介绍澳洲大学中医课程（二）

吴宇琛

吴宇琛，澳洲政府注册中医师、针灸师，五龙岗大学心理学学士、悉尼科技大学中医系学士，擅长用传统针灸理伤手法和中药治疗各种新旧损伤痛症，特别采用中医中药和现代心理学、营养学相结合调理治疗各种慢性病和亚健康。

In our first episode last time I gave a brief introduction to what it was like to study Traditional Chinese Medicine at University of Technology Sydney (UTS) in Australia and this series will be a journey through memory lane for me as share with you all the interesting and also technical aspects of my time there as a student.

在上次我们的第一集节目中简要介绍了在澳洲大学学习中医的情况，接下来我会和大家继续分享我们在澳洲正规大学学习中医的经历，这个系列对我来说将是一次回忆之 旅，与大家分享课程中所有有趣的和中医技术方面的内容。

So as previously mentioned, the entire course is taught in English to meet the language Government requirements at University and eventually for national registration. Anything that has a Chinese name or term that isn’t easily translated into English will use mandarin Pinyin. For example “银翘散” will be “Yin Qiao San” in Pinyin.

像上一集提到的，我们的中医课程整个课程都是用英语授课，以满足大学的语言要求并最终满足澳洲政府的中医师执业注册要求。 任何不容易翻译成英文的中文名称或术语都用普通话拼音，例如“银翘散”，拼音就是“YIN QIAO SAN”。

So how are we actually taught? For most university courses, each year is split into 2 semesters and in our first semester we learnt about the foundations of Chinese Medicine as well as the early history of Chinese history. During the First semester they did not teach us Pinyin but only to remember the characters without any focus meaning.  Only when we started the 2^nd semester, where we had Introduction to Chinese Herbal Medicine class, we actually learned the meaning behind the names as well as writing in Chinese.

那么实际上是如何教授中医课程的呢？ 我们UTS大学的中医课程，第一年会分为两个学期，在第一学期我们会学习中医基础以及中国历史的早期历史。 第一学期他们不教我们拼音，只是记单词，没有特别意义。 直到第二学期开始上中草药概论课时，我们才真正了解中医中药名字背后的意义以及中文书写。

This class was taught by an elderly lecturer called Warren Cochran. Some may be wondering why did the University select a western professor to teach this class? Warren had a very unique experience in that when TCM was still relatively uncommon to the west and China was just opened up again to foreigners, he was part of the first group of students that had a keen interest in learning TCM so he travelled to China and learned the Chinese language first and then studied in the hospitals – there was no foreigner programs back then.

这门课是由一位名叫Warren Cochran的资深讲师讲授的，他是澳洲人。 为什么大学要选一个西方人来教这门课？ Warren有一个非常独特的经历，80年代，当时中医在西方还相对陌生，而中国刚刚重新向外国人开放，他是第一批对学习中医有浓厚兴趣的外国学生之一，所以他来到中国 学习中医先是学习中文，然后是在医院学习，因为当时中国没有外国学生的中医课程项目。

While he said he has forgotten how to write a lot of Chinese characters over the years, he still remembers everything TCM related. So, it is from him the class was taught the Pinyin names for herbs. We also had to learn the botanical names for exams to show that we are able to identify the plants used in our records. Eg Dang Gui – Angelica sinensis

虽然他说他已经忘记了很多中文怎么写，但与中医有关的一切仍然很记得。 所以，我们全班都是从他那里学到了草药的拼音名称。 我们还必须学习考试所需的植物学名称，以表明我们能够识别和记录使用的植物。 如当归的植物学名字是Angelica sinensis。

What about the other aspects of TCM? Other than herbs and acupuncture points everything else had a simple direct translation to English. Heat is “Re” and cold is “Leng”. The 5 Zang and 6 Fu organs (5 Zang organs – heart, Pericadium, liver, spleen, Lung, Kidney. 6 Fu organs – Large Intestine, Gall Bladder, Bladder, Stomach, Small Intestine, San Jiao) is a bit different in terms of meaning and anatomic function compared to Western medicine but everyone already knows the English names for the organs. The 12 main Acupuncture channels is named after the organs so we just need to remember which channel is which and the location of the channel but the difference is the individual points. Instead of using Pinyin for each point, there is also a numerical system.

