Why I Chose Chinese Medicine: A Story That Started With a Koi Pond

A childhood in China

As a little girl in China I was always playing doctor. My parents bought me a toy stethoscope, and every guest who walked through our door became my patient whether they liked it or not. But the doctor I really wanted to be like wasn't the one with the stethoscope. It was our family doctor in Guangzhou, a Chinese medicine practitioner we'd visit from Hong Kong a few times a year for a health check-up.

He'd take my pulse, look at my tongue, ask a few questions, and then hand-tailor three to five days of herbs made just for me. I remember his clinic so clearly: the pond of turtles and koi, the pot of Chinese tea while we waited, the shelves lined with raw herbs, and the smell of the whole place, that mixture of dried plants and raw herbs. His daughter was already helping him pack herbs for patients, and I thought her job was the best in the world.

The only part I didn't love was the herbal decoction. Once it was cooked, it was bitter. The kind of bitter a child never forgets. There's an old Chinese saying about a bitter pill being worth swallowing, and maybe that's true. But it stayed with me. To this day, when I prescribe herbs, I reach for gentler, less-bitter formulas wherever I can, and I taste them myself first, so I can honestly warn my patients what's coming.

Finding the courage to study

That family doctor is the reason I found the courage to study Chinese medicine at all. He believed Australia was one of the best places in the world to learn and practise it in a way that stays authentic and true to its roots. So that's where I went. I studied medical science first, then Chinese medicine.

I fell in love with how hands-on it is. First-year students are already placing needles safely on the arms and legs, and these tiny disposable needles are so easy to carry that I could bring them home from uni and treat people. I also felt lucky to read both Chinese and English, because it meant I could go straight to the classical texts written thousands of years ago, and keep revisiting them to sharpen how I treat.

The night acupuncture helped me breathe

Since high school, I've been severely allergic to cat and dog fur. Not sneezing-and-watery-eyes allergic. The kind where my throat would close and I couldn't speak. And yet I've always loved animals, which felt like a cruel joke.

In my second year of study, I stayed over at a friend's place. She had two cats. In the middle of the night I woke up unable to breathe, unable to talk, with white foamy saliva forming. It was genuinely frightening. Another friend sleeping beside me, already a seasoned practitioner, woke when I patted her arm. She reached for her needles and placed a few points on the back of my neck and my arms. Almost instantly, I could breathe again. I fell back asleep in that same room, with the cats still there.

That was the first time I felt, in my own body, how quickly acupuncture can relieve an acute symptom.

Later, during an internship at Chengdu University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, I prescribed myself a course of herbal decoction. Chengdu is full of wonderful herb stores, so it was easy to do. After I finished it, I lived happily alongside my mum's cat, Mimi, for two years.

I was so grateful. I'd found a tool for life, something I could use to look after my own health, my family's, and other people's too.

Why it still matters to me

Chinese medicine, to me, is about the human touch. It treats the person, not just the complaint. It's remarkably adaptable, it works around your lifestyle, and it can be used to prevent problems as much as to treat them. That's the medicine I get to practise every day now, and it's why I do this work.