Performing the Traditional Chinese Language and Medicine

together In a Transmodern World Dr. Rey Tiquia

Honorary Research Fellow School of Historical and Philosophical Studies (SHAPS)

The University of Melbourne

2016 International Chinese Studies Research Forum Date: Friday, 2nd December 2016 Location:Theatre 1, 207 Bouverie Street, Carlton, VIC 3053

<<https://youtu.be/Au16Mbvj5o4>>

“ No longer viable in the industrial world, many traits of the traditional culture have been picked as the target of revolutionary attacks; destroyed by the successive waves of economic, social, and political upheavals; and discarded by the urgent drive toward radical modernisation that reflects a fervent desire to catch up with the leading technological nations” (Traditional China, 1970). And the narrative of the Chinese dream for a modern socialist China with Chinese characteristics is a continuation of this ‘ ‘ drive’. “ Yet , paradoxical as it may seem, the traditional background still plays a significant, much like an unseen hand, in steering revolutionary China, amid storm and stress, through unchartered waters (Traditional China, 1970) .” And this ‘unseen hand’ is none other than the ‘stuff of the world’ qi 氣 which animates “ the charter of China’s cultural history embedded in the treasury of its traditional language” (Cultural Nationalism in Contemporary China).Following the China road of tradition i.e. the paradigm of theory-as-practice, the ‘unified field of all existence’ of the traditional Chinese language and medicine together are now being performed here in Australia as humanity’s intangible cultural heritage.

Abstract

The 1911 Revolution, the Traditional Chinese Calendar & Almanac 曆法書 and Modernity

1911 Revolution ⾟亥⾰命 Major ConsequencesOne of the consequences of the 1911 revolution ⾟亥⾰命 in China was the political demise of the traditional Chinese calendar and Almanac 曆法.書 On 1 January 1912, Sun Yat-sen announced the establishment of the Republic of China in Nanking, and was inaugurated as the provisional president of China’s first republic. In the ‘Inaugural Announcement of the Provisional President’, the unity of the ‘Chinese races as one’ was greatly emphasised. Subsequently, on 2 January 1912, Sun Yat-sen informed all provinces that participated in the uprising against the Qing imperial rule that ‘the Yin calendar yin li, has been abolished and replaced by the yang calendar’11 (yang li). The ‘fourth year of the Xuantong emperor (1911), calculated using the lunar calendar, will be followed by the first year of the Republic (1912), calculated using the solar calendar’.13

The Era of the Republic of China was promulgated, and 1912 was officially declared the first year of this historical period, with 1 January 1912 officially the first day of the Republic and years to be counted successively from 1912.14 After 1949, the People’s Republic of China in Mainland China adopted the Western Gregorian Calendar. Hence, since 1912, as China adopted the Gregorian Calendar and Greenwich Mean Time, the modern Western time system replaced the pre-modern Chinese time system. The traditional Chinese calendar and Almanac was hegemonically translated i.e. one-sidedly rendered into the image of the ‘universe’ of the Western Gregorian Calendar and Greenwich time. The ‘primordial unity of the system of space with the system of time’ 宇宙 was replaced by the Newtonian doctrine of absolute space and time [R. Tiquia, “ The Paradigm of Theory-as-Practice: Traditional Chinese Natural Studies and the Performance of the Cosmic Breath Qi in a New Global Spacetime System.” The Journal of the Oriental Society of Australia, Vol. 47: 910-230, 2015].

The Universe as a ‘Unified Field of All Existence’

“ The ‘Universe’ or ‘Cosmos’, as expressed in Chinese, is ‘Yü-Chou’ 宇宙, designating Space and Time. What we call ‘Yü’ 宇 is the collocation of three-dimensional spaces; what we call ‘Chou’宙 is constituted by the one dimensional series of changes in succession—the past continuing itself into the present and the present, into the future. Yü and Chou, taken together, represent the primordial unity of the system of Space with the system of Time. Yüchou without a hyphen, is an integral system by itself to be differentiated, only later on, into Space and Time. The four-dimensional unity of Minkowsky and the ‘Space-Time’ of S. Alexander even cannot adequately convey the meaning of that inseparable connection between Space and Time that is involved in the Chinese term ‘Yüchou’. The nearest equivalent to it would be Einstein’s ‘Unified Field’. ‘Yü-Chou’, as the Chinese philosophers have conceived it, is the unified field of all existence “ [ Thomé H. Fang, The Chinese View of Life: The Philosophy of Comprehensive Harmony (Taipei: Linking, 1980), 29. Refer as well to the original Chinese version, Fang Dongmei ⽅東美 , Zhongguo rensheng zhexue 中國⼈⽣哲學概要 (Shanghai shangwu shuguan, 1937), 114–15].