This makes it simpler for students to remember as there are hundreds and hundreds of acupuncture points, it will be very difficult for a non native speaker to remember herbs and acupuncture points in Pinyin. Instead acupuncture points are now labelled from numerically starting from no.1.

那中医的其他方面呢？ 除了草药和穴位之外，其他所有内容都会被简化翻译成英语。 热是re，冷是leng，五脏六腑器官有点不同，但每个人都知道器官的英文名称，所以都用英文名称标记。 经络是以器官命名的，所以我们只需要记住它是哪个经络，但区别在于各个穴位，西方中医系统没有使用拼音来表示每个穴位，而是提出了一个数字系统。

这使得学生更容易记住，因为有成百上千个穴位，对于非母语人士来说，用拼音记住草药和穴位将是非常困难的。 相反，穴位从 1 开始标记，用数字标记，对我们这些非中文背景的学生来说就容易很多。

Heres a quick recap of the development of this system – The WHO in 1980 sent a consultant to China to review the existing nomenclature in TCM as the current problem at that time was different countries had their own nomenclature and naming system. Eventually in 1982 in Manila with experts in TCM from China, Hong Kong, Japan and Korea etc, settled on a numerical system to be used internationally and also to use Chinese Pinyin for the Acupuncture points. This also means that it was easier for future students to learn the Acupuncture channels and individual acupoints by using this new numerical system.

简单介绍为什么中国以外会用数字来命名穴位，世界卫生组织在1980年派了一名顾问到中国审查现有的中医命名法，因为当时的问题是不同的国家有自己的术语和命名系统。 最终于1982年在马尼拉与来自中国、香港、日本和韩国以及别的中医专家一起确定了国际通用的命名法系统，并使用汉语拼音来表示穴位。 后来为了学习者更好的记忆，也采用数字排列来记录同一经络的不同穴位。

The very first channel we learn t was the Lung Channel. So we have 11 points in the arm starting from Zhongfu below the clavicle, Yunmen, Tianfu, Xiabai, Chize, Kongzui, Lieque, Jingqu, Taiyuan, Yuji and Shaoshang ending on the lateral side of the thumbnail. In English, in the same order, we just say Lung 1-11 and written as Lu 1-11. This system has its pros and cons. Its simplified compared to remembering the Pinyin names but you have to remember exactly how many points there are and there is no tricks to help you remember the amount. Some common examples like Hegu is Li 4 (meeting point of the valley) and Zusanli or St 36 (3cun below the knee) the Chinese names gives us an idea of what the point is but in English we do not have this benefit.

We have 14 main channels to learn but there are also some extra channels that doesn’t use this system such as the ear acupuncture.

我们学到的第一个经络是肺经。 我们手臂上有11个穴位，从中府、云门、天府、下白、赤泽、孔嘴、列缺、精曲、太原、鱼极、少商开始。 在英语中，按照同样的顺序，我们只说 Lung 1-11，写成 Lu 1-11。 这个系统有它的优点和缺点。 它很简单，但你必须准确记住有多少点，并且没有任何技巧可以帮助你记住数量。

一些常见的例子，例如合谷是 Li 4，Li是指大肠经，大肠英文是Large intestine，所以，大肠经的英文简写是Li，老师授课时，会解释“合谷”是山谷的交汇点的意思。 足三里或 St 36是胃经，胃英文是Stomach，胃经的英文简写是St，足三里是在膝盖以下 3 寸，针灸这个保健穴位会体力大增，可以走三里路。 中文名称让我们知道该穴位的意思或疗效是什么，但在英文的穴位标注系统中就没有这种优点。我们有14个主要经络要学习，但还有一些额外的经络不使用这个系统，例如耳针。

How do we actually learn about TCM and acupuncture? Other than learning basics such as YIN YANG,5 elements and the 4 diagnostic tools etc from theory, how did we physically learn it?

