| Subject: Dragon or Oracle Bone |
Author:
klang wizard
|
[
Next Thread |
Previous Thread |
Next Message |
Previous Message
]
Date Posted: 12:36:32 04/13/08 Sun
Author Host/IP: 203.67.49.60.klj04-home.tm.net.my/60.49.67.203
Grasshopper,
It appeared that the exhange is just two of us. Perhaps ah Peks like to read passively.
If you typed my named in Yahoo or Google,
Dr. Lim Keng Huat MMR (malaysian medical resources) Forum, you may be able to read what I have written for years.
I attached the latest I have written for your reading and comment:
Posted - 13/04/2008 : 12:31:33
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In another Forum, I have written about "dragon bones" (I believe it was to strengthen the kidneys) in an Imperial Physician's prescription. Chinese Traditional Medicine was at one stage on the brink of collapse. There was less than 300,000 chinese physicians in China (out of a population of 1.3 billion) able to write a proper prescription in their tradition. Even in this country many Traditionists use Western Tradition without full understanding of it, for they are not trained in this field. What more do one expect if , even in their own orthodoxy , they are not be trained properly. Fortunately, such trend was acknowledged, and rectified. And given time, we would expect Chinese Traditional Medicine would regain its status/image. The philosophy of Chinese Traditional Medicine is based on Yi Jing (The Book of Change), and not many of these physicians, have good understanding of it. I have read on the topic for a few years, and I have merely scratched its surface. If I could willed my rebirth, I hope to be able to continue this journey of learning and exploration!
That fated "dragon bone" prescription was in 1899 and it led to the discovery of ancient "oracle bones", which was in the 3rd century BC. It was called "oracle" (Cha) because it was the tortoise bones where oracles were predicted or aurgured. "Bones" (Ku) because of animals, mainly cows/bulls, shoulder bones. Oracles Bones are also called "Chieh Wen", in the sense of agreement or convention. It was carved with a knife and burned; the writings were pictorial, and , understandably variable e.g. the word, "teng" (urn) had 70 different ways of writing.(I suppose, you can't carve the same picture all the time.) That was the very beginning of ancient Chinese calligraphy, and, if you wish, culture, and recorded ancient history.
If I may say, anyone with a love of Chinese Han Culture, or any culture, esp the Arts, would equally treasure another ancient culture. So any Talk on Genocide is just rubbish! If you have love in your heart, you just love, not but .... Only the spiritually deprieved person believe in such nonsense. In one of my lunch break, I came across some Chinese educated primary school children, and asked them whether they liked school or not, and the replies were always in the negative, either due to excessive homewwork or boring or incomprehensible teaching. To give them some interest in the Chinese langauge, I encouraged them to write a few words in the regular or simplified script, and then showed them the origin of them: look at the picture, listens to the sound, and then seek its meaning.
And, of course, it's not always that easy. There are only about 4,000 Chinese words in the "Oracle Bones" script, but, currently, there are more than 80,000 Chinese words in the Regular (Kai) script. So Not every word has its ancient origin, and many has lost its root. Despite this, there's still a lot of fun.
If you find this of interest, there's more to come. Can you afford NOT to learn Chinese? If the reply is YES, and you are of Chinese background, what more can I say?
[
Next Thread |
Previous Thread |
Next Message |
Previous Message
]
| |
Feedback: 
