Chinese Medicine versus Western Medicine: Honey 中藥與西藥

On Friday we went out to a bee farm, one of the largest we have seen. We tasted 品嘗蜂蜜 all sorts of honeys, some made from things I never thought honey could be made from. There are all different wildflowers, high mountain flowers, lychees 荔枝, longan 龍眼, cactuses 仙人掌, etc. My favorite was a type of wildflower honey you can see in this photo. It’s also nice to get away to farmland once in a while to relax and enjoy the peacefulness. There was not a car or a person around for a while.

We also bought royal jelly 蜂王漿 (2nd photo). It is very popular in China as a medicine for reducing cholesterol 膽固醇, with hormones 激素 for maintaining skin beauty and even fighting off some types of cancers. I admit that I am a skeptic about such things, but I have seen the effectiveness and in this case it is backed up by research. One of the biggest differences between Chinese medicine and Western medicine is that Chinese medicine works to cure by natural methods bolstering a whole system in the body. By contrast, Western medicine is focused on a specific cure for a specific ailment. That is why something like long-term consumption of royal jelly or treatment from bee stingers 蜂針 is a part of Chinese medicine.