I remember in preparation for our first practical lesson for Acupuncture we were asked to bring a length of elastic band that’s used for the waist in pants. It was about 20cm in length and we divided it up using a marker into 12 segments and each segment would represent 1 cun. As this ruler was elastic it could stretch to measure the length of the arms and legs etc. The measurements are all proportional to the body eg. Upper arm is 9 cun and lower arm is 7cun. This elastic ruler became our best friend for the first 2 years of the course as it allowed us to quickly measure out the distance for the acupuncture points.

Another fun way we learned about the channels was by painting and drawing it on each other during our practical classes. Usually working in groups of 2-4 we would take turns volunteering our body for everyone in the group to draw the channels and mark out the points with colour markers. Usually by the end of the lesson everyone looked like they had a lot of tattoos.

那我们如何真正了解中医和针灸呢？ 除了从理论上学习阴阳五行和望、闻、问、切四诊等基础知识之外，我们如何在实践中学习呢？

我记得在准备我们的第一堂针灸实践课时，老师要求我们每人带来一段用于裤腰的松紧带当作尺子，长度大约20厘米，我们用记号笔把它分成12段，每段代表1寸 。 由于这把尺是有弹性的，它可以拉伸来测量手臂和腿等的长度，测量结果都与身体成比例，例如，上臂是九寸，下臂是七寸。 这把弹性尺成为了我们课程前两年最好的朋友，因为它让我们能够快速测量出穴位的距离。

我们了解经络的另一个有趣的方式是在实践课上，和其他同学互相在身体上作标记，通常以2-4 人为一组，我们会轮流自愿或轮流为组中的每个人绘制经络并用颜色 标记，标记出穴位，通常在课程结束时，每个人看起来好像有很多纹身。

Looking back, learning TCM in English is actually more difficult than I remembered as we needed to remember so many different naming systems as well as rote learn names and numbers with no meaning. Especially for our western classmates. One of the struggles we see very common is the pronunciations. Although we learnt the Pinyin, they did not really teach us how to enunciate like “bo po mo fo”. Warren knew the difference but with an Australian accent it was hard to tell the difference and because when we learnt pinyin he did not teach the different sounds, a lot of the students only read the pinyin as if in English with flat sounds or initially had trouble differentiating between words. A commonly heard example was for the pronunciation of the herb Fang Feng where often it was pronounced as Fang Fang. This lead to some funny situations trying to figure out what everyone said but eventually you get use to their pronunciation and can figure out what they are saying based on context.

用英语学习中医其实更困难，尤其是很难记忆，因为我们需要记住很多不同的命名系统以及死记硬背没有意义的名称和数字。 尤其是对西人同学来说，我们看到非常常见的困难之一就是发音。 虽然我们学了拼音，但他们并没有教我们如何像“bo po mo fo”那样四声发音。 Warren知道其中的区别，但由于澳洲口音，很难区分它们，而且因为拼音不教发音，所以很多学生只能像读平音英语一样读拼音，或者一开始很难区分单字。 这会导致一些有趣的情况，如有一个中药叫“防风”，拼音是FANG FENG，但很多同学读成FANG FANG，我们需要努力试图弄清楚每个人在说什么，不过最终会习惯他们的发音， 并且可以根据上下文弄清楚他们在说什么。

如有疑问想咨询小吴医师，可以在微信或whatsapp搜寻0404836368，加小吴医师微信或whatsapp，也可以发短信或致电0404836368作语音留言，小吴医师有空就会回复。

（吴宇琛中医师，澳洲政府注册中医师、针灸师，五龙岗大学心理学学士、悉尼科技大学中医系学士，悉尼好思维松轩药行主治中医师，本文仅供参考，具体诊疗应咨询专业 人士。）