Einstein’s Concept of Spacetime And the Toppling of Newton’s Conception of Reality

‘The relativity revolution . . . dates from 1905 and 1915 . . . While struggling with puzzles involving electricity, magnetism and light’s motion, Einstein realised that Newton’s conception of space and time, the cornerstone of classical physics, was flawed. Over the course of a few intense weeks, in the spring of 1905, he determined that space and time are not independent and absolute, as Newton had thought, but are enmeshed and relative in a manner that flies in the face of common experience. Some ten years later, Einstein hammered a final nail in the Newtonian coffin by rewriting the laws of gravitational physics. This time, not only did Einstein show that space and time are part of a unified whole, he also showed that by warping and curving they participate in cosmic evolution. Far from being rigid, the unchanging structures envisioned by Newton, space and time in Einstein’s reworking are flexible and dynamic. The two theories of relativity [specific in 1905 and general in 1915] are among humankind’s most precious achievements, and with them Einstein toppled Newton’s conception of reality. Even though Newtonian physics seemed to capture mathematically much of what we experience physically, the reality it describes turns out to be not the reality of our world. Ours is a relativistic reality.” [Brian Greene, quoted in Alan Atkinson, The Europeans in Australia (Sydney: UNSW Press, 2014), 31].

In the preface to his book The Fabric of the Cosmos, Brian Greene observed that “space and time capture the imagination like no other scientific subject. For good reason. They form the arena of reality, the very fabric of the cosmos. Our entire existence— everything we do, think, and experience—takes place in some region of space during some interval of time.” [ Brian Greene, The Fabric of the Cosmos (Australia: Penguin Books, 2004.ix) . In this sense, we can say that the political demise of the Traditional Chinese Calendar and Almanac signalled the dawn of the era of modernity 現代性 or modernisation 現代化 in China.

The Demise of the Traditional Chinese Calendar and Almanac 曆法書 signalled the dawnof the era of Modernity 現代性 or Modernisation 現代化 in China.

What is Modernity 現代性 or ‘The Modern’現代 ? Modernity 現代性 is a historical epoch characterised by the emergence of capitalism, industrialism, ratio-legal bureaucracies, and state control of military power and surveillance. Its cultural dimensions include discourses of rationality, scientism (‘an uncritical faith in science’ 科學主義) and progress through economic development, objectivity, and in the field of medicine the culture of the randomised controlled trial (RCT). In his book Cosmopolis the Hidden Agenda of Modernity (1990), Stephen Toulmin aptly describes the cosmology 宇宙哲

學 of ‘High Modernity’ as one ‘which saw nature and humanity as distinct and separate’ ⾼現代性作為 ⼀個看到⾃然和⼈類獨特和分離的 This cosmology in turn gave rise to the Cartesian credo of ‘I think, therefore I

am’ 笛卡兒信經：’我思故我在’ which opened the way to the mechanical metaphysics 機械形⽽上學 or

“mechanism” which dichotomise 割分 the mind 心 from the body 身, theory 理論 from practice 實踐,

‘heaven’ 天 (⾃然) from ‘man ⼈類’.‘God the father’ 神⽗親 from ‘Mother Earth’ 地母, ‘space’ 空間

from ‘time’ 時間 and a ‘gulf’深坑 or a ‘divide’ 分割 between ‘people’s expectations ⼈們的期望 and their

daily experiences of real life’ 他們真正的 ⽣活的每⽇的經歷 [Tiquia, Rey, “ The Paradigm of Theory-as-

Practice: Traditional Chinese Natural Studies and the Performance of the Cosmic Breath Qi in a New Global Spacetime System.” The Journal of the Oriental Society of Australia, Vol. 47: 910-230, 2015].

