Eastern medicine

Two weeks ago, I mentioned rolling my ankle at the frisbee tournament.  It wasn't bad and I've done it before, so I just kind of did all the things I was supposed to do, namely, R.I.C.E., of course, with a little less R-ing than I should have, but bottom line, I didn't feel that it warranted any kind of medical attention.  Last weekend, though, it was still a bit more painful than I expected, and I had to sit out a bit of a frisbee practice.  Afterward, our captain came over to check on me, and then suggested, "Make sure you take care of that, you should go see a sensei."  Oddly enough, we had just been talking about senseis in the lab, because one of the other students also rolled his ankle recently, so I knew that he was referring to basically a kind of Eastern medicine healer.  (Yes, based on the Japanese word "sensei.")  My labmate's sensei, for example, recommended that in order to heal faster, he avoid eating chicken for a while...

While I don't necessarily see the correlation between avoiding fowl and healing ligaments, no one else at lunch seemed to really find anything odd about seeing a sensei, even though I was with a bunch of scientists.  What's more, my labmate with the bum ankle had also gone to see a Western doctor (well, he was probably Asian, but, you know, I just mean medical school and the like), who gave him crutches and a few more of the more "expected" instructions.  I don't know.  I guess we Westerners are superstitious in our own ways--I won't try to deny having had lucky socks, lucky underwear, lucky earrings, etc. for track and cross country meets, or try to claim that I never made a wish before blowing out birthday candles.  But with medicine it's a bit different; I guess basically I feel like they actually believe their senseis, or count on them for healing, whereas we kind of do certain things out of habit or tradition but then go to hard sciences when it comes down to it.  Of course, on the other hand, a lot of medicine isn't an exact science; it's a gut feel when it comes down to it, so maybe these is something to going to senseis and accupuncturists.  (There's also another practice, in which you put a cup-like thing over your skin, then stick a lit match through a hole in the cup, and basically flame off or leech toxins from your skin?  I don't really know the whole story.)  Annnnyway.  Ugh.  I always write these posts at the end of the day when I'm tired and falling asleep and I forget what my point was going to be.  Basically, Eastern medicine is valued here much more than I expected in this modern society, and it intrigues me.  In any case, I didn't go see a sensei, my ankle is pretty much better on it's own, and I ate chicken throughout.  So who knows.

Oh, also, apparently the snails in Singapore are HUGE! I was told this is a completely normal size...