Penn Global Seminars Up Close and Virtual: Exploring Traditional Chinese Medicine

November 23, 2020
By Catherine Parr, Wharton '21

Over the course of my time at Penn, I’ve had the opportunity to travel to four continents with Penn Abroad. I’ve been to Australia, Brazil, Italy, and India, and I was slated to travel to Taiwan this semester with my Penn Global Seminar, NURS 343: Exploring Traditional Chinese Medicine taught by Dr. Jianghong Liu of Penn Nursing. Unfortunately, the travel component was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but I have been really impressed by the way the course was restructured to give us the best experience possible. 

Our class meets once a week, with classes alternating each week between traditional lectures and clinical observations/cultural experiences. We have had doctors that practice Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) conference into our class and discuss different modalities (types of healing methods). They have given us tours of their offices, showing us up close what it looks like on a daily basis in their practice.   

All of the demonstrations and tours were really engaging and it really felt like we were there. I thought of all the tours I’ve been on in large groups before and how you have to carefully find the right place in the crowd to stand, looking over people’s shoulders and struggling to hear in a large room. We didn’t have any of those problems when the demonstrations were done on Zoom; everyone got a front-row seat with a close look at the practitioner and their supplies. I didn’t realize how much those challenges can take away from fully taking in an experience until they were removed on Zoom, and it really enhanced my learning experience. 

A few weeks ago, we had a couple doctors from the Won Institute, a graduate school for TCM studies in the suburbs of Philadelphia, teach us about four different modalities: gua sha, tuina, cupping, and moxibustion. They taught us the science behind these practices, showed us how they are practiced on real patients in the room with them, and answered all of our questions. 

We had a particular focus on qi gong (a “mind-body-spirit practice” similar to yoga) this semester, and for five of our sessions we had the same qi gong instructor Zoom in from Taiwan. Master Yin taught us about the health benefits of qi gong and how to practice it.   

In our final class, Master Yin took us on a virtual tour of some of the places we were supposed to visit on our trip to Taipei, including the Xia Hai Temple and the night markets. He showed us a video of a visit to the Longshan Temple on a holiday celebrating the Buddha’s enlightenment, so everything was decorated with mounds of flowers. He showed us someone receiving “knife therapy,” a massage-like treatment where practitioners use steel cleavers to release tension in the muscles, and he took us on a tour of the Tunnel of Fortune Telling and taught us about how to read our own palms. 

Lantern

Master Yin was very dedicated to giving us the best virtual experience possible, and his heart for our class is summed up well by his last video he showed our class. He had a lantern he had decorated with the name of our class on one side and all of our individual names on the other. He released it into the sky with well wishes of health, wealth, and prosperity.

This class was a great opportunity to learn about a new type of medicine and a new culture. I’m looking forward to the day when I can travel to Taiwan and visit the places we e-visited this semester and meet Master Yin!  I’m sure it will be worth the wait. 

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Penn Global Seminars combine intensive semester-long study with a short-term travel component that deepens your understanding of concepts discussed in the classroom. Courses options are available for Penn undergraduate students across majors and years.