Traditional Holistic Performative Metaphysics 傳統整體⾏使性的形⽽上學

Consequently, various pre-modern traditional Chinese natural studies 傳統中國⾃然界研究 like traditional

Chinese medicine 傳統中醫, traditional Chinese language

傳統漢語, chronoacupuncture ⼦午流注, astronomy 天⽂學, astrology 占星術, calendrical studies 曆法研究,

Chinese Almanac Studies 曆書研究, geomancy 堪輿風⽔ lost their respective traditional holistic performative metaphysics 傳統整體⾏使性的形⽽上學.

The Chinese Dream is a Continuation in China of this Modern Mechanical Metaphysical ‘Drive’

Lamenting this state of affairs, James T.C. Liu and Wei-ming Tu in their introductory remarks in the book Traditional China , 1970 stated:

True, much of the old Chinese way of life is rapidly disappearing under unprecedented changes in the last few decades. No longer viable in the industrial world, many traits of the traditional culture have been picked as the target of revolutionary attacks; destroyed by the successive waves of economic, social, and political upheavals; and discarded by the urgent drive toward radical modernisation that reflects a fervent desire to catch up with the leading technological nations. [James T.C. Liu and Wei-ming Tu, Traditional China, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1970,1]

And the narrative of the Chinese dream for a modern socialist China with Chinese characteristics is a continuation in China of this ‘modern mechanical metaphysical ‘ drive’.

A New Translation/Interpretation of the term ‘Metaphysics’

The English term ‘metaphysics’ is known in classical Chinese as xing er shang 形⽽上. And this term was supposed to have been added by Confucius [Yuasa Yasuo, The Body, Self-Cultivation, and Ki-Energy , trans.

Shigero Nagatomo and Monte S. Hall (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1993), 187] as part of his appended commentary to the Book of Changes Yi Jing《易經》 which goes:

是故形⽽上為之道.

形⽽下為之器 [Z.D. Sung, The Text of Yi King Chinese Original with English Translation,Taipei: Cheng

Wen Publishing Company, 1971, 303]

Professor Robin R. Wang translates the above passage as: What is above tangible forms xing er shang 形⽽上 is called Dao.

What is below tangible forms xing er xia 形⽽下 is called utensils,

instruments or vessels qi 器 .

Yan Fu 嚴 複（1854-1921）was one of the first generation of Chinese translators of European

texts who used the Chinese term ing er shang 形⽽上 to translate Aristotle’s metaphysics [R. Wang,

YinYang: The Way of Heaven and Earth in Chinese Thought and Culture (Cambridge University Press, 2012), 66.]

The Domain of Metaphysics Encompasses Ontology 本體論, Cosmogony 宇宙⽣成論, Cosmology 宇宙論 and Soteriology 救世神學

According to Ian Coulter, metaphysics are ‘broad generalisations about the nature of the world and are usually ontological (about the ultimate nature of reality). Unlike theories that try to make sense of observations, metaphysics are a priori 憑理論的 in that they provide schemes in terms of which reality can be approached before we even begin to think about theory. Examples of meta physics in science include mechanism, dualism, realism, idealism, materialism and reductionism. These are all fundamental presuppositions whose truth or falsehood cannot be established empirically through observation. They are also fundamental in the sense that the purpose of research done under their guidance is not to question or test these assumptions. To this extent, they are taken-for-granted guidelines for investigations. If they are challenged, it will be through appeal to an alternative metaphysics. So for example, Descartes challenges the extreme notion of mechanism, and rescues mechanism by establishing a dualism to deal with the order of the mind’ [I. Coulter, ‘Integration and Paradigm Clash: The Practical Difficulties of Integrative Medicine’, in The Mainstreaming of Complementary and Alternative Medicine , ed. P. Tovey, G. Easthope and J. Adams (London: Routledge, 2004), 103–21.].

Thomas Michael believes that the domain of metaphysics begins with the question of ontology: ‘what is there in the universe?’ (minds? Bodies? Stuff ? Ghosts?Spirits?Angels?). It then asks the question of cosmogony: ‘whatever there is in the universe, how did it originate?’ (Genesis? Brahma? Shunyata?). It finally asks the question of cosmology: ‘Whatever there is in the universe, how do the pieces of it relate to each other?’ (Mind body problem, how many angels dance on the head of the pin, reductionism). Theology adds a further consideration with its soteriology: ‘Whatever there is in the universe, where does it lead?’ (Salvation or damnation? Utopia? Democracy, theocracy, or socialism?[T. Michael, The Pristine Dao: Metaphysics in Early Daoist Discourse (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005), 6.]

