That Cough Needs Some Needles

This morning I woke up at 7:30 and immediately turned on my computer. It's been so incredibly nice to have wireless internet finally in our rooms. The funny thing is that everyone's been able to have decent wireless in their room or the hallway for many weeks now. The wireless in our room, however, is so fast. I guess we had to just wait a bit longer to get better results.

Andy was online when I got up and it was nice to talk to him again. Two mornings in a row is rare and awesome. By 8:30 I had to say goodbye, get dressed, and grab breakfast. It was nice out--rainy and a bit chilly. I miss those days at home, so it was nice to get one here. I even put on a sweatshirt! I ate my egg sandwich on the way to class and was pleasantly surprised when I arrived. We had been assigned a new teacher! The old teacher for Tuesdays and Thursdays was much to abrasive, negative, and impatient. She also knew hardly any English so we couldn't ask any questions unless we somehow knew how to communicate it in Vietnamese. Our new teacher knows lots of English and speaks a lot slower, which is exactly what our class needs. We all agreed that we felt a bit bad about our our teacher, but that she also must learn to cater to her students level in order for them to learn anything.

Class went very well and we were dismissed at 11:00 am. I came back to the dorm and wrote the majority of yesterday's blog while I listened to some music. At noon, Jackie and I went to our rice buffet and talked about last night's party. We agreed that some more communication between us and the students' parents would have made the party much more organized. I came back to the dorm at 12:45 and stopped just outside the gate to get a kilogram of cumquats. They're like tiny oranges and they are doubly amazing because they are so delicious as well as having the coolest name ever.

Our group met in front of the dorm at 1:15 and we waited around for everyone to join us. For our Vietnamese Life and Culture class today, we took taxis to this office of traditional medicine. By the time we got there, it was almost 2:00 and we took off our shoes and entered the lobby. I sat on a pillow towards the front, which meant that I couldn't roll my eyes. The middle-aged lady that soon entered the lobby, Dr. Tran Huong, was warm and bubbly. It's too bad that she presented to us a bunch of expensive and time-consuming practices that are really common sense. I already understood a lot about Qi and blockages but she was trying to pass it off as a connection between emotions as well as the weather. Don't expect me to buy into practices in which one of the ideas is "stress makes the kidney unhealthy and this can even make your children stupid." No, stress causes the body's immune system to be tired and not work as well. This causes you to get sick and apparently need a few needles for that cough. One of her weekly patients, a middle-aged female from the U.S., walked through the lobby on her way home from her weekly acupuncture treatment. She stopped to talk to us about the benefits and how the treatment has helped with her crazy menopause hormone problems as well as her husband's stress and her children's sports injuries.

Dr. Huong wished to demonstrate three of her most common practices on one of us, and a brave guy named Tony volunteered. He had a chest cold that had managed to block up his head too. She had two guys from our group pull a sheet-covered bed into the lobby and grabbed a small, steel surgical table on wheels. I watched in awe as Tony let her stick him in his upper chest, nose, and ears with these small pins. She should have used gloves and the white board marker should not have been placed on the freakin' surgical tray, but I never would've let her touch me anyways. It's really all in your head, people. She claimed that he will feel better by tomorrow, but really I think it's because his own body would have healed a bit more even without the treatment. Do people really call their acupuncturist when they wake up with a stiff neck or a common cold? Just wait it out, man. People have survived for centuries with a bit more sleep or drinking more water. After the pins came something she called "moxibustion." She took what looked like a big stogie, lit it, and twirled it in circles around the pins that had already been placed into his chest. She said it had to do with the fact that he had gotten this cold by being cold in Sapa this weekend and that heat could effectively get rid of it. Just drink a bit cup of hot chocolate.

The third part of the demonstration was called "cupping" and it was totally absurd. She had Tony lay on his stomach and her assistant, some young Vietnamese woman, use forceps to dip some gauze into lighter fluid. After the gauze was ablaze, she quickly ducked it into a bamboo cup (they resembled Yahtzee dice cups) and then quickly placed it onto Tony's bare back. It created suction and when she took one cup off of his back, it made a weird sound. Dr. Huong said that "cupping" was to draw out the toxins in the blood and to get rid of the sickness in his chest. OK lady. At least the sound was cool. He did look like he had huge hickeys all over his back, however. The rest of our group seemed to think this woman was legit, too. I guess if it works than hey can believe whatever they want, huh?

The demonstration and talk ended before 4:00 and I caught a cab back to the dorm (thanks to some dong from Professor Benjamin to pay for the cab rides) with Jill, Jackie, and Mike. We got back to the dorm at 4:00 pm and I have been on the internet ever since. It's almost time to grab some dinner, shower, and head off to a jazz club.

What do you think? If acupuncture really works, does it matter how? :)