The connection of Greeks with traditional Chinese medicine is difficult but extremely fascinating, and the students of the Confucius Institute at the University of West Attica are taught that behind the principles of Chinese Medicine and acupuncture lies a magical web of millennia of knowledge, tradition, and philosophy.
As explained by Xu Wenjie and Georgios Georgoudis, respectively the Chinese and Greek directors of the Institute based in Agia Barbara, Attica, traditional Chinese medicine finds fertile ground for teaching in Greece, a country where traditional medicine, with Hippocrates as its father, formed the foundation of modern medical science in the West. This is yet another bridge connecting Greece with China.
Only a year and a half ago, the Confucius Institute started operating at the University of West Attica, offering its numerous Greek students courses in traditional Chinese medicine, acupuncture, TaiChi, and Qigong, as well as the official language of China, Mandarin.
The ground for the seeds of traditional Chinese medicine to grow at the University of West Attica was prepared by the first Tai Chi health center (Greek TaiJi Health Center at PADA) which was inaugurated in Greece as part of this academic institution in 2018, in collaboration with the Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine.
The critical contribution of the Chinese International Education Foundation and the Center for Language Education and Cooperation made the project a reality, with courses starting this year, offering Greeks with strong interest the opportunity to engage with a very different mindset, beyond and above the practical level of therapeutic methods, using Chinese language as a medium.
“To most Greeks, and to all physical therapists, the use of needles is just one form of therapy, and the needle is merely a tool, whereas for us acupuncture is part of our medical system. It has a fundamental theory behind it. If one does not understand the related theories, then acupuncture and the needle are only tools,” explains Dr. Xu, who is also a member of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Traditional Medicine Reference Group for the International Classification of Diseases and is responsible for China.
“It is indeed difficult to move forward in acquiring knowledge without having the relevant cognitive and cultural background to make the transition from philosophy to practice. We want the participants to acquire true knowledge, not just the personal experiences of each practitioner,” adds the professor from the Shanghai University who is responsible for directing and teaching courses on the principles of Chinese medicine at the Institute.
To illustrate the different approach of Western and Chinese medicine, he provides a characteristic example: “In conventional medicine, the heart is an organ that beats all the time, whereas in Chinese medicine, the first bodily function of the heart is to govern the spirit.”
This philosophical approach fascinates Greek students, being their favorite part of the teaching, he observes: “Traditional Chinese medicine is deeply rooted in Chinese philosophy. However, we must understand how to apply philosophy to Chinese medicine; otherwise, philosophy is just stories, like watching a movie,” he explains vividly, reminding that the Chinese like to speak in metaphors.
And he warns: “If you do not understand the core, that is, the application of philosophy, then you get confused as you progress. You must recognize the philosophy behind traditional medicine, otherwise, it is just superficial.”
For Dr. Xu, it is important that Greeks have a tradition of traditional medicine from antiquity to today, as evidenced by the widespread use of herbs. However, in Chinese medicine, the approach is fundamentally different: “For us, herbs have therapeutic properties to which we attach great importance. For example, we never say that an herb can cure a specific disease; on the contrary, we say that this particular herb can enhance yang, another can nourish yin, and so on.”
Here, the essence of Chinese medicine comes into play: “It is not just the application of acupuncture needles, the practice of some forms of TaiJi and Qigong, or the mixing of herbs to treat a specific condition of the patient. In traditional Chinese medicine, we first need an accurate diagnosis, upon which we identify a pattern of signs and symptoms. In diseases, each person may have different signs and symptoms. We analyze the symptoms and beyond the disease, we have another diagnosis, which we call a pattern, and we base the treatment on this. This is why we emphasize that traditional Chinese medicine is based on personalized treatment. Even if different people suffer from the same disease, we have different treatments for them. If the symptoms are the same, we have the same pattern, and the treatment is similar,” teaches Dr. Xu in a detailed manner.
