TCM teachers claimed to be ‘standardising’ (guifanhua), ‘modernising’ (xiandaihua), ‘making scientific’ (kexuehua), and ‘systematising’ (xitonghua) Chinese medical knowledge and practice. Notably, they did not express the aim of ‘Westernising’ (xifanghua) it, but the importance of the West – on a technological, institutional, and ideological level – cannot be overlooked. It is not merely the practice of biomedicine in China which has had an impact on TCM, but also Western scientific thought and practice in general and other ideologies of modernity such as nationalism, Marxism, and materialism. A close look at classroom teaching will reveal both the ways in which these ideologies have led to a reinterpretation of ancient concepts like yinyang, the Five Phases (wuxing) and the Five Organs (wuzang), Essence (jing), Breath (qi), Blood (xue), Liquids and Fluids (jinye), and the implications of neglecting the notion of Spirit (shen). One may wonder why basic TCM concepts – so extensively discussed in the Western literature on Chinese medicine – are once again presented here. The value of this contribution is primarily ethnographic. It intends to show how students learnt about these concepts in contemporary China.

A focal point for this examination will be the classes conducted by teacher Tao, one of the best at the college. Tao enjoyed lecturing and had more than twenty years of teaching experience, and his classes, spiced with jokes and anecdotes, were entertaining. His rhetoric was overwhelming as he inundated the students with a flow of idioms from medical practice, expressions from daily life, and phrases from the Party.