介紹澳洲大學中醫課程（二）

吳宇琛

吳宇琛，澳洲政府註冊中醫師、針灸師，五龍崗大學心理學學士、悉尼科技大學中醫系學士，擅長用傳統針灸理傷手法和中藥治療各種新舊損傷痛症，特別採用中醫中藥和現代心理學、營養學相結合調理治療各種慢性病和亞健康。

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.

在上次我們的第一集節目中簡要介紹了在澳洲大學學習中醫的情況，接下來我會和大家繼續分享我們在澳洲正規大學學習中醫的經歷，這個系列對我來說將是一次回憶之 旅，與大家分享課程中所有有趣的和中醫技術方面的內容。

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，我們的中醫課程整個課程都是用英語授課，以滿足大學的語言要求並最終滿足澳洲政府的中醫師執業註冊要求。 任何不容易翻譯成英文的中文名稱或術語都用普通話拼音，例如“銀翹散”，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.

那麼實際上是如何教授中醫課程的呢？ 我們UTS大學的中醫課程，第一年會分為兩個學期，在第一學期我們會學習中醫基礎以及中國歷史的早期歷史。 第一學期他們不教我們拼音，只是記單詞，沒有特別意義。 直到第二學期開始上中草藥概論課時，我們才真正了解中醫中藥名字背後的意義以及中文書寫。

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.

這門課是由一位名叫Warren Cochran的資深講師講授的，他是澳洲人。 為什麼大學要選一個西方人來教這門課？ Warren有一個非常獨特的經歷，80年代，當時中醫在西方還相對陌生，而中國剛剛重新向外國人開放，他是第一批對學習中醫有濃厚興趣的外國學生之一，所以他來到中國 學習中醫先是學習中文，然後是在醫院學習，因為當時中國沒有外國學生的中醫課程項目。

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

雖然他說他已經忘記了很多中文怎麼寫，但與中醫有關的一切仍然很記得。 所以，我們全班都是從他那裡學到了草藥的拼音名稱。 我們還必須學習考試所需的植物學名稱，以表明我們能夠識別和記錄使用的植物。 如當歸的植物學名字是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.

那中醫的其他方面呢？ 除了草藥和穴位之外，其他所有內容都會被簡化翻譯成英語。 熱是re，冷是leng，五臟六腑器官有點不同，但每個人都知道器官的英文名稱，所以都用英文名稱標記。 經絡是以器官命名的，所以我們只需要記住它是哪個經絡，但區別在於各個穴位，西方中醫系統沒有使用拼音來表示每個穴位，而是提出了一個數字系統。

這使得學生更容易記住，因為有成百上千個穴位，對於非母語人士來說，用拼音記住草藥和穴位將是非常困難的。 相反，穴位從 1 開始標記，用數字標記，對我們這些非中文背景的學生來說就容易很多。

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.

簡單介紹為什麼中國以外會用數字來命名穴位，世界衛生組織在1980年派了一名顧問到中國審查現有的中醫命名法，因為當時的問題是不同的國家有自己的術語和命名系統。 最終於1982年在馬尼拉與來自中國、香港、日本和韓國以及別的中醫專家一起確定了國際通用的命名法系統，並使用漢語拼音來表示穴位。 後來為了學習者更好的記憶，也採用數字排列來記錄同一經絡的不同穴位。

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.

我們學到的第一個經絡是肺經。 我們手臂上有11個穴位，從中府、雲門、天府、下白、赤澤、孔嘴、列缺、精曲、太原、魚極、少商開始。 在英語中，按照同樣的順序，我們只說 Lung 1-11，寫成 Lu 1-11。 這個系統有它的優點和缺點。 它很簡單，但你必須準確記住有多少點，並且沒有任何技巧可以幫助你記住數量。

一些常見的例子，例如合谷是 Li 4，Li是指大腸經，大腸英文是Large intestine，所以，大腸經的英文簡寫是Li，老師授課時，會解釋“合谷”是山谷的交匯點的意思。 足三里或 St 36是胃經，胃英文是Stomach，胃經的英文簡寫是St，足三里是在膝蓋以下 3 寸，針灸這個保健穴位會體力大增，可以走三里路。 中文名稱讓我們知道該穴位的意思或療效是什麼，但在英文的穴位標註系統中就沒有這種優點。我們有14個主要經絡要學習，但還有一些額外的經絡不使用這個系統，例如耳針。

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.

那我們如何真正了解中醫和針灸呢？ 除了從理論上學習陰陽五行和望、聞、問、切四診等基礎知識之外，我們如何在實踐中學習呢？

我記得在準備我們的第一堂針灸實踐課時，老師要求我們每人帶來一段用於褲腰的鬆緊帶當作尺子，長度大約20厘米，我們用記號筆把它分成12段，每段代表1寸 。 由於這把尺是有彈性的，它可以拉伸來測量手臂和腿等的長度，測量結果都與身體成比例，例如，上臂是九寸，下臂是七寸。 這把彈性尺成為了我們課程前兩年最好的朋友，因為它讓我們能夠快速測量出穴位的距離。

我們了解經絡的另一個有趣的方式是在實踐課上，和其他同學互相在身體上作標記，通常以2-4 人為一組，我們會輪流自願或輪流為組中的每個人繪製經絡並用顏色 標記，標記出穴位，通常在課程結束時，每個人看起來好像有很多紋身。

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.

用英語學習中醫其實更困難，尤其是很難記憶，因為我們需要記住很多不同的命名系統以及死記硬背沒有意義的名稱和數字。 尤其是對西人同學來說，我們看到非常常見的困難之一就是發音。 雖然我們學了拼音，但他們並沒有教我們如何像“bo po mo fo”那樣四聲發音。 Warren知道其中的區別，但由於澳洲口音，很難區分它們，而且因為拼音不教發音，所以很多學生只能像讀平音英語一樣讀拼音，或者一開始很難區分單字。 這會導致一些有趣的情況，如有一個中藥叫“防風”，拼音是FANG FENG，但很多同學讀成FANG FANG，我們需要努力試圖弄清楚每個人在說什麼，不過最終會習慣他們的發音， 並且可以根據上下文弄清楚他們在說什麼。

如有疑問想諮詢小吳醫師，可以在微信或whatsapp搜尋0404836368，加小吳醫師微信或whatsapp，也可以發短信或致電0404836368作語音留言，小吳醫師有空就會回复。

（吳宇琛中醫師，澳洲政府註冊中醫師、針灸師，五龍崗大學心理學學士、悉尼科技大學中醫系學士，悉尼好思維松軒藥行主治中醫師，本文僅供參考，具體診療應諮詢專業 人士。）