At this point, Professor Dr. Georgoudis intervenes: “For Greeks, the traditional Chinese approach is very close to what Hippocrates once described and forms the basis of modern medicine, both diagnostically and therapeutically. Specifically, the Chinese use therapeutic techniques such as Tuina, which corresponds to Therapeutic Manipulation (Manual Therapy) in modern medicine, whether through exercise and meditation via TaiJi and Qigong, which in modern medicine is Therapeutic Exercise (Stretching, Strengthening Exercises, Balance, etc.), and contemporary psychotherapeutic techniques (e.g., behavioral therapies), or the insertion of acupuncture needles following the principles of neurology and neurophysiology in modern medicine, referred to as Biomedicine Acupuncture, Dry Needling, Sustained Dry Needling, Acupuncture Therapy, etc., or the use of herbs, which in Western medicine correspond to pharmaceutical substances and drugs. On the other hand, diagnostically, the use of terms describing various pathologies in Traditional Chinese Medicine should not confuse us because at that time concepts like muscles, nerves, blood vessels, or other organs were not known. People observed, described, and recorded their observations using terms they could understand, and these were the five elements. Traditional Chinese Medicine is essentially an observational, descriptive medicine, where the specialists of the time recorded their therapeutic interventions based on the symptoms of their patients.”
He emphasizes this point: “Basically, Chinese medicine tries to treat the symptoms of patients, which is also done by modern medicine through understanding the mechanisms of the disease and the therapeutic action of interventions. Both systems are trying to do the same thing; they just describe it using different terminology. A practical confirmation of this reasoning is when during our educational trips to the university hospitals in Shanghai with Greek physiotherapists and doctors, when the Chinese doctor shares with us the Western diagnosis of the patient’s disease, and we choose, for example, acupuncture for treatment, the Western approach of needle insertion matches by 80-90% with the acupoint selection of Chinese doctors. This for me is impressive. We reason in an entirely different way from the Chinese doctor, but we arrive therapeutically at a similar application. These are different approaches to the same problem. Whether you go with the Chinese way, using Chinese diagnostics and applying Chinese therapy, or with the Western way and provide the corresponding medical diagnosis, and use needles according to Biomedicine principles based on Western Medical Science,” says the Greek professor.
“That’s why we call these interventions ‘Complementary Medicine,’ as they come to complement modern medical treatment. I don’t like the term ‘alternative medicine’ at all because our goal is not to find a different way of treating patients while ignoring basic Western medicine, but to synthesize all the additional elements we can gain from other systems, always following the principles of medical science and the safety of interventions,” teaches Professor Dr. Georgoudis in his own way.
“The message that should reach doctors and physiotherapists is this: You are not learning an alternative medical approach; you are learning how to apply your science, taking ideas from another culture, and with your own critical judgment and existing research evidence, applying therapeutic interventions safely and with a positive impact on your patients,” he emphasizes with satisfaction about the realization of the plan to create a scientific center for teaching traditional Chinese medicine through the lens of Western Medical Science principles in Greece.
Key roles from the Greek side in the realization of the plan to create the Confucius Institute at the University of West Attica were initially played by Professor Aristeidis Kontoyorgis, responsible for the University’s Office of International Relations and Cooperation with Universities in China, and Vasilis Xiros, the Consul General of Greece in Shanghai at the time of the beginning of the cooperation, explains Professor Georgoudis, who has been directly involved in this collaboration from the outset as Director of the Research Laboratory of Musculoskeletal Physiotherapy at PADA.
But how will this teaching ultimately reach the broader public? Interest is growing, according to the Chinese professor, who reveals that recently a scientist who is a member of the Academy of Athens expressed her interest in collaborating with the university in Shanghai regarding herbs. “I know that there is a group of researchers conducting research on herbs,” says Dr. Xu.
“However, the problem is that there is no legal framework for traditional medicine in Greece,” he points out. “Traditional Chinese medicine is the main representative of traditional medicine worldwide. While there are relevant laws in other countries such as the UK, Germany, France, etc., and they have advanced further there, Greece does not yet have such laws.”
“The problem here is the lack of information, especially scientific information,” points out Dr. Georgoudis from his side: “90% of doctors and physiotherapists are not informed about the scientific interpretation of TCM interventions, and they judge an approach based on rumors, bad applications mostly by non-health professionals, and the difficult-to-understand descriptions of the Chinese medical system that was established 2000 years ago. The education at PADA’s Confucius Institute does not aim to replace Western medicine with traditional Chinese medicine, but to allow Greek scientists to enrich their options whether the treatment is conducted in private practices or even in public institutions, such as large hospitals. “We also need to increase our collaborations with health centers but also, why not, with general hospitals. Western hospitals can start to include departments of traditional Chinese medicine or acupuncture, and all of this should be based on a legal framework,” said Dr. Xu.
He concludes by summarizing his vision for the application of Chinese traditional medicine in Greece, stating that “we need laws that will allow us to practice Chinese medicine here and offer the opportunity for the general public to access reliable treatment.”
(Sino-Hellenic Information Post, Giorgos Georgakopoulos)