang:

It goes worldwide and that it becomes standard standardized.

Dan Ang:

Just just to clarify that as a up

Mark Gearing:

it's like I'm observing Dr.

Mark Gearing:

Wong over 10 years or so.

Mark Gearing:

It seems every year he gets better and better.

Mark Gearing:

And he's always learning from his experience as he mentioned before.

Mark Gearing:

But I also find that his.

Mark Gearing:

Diagnosis his diagnosis and his treatment gets more and more refined as well.

Mark Gearing:

So for example, where previously he might've used a bigger formula,

Mark Gearing:

like gingerly, ancho tongue.

Mark Gearing:

He might now use function tongue.

Mark Gearing:

So it's a much smaller formula.

Mark Gearing:

So it's like his formula is becoming smaller and smaller

Mark Gearing:

and smaller and more precise.

Dan Ang:

that's partially true.

Dan Ang:

His, his view of it is that, you know, with a honking tongue, is that before,

Dan Ang:

uh, you know, many years ago before he had fully researched, why don't she in tongue?

Dan Ang:

His view of wanting tongue was not as broad as, as it is now.

Dan Ang:

And more recently his kind of learn more things about that formula presentation.

Dan Ang:

And he realized that for some patients, all of, all of those herbs in king

Dan Ang:

jelly, shout-out on a bigger formula.

Dan Ang:

Uh, some of them weren't necessary in some cases.

Dan Ang:

So yeah, some of them became Huntington patients.

Dan Ang:

He believes that, you know, he's, he's going a direction of using more original

Dan Ang:

formulas, no unmodified formulas and smaller formulas and getting closer,

Dan Ang:

closer, and closer to the way that.

Dan Ang:

Uh, John judging would have used herbs in the past.

Dan Ang:

He also started out just like most people using kind of miscellaneous formulas

Dan Ang:

or, you know, late formulas from later later doctors and, and using theories

Dan Ang:

like starting, starting with theory, uh, before prescribing medicine, sewing,

Dan Ang:

starting, starting to think about things, uh, using theory first and then.

Dan Ang:

But going to the methods is a traditional way of thinking in, in that, the

Dan Ang:

way that I teach TCM these desks.

Dan Ang:

So he started out that way and then he moved gradually more and more towards the

Dan Ang:

direction of using our regional unmodified formulas, standardized formulas.

Michael Max:

Ohio link, where you go into Shanghai, Sydney.

Michael Max:

shaoyang thought . Thank you so much for taking some time today to talk with us.

Michael Max:

We've got just one more question.

Michael Max:

Before we close down here today, I'd like to know your ideas, your thoughts.

Michael Max:

On what health is, what does it mean to be healthy?

Dan Ang:

so health means you don't have disease.

Dan Ang:

So that brings us to the question.

Dan Ang:

What is disease disease in his view is suffering.

Dan Ang:

If you can eat well, you can sleep.

Dan Ang:

You can work, you can laugh, you have good social relationships.

Dan Ang:

You can achieve your goals.

Dan Ang:

That's health.

Dan Ang:

Um, health is not, or he often likes to say, life is not.

Dan Ang:

Life is a feeling it's not a number health.

Dan Ang:

So health is kind of summary of all.

Dan Ang:

This is health means you're comfortable.

Dan Ang:

You can eat comfortably, you can sleep comfortably, et cetera.

Dan Ang:

So Jean Fang is to make people comfortable.

Dan Ang:

That's the goal of, of, of what we do.

Michael Max:

qiological got a woman time.

Michael Max:

Dr.

Michael Max:

Juan, thank you so much for being here today,

Dr. Huang Huang:

but to say, yes, pump, farming the desert.

Dr. Huang Huang:

when being

Dan Ang:

you're welcome.

Dan Ang:

And.

Dan Ang:

He hopes that everyone can learn Fang well using Fung well, and he wants everyone

Dan Ang:

to know that gene Fang is not something that belongs only to the Chinese people.

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