The Cosmic Breath Qi as Constitutive of the Fundamental Reality of Our Universe 氣作為 我們宇宙根本現實的組成部分

“ Yet , paradoxical as it may seem, the traditional background still plays a significant, much like an unseen hand, in steering revolutionary China, amid storm and stress, through unchartered waters” (Traditional China, 1970,1).” And this ‘unseen hand’ is none other than the ‘stuff of the world’ qi 氣 which animates “the charter of China’s cultural history embedded in the treasury of its traditional language”[Yingjie Guo, Cultural Nationalism in Contemporary China : The Search for National Identity Under Reform,London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2004,92]

In the performance of TCM practice, the cosmic breath qi氣 needs to be understood as an ontological entity that is enacted or performed. In clinical encounters, the cosmic breath is performed to differentiate between clinical patterns and to associate the appropriate yaowu [R.Tiquia, ‘The Qi That Got Lost in Translation: Traditional Chinese Medicine, Humour and Healing’, in Humour in Chinese Life

and Letters: Classical and Traditional Approaches , ed. Jocelyn Chey and Jessica Milner Davis (Hong Kong University Press, 2011),

40-41]..As an ontological entity, the cosmic breath animates the human body in four directional states of orientation: upwards, downwards, inwards and outwards. In this way, the normal distribution, circulation and metabolism of not only the body’s qi 氣, but also blood 血, thin and

thick body fluids 津液, spirit 神, refined qi 精氣 and so on can all be ensured. If this animating qi

flow is disrupted, then bad humour 脾氣不好, illnesses and disease 疾病 may result.[Tiquia, 2011,

41-42] .

The Performative Metaphysical Paradigm of Theory-as-Practice is The China Road of Tradition

In essence, the political demise of the traditional Chinese calendar and almanac 曆法書 in 1911 fractured the re-presentational, holistic and performative metaphysics of various premodern traditional Chinese natural studies and their corresponding practices including traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) 傳統中醫, chrono-acupuncture ⼦午流注, traditional Chinese language 漢語, astronomy 天⽂學, calendrical-almanac studies 曆法書研究, traditional Chinese painting 國畫, geomancy 風⽔, organic farming, traditional Chinese sexual practices 房中術, ancient Chinese divination zhan bu 占⼘and traditional Chinese prognosticational 預測 學 systems of foretelling major climactic events (floods, droughts) epidemics, natural disasters like earthquakes etc.

In this regard, I would like to suggest a way of ‘healing’ this fractured metaphysics that separates the realm of ‘the abstracted theoretical world’ (theory理論) from ‘the realm of the real world’ (practice 實踐). In its place I propose the China road of tradition i.e. the performative metaphysical paradigm of theory-as-practice 理論-實踐範式⾏事的形⽽上學. Taking this road can bring about the integration of humanity with nature; knowledge with action; mind with body; spirit with body; cause with effect, theory with practice and space with time. In addition, in this ‘unified field of existence’, yin embraces yang, one element embraces the other four elements/ agents/phases and one trigram embraces the other seven trigrams of the Book of Change 《易經.》 In this way the performance and mapping of the cosmic breath 氣 in a four dimensional process which encompasses the three spatial dimensions of length, breadth, depth and the fourth dimension of time can be realised [Tiquia, 2015]Following the China Road of tradition 中國傳統之路 i.e a reconstructed metaphysics of the paradigm of theory-as-practice 重建理論-實踐範式的形⽽上學, I would like to do a performance of the traditional Chinese language and medicine in a transmodern world where ‘modernity and its negated alterities co-realise themselves in the process of mutual creative fertilisation’ [D. Turnbull, Masons, Tricksters and Cartographers: Comparative Studies in the Sociology of Scientific and Indigenous Knowledge (Amsterdam: Harwood Academic, 2000), 227-228.,]

Performing TCM and Biomedical Clinical Practice Together In their Sameness and Difference

Language use as embedded in TCM practice exemplifies its performative paradigm of theory-as-practice. Here clinical practice is an embodied, embedded expression of a knowledge tradition in place. Every TCM clinical encounter in the TCM clinics of contemporary suburban Australia, including my own, is a collective performance 集體表演. We might understand this as being in some ways like the

jazz clubs 爵⼠⾳樂 俱樂部<< https://youtu.be/frW_sweyaFQ>> <<https://youtu.be/Au16Mbvj5o4>>which flourished in Australia

