A dear friend of mine who helped me in many ways suggested that I should see a famous Chinese doctor. I am always in for some fun and entertainment and we fixed a time to check him out. One of my best friends is a Chinese herbal doctor and I am generally open to the idea of alternative medicine. But "my" Chinese herbal doctor is Jewish and from San Francisco and he knows me as the sceptic that I am. He only throws those titbits of Oriental wisdom at me that he recognizes as something that I can mentally digest. (after all, as an artist or scientist you have to be a sceptic).

The Chinese doctor we were going to see has his clinic in Chinatown, Manila. We entered a dark, old and dirty building. Not nice old, more like late fifties, ugly to start with and never bothered to be maintained kind of old. We reached a long narrow corridor which had a row of chairs along one wall. At the end of it was an open door with light streaming out. That according to my friend was the clinic. There were about 20 people sitting along the corridor wall. My friend went into the clinic and returned with a couple of small laminated numbered cards.

After hopping for 45 minutes from one chair to the next we reached the end of the corridor line and moved into the clinic. It was a sparingly decorated, small room, about 160 square foot, with the doctor at one end and plastic chairs all around the other sides. The place was lit by a couple of plain florescent tubes. There were several signs indicating that you are not allowed to use a cell phone and according to some of the older signs, pagers and two radios were not acceptable as well. The patient area was contained on one side by an old dirty looking cabinet with it's off-white painted back towards us. A couple of old dusty umbrellas stuck out from underneath a pile of papers on top of it.
On the other side the doctor himself sat on a plain desk, painted white as well at some point in time (the desk not the doctor). Behind him there was another cabinet, stained white and facing us, which had between all kinds of chunk the usual incense, fruit offerings and colorful Chinese figurines as the center attraction. Next to that was a old, whitish curtain shielding us from whatever was behind it. Although it felt that way, the place wasn't actually dirty. It was something else. No part of the room seemed to have ever be considered to be in the company with any other part of the room and everything stood in a slightly odd angle to each other which didn't really help the overall composition. The space gave you the impression that who ever holds office in here gives a shit about how the place looks. Judging from all the Chinese restaurants and offices I have seen in the Philippines, this philosophy seems to be at the very heart of the Filipino-Chinese Interior design code.

The doc himself looked so average that I have a hard time to describe any remarkable features about him. Mid-fifties, grey hair, glasses etc, you get the picture.
By the time we came in an old woman was about to sit next to the doctor on a plastic chair.
"Woa problem?"
he kind of shouted but not too loudly. At that point I remembered my friend telling me before that the good doc, although being here in the country for many years, doesn't speak any English nor Tagalog.
I couldn't hear what the old woman was answering but I got the response of the Doc:
"How Tae?"
Tae being the Tagalog word for stool and he seemed to inquire about how the old ladies bowels were moving? I felt pity for the old, sick woman having to discuss her bowel movements in front of 20 people who had nothing better to do than to intensively listen what the each patient's problem was.
Then it struck me like lightning. It means that when my turn comes, I too will have to reveal my problem to a roomful of strangers. That was my moment of Zen. Instead of panicking I started to plot how I could possible get the most fun out the situation. I was suddenly liberated. I had no more problem to openly discuss my condition, even in public.

Since the doctor didn't speak any common language with most of his patients, every time he had something to say he had to involve the whole room trying to help him to interpret. It became some sort of group therapy.
He would throw a series of undefinable combination of sounds at his patients who then would just stare at him obviously having no glue what he is talking about. The doctor then would repeat the same a little louder directed towards the general "audience" hoping somebody can figure out what he is trying to say. Sometimes somebody gets it and translates it to the patient. Other times it didn't work so well and the doctor then just proceeded to write his prescription. I thought that it would make a great reality show. If your survivor group of patients can't figure out what the doc had to say, fat luck - you get sick, die and you are out of the show.

There were ten more people in front of us and we could repeatedly study the procedure in detail. A couple of patience before it would be your turn, you have to go to the doctor's desk and deposit your money for the consultation (about US $ 5) under a glass paper weight together with your number and in case you have been here before your previous prescription as well.
Let me describe the rest of it through my own experience. I sat next to the doc. He looked at me and shouted: "Woa problem?" Something told me that If I tell him that I suffering from an epididymo-orchitis I wouldn't get very far. I decided to go ahead with my plan to use sign language. With exaggerated mock embarrassment I started to point towards my groin area and just when I wanted to explain it a little more in detail he cut me short. He asked me to put my arms on his desk and measured my pulse on my right arm as he did with every other patient. He seemed to be in deep concentration. Quite sudden he switched over to my left arm. Next he asked me to stick my tongue out on which he shown a flash light for about .4 milliseconds.
Based on that he looked me in the eyes and shouted.
"Youa problem pancreas, liver, kidney oa togetha.
Caus problem down thea"
That was curious but not really totally out of question. I thought it is probably the other way around but it didn't seem to be the place and time to start a discussion with the doc. Somehow his whole setup wasn't geared towards discussion or explanation of what he is actually doing nor how he comes to his conclusions.

He took his prescription pad and a pen and looked at me:
"eah o uaeo?"
Before I could even visually express my lack of comprehension his well oiled machinery kicked in and one of the veterans of the group of patients translated it to me:
"herbs or pills?"
"Pills" I said.

The doc deeply involved himself into writing a prescription for me. All was written in Chinese characters and he took his time. Now and then he added a stroke to one character and a couple to another. He was either being extremely thorough or he was buying time. He then tore three more sheets from from three different blocks and handed those together with his hand written prescription to me. At that point it was indicated to me that I was thereby dismissed.

Each of the printed sheets had a list of foods you are not supposed to eat if you have a certain condition. One was for the liver, one for the kidneys and one in case of diabetes. I was relieved that I've got my diabetes sheet as well. After all almost everybody else got diagnosed with diabetes too and I would have felt like an outsider. When I combined the three lists together there was nothing, and I am not kidding, absolutely nothing I could possibly eat.
I decided to not invest right away into those pills which you could very conveniently purchased at the doctor's own pharmacy around the corner. I wanted to have his claims double checked through conventional means like blood and urine tests. Also I was taking antibiotics and there might be some undesirable cross reactions with those Chinese pills.