(and now making a come back) bringing to life and sustaining a disciplined tradition of performance and improvisation ⼀個帶有紀侓性的表演和即席創作的傳統. They are collective enactments or performances with a venue 地點, performers 演奏家/ clinicians 臨床醫⽣, instruments 器具and audience 觀眾/patients 病⼈.In the clinical practice of TCM I propose that there are three agential figures 起媒介作⽤的⼈和物 :people, things and activities that work in relation to each other in an episode of clinical practice. These agential

figures are the (a) yao as an exemplary excellent interventionary tools 介入⼯具 that TCM practitioners have at their disposal, (b) the ‘uneasy’ body of the patient and (c) the disciplined practitioner and the corporate or group of TCM practitioners. The very practice of bian zheng lun zhi 辨證論治 (“differentiating between clinical patters and associating the appropriate yaowu 藥物) grows out of the patient’s body. Signs and symptoms express the condition of the patient’s body, and the practitioners do not represent it. Instead, they re-present or perform it. A picture of Yin and Yang imbalance or disharmony might emerge. From this picture, TCM practitioners work out the ‘doing’ of the ‘tools’ or yao to be deployed. In TCM, therefore, the natural body is ‘done’ or performed in practices that are naturally part of it. The yao as a TCM tool is a heterogeneous assemblage of acupuncture (needles, acu-tract and acu-point charts ), herbal medicine, Tuina 推拿, food therapy, yang sheng and Qi exercise 氣功. Like the Chinese ideograph which moves horizontally, vertically, slopes up, down and crosses in accordance with a standardised ordering to convey the right meaning; it is the nature of the yao 藥 to embed a Qi 氣 which assumes a Yin and Yang life , a motion ascending 升, descending 降, sinking 沉, floating 浮, moving in

入, moving out 出 , hot 熱 and cold 寒 , in dispersion 散 or condensation 使凝結. These varied Qi motions of the yao, or a group of

yao, represent a standardised formula (fang ⽅) which fits the clinical pattern 證侯 of imbalance or disequilibrium to the uneasy body of the patient. [ R. Tiquia, ‘Traditional Chinese Medicine as an Australian Tradition of Health Care’,.PhD diss.,University of Melbourne, 2004, 116-117].

The Biomedical Clinical Practice The biomedical clinical encounter is also constituted by three agential figures: the corporate body or group of biomedical health practitioners, their medical tools (pharmaceuticals 西藥 or Western yao[ Tiquia, 2004, 248] injections

注射劑 , immunisations 免疫療法, diagnostic testing devices 診斷測試設備 and so on), and the uneasy body of the patient. Practitioners of this tradition of health care map the presence or absence of certain entities in the patient’s body 勘測病⼈身體內存在與否某種實體. The tradition seeks to mimic or ‘do a copy’ of the presence of viruses or bacteria

or the absence of certain enzymes in the patient’s body in its representation. The mimicked or ‘copied mapped body’ is here and the ‘practice’ of medicine is over there. Like ‘matching’ 相配 speech sounds with the correct ordering of the

letters of the alphabet, this mapping matches what is on the ground 在場所 with what is ‘on the map’ 在地圖上- the virus, bacteria or enzymes. As with the letters of the alphabet, pharmaceuticals, diagnostic tests and so on must be prescribed in the right order and sequence in accordance with stringent laboratory standards so as to put the ‘machine’ of the body into good working order.To summarise the difference between the two clinical encounters, I refer to the difference in agential status of the three constitutive elements. In TCM the three elements are equally agential. The clinical encounter is a three-way negotiation. In Western biomedicine there is a hierarchy of agency. The clinician has most agency, the patient somewhat less, and the materialities are merely tools to be wielded by the clinician.

With this juxtaposition we see the central framing device of my thesis. It is an odd and controversial framing device, for it carries a contradictory claim. I present the TCM clinical encounter as simultaneously identical to and different to that of Western medicine. The sameness is an everyday sameness: the patient, the doctor, and his/her tools. Being experiential the sameness is a certain sort of truth - superficial, although no less important for being so. The difference between the encounters is also a truth. It is one that takes longer to grasp, and entails care of thought and explication. The difference between the clinical encounters is metaphysical and ontological.