Chinese Medicine in Hong Kong - A Detailed Beginners Guide
How Traditional Chinese Medicine Works in Hong Kong Today
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Chinese Medicine in Hong Kong - A Detailed Beginners Guide
Foreword by Jamie
How Traditional Chinese Medicine Works in Hong Kong Today
I have lived in Hong Kong since 2nd January 1972. That is more than 50 years of watching how people here look after themselves. For a long time I kept Chinese Medicine at arm's length. I am a typical Westerner who trusts what comes in a blister pack, what I inject and a doctor's prescription. The idea that a dried root or a handful of herbs might do the same job as the 16 medicines I take every day felt like a stretch. Dried flying lizards and the rest of it only added to the scepticism.
Ignorance is not a great reason to stay away from something that is part of daily life for millions of people in this city. Chinese Medicine is complex. It is not one thing. It is a whole system of thinking about the body that has been around for thousands of years in China and has adapted itself to Hong Kong's climate, its history and its people. This post is my attempt to understand it properly, in plain language, after more than half a century of watching the shops on the streets of Sheung Wan and hearing friends talk about their latest herbal prescription.
A Short History of Chinese Medicine in China
Chinese Medicine did not start as a single invention. It grew over centuries from observation, trial and error, and classical texts. The earliest surviving pharmacopoeia, the Shen Nong Ben Cao Jing, dates from the Han Dynasty around 200 AD. It classifies herbs into superior, middle and inferior categories and talks about their properties of hot, cold, warm and cool. Later dynasties refined the theories of yin and yang, the five elements, and the flow of qi through the meridians.
By the time the Tang and Song dynasties came along, hospitals and pharmacies existed in major cities. The system travelled south with migrants and adapted to the hot, humid conditions of the Lingnan region. Hong Kong sits in that same climate zone. Herbal teas for clearing heat and dampness are still sold on almost every street corner today. The core idea has always been that the body has its own tendency towards balance and that the doctor's job is to help restore it rather than simply suppress symptoms.
Chinese Medicine in Hong Kong from 1841 to Today
Hong Kong Island was a quiet fishing place before the British arrived. Chinese Medicine was already the way people treated illness. After the cession in 1842 the colonial government took a hands off approach at first. Chinese practitioners continued to work. An 1869 regulation even required ships carrying Chinese labourers to carry Chinese herbal medicines so that herbal tea could be prepared on the voyage.
The big institutional step came in 1872 with the opening of Tung Wah Hospital in Sheung Wan (near the Man Mo Temple). It was the first hospital built specifically for the Chinese community and it offered free Chinese Medicine treatment. For decades it handled far more patients than the government Western hospitals. In 1896 the Tung Wah outpatient numbers ran to more than 170,000 a year while the government hospital saw only a fraction of that for Chinese patients.
The 1894 bubonic plague changed the relationship. The colonial authorities questioned the effectiveness of Chinese treatment during the outbreak and insisted on reforms at Tung Wah. Western medicine was introduced alongside Chinese methods. From then on the official system prioritised Western medicine, while Chinese Medicine continued to serve most of the Chinese population without much government support.
After the Second World War and the influx of people from Guangdong in China, the demand stayed high. Practitioners worked privately. There was no formal registration system until after 1997. The Chinese Medicine Ordinance was passed in 1999. Universities began full time Chinese Medicine degree courses. Eighteen Chinese Medicine Clinics cum Training and Research Centres were set up across the districts. In December 2025 the Chinese Medicine Hospital of Hong Kong opened in Tseung Kwan O. It is the first hospital in the city where Chinese Medicine is the primary approach, with Western medicine available in support. By the end of 2030 it is planned to have 400 beds.
As of mid-2026 there are roughly 8,700 registered Chinese Medicine practitioners, around 2,000 listed practitioners, and a small number with limited registration. That is more than 10,700 people practising Chinese Medicine in a city of about 7.5 million.
Core Beliefs in Layman's Terms
Chinese Medicine starts from the idea that health is balance. Yin and yang are the two complementary forces. Too much of one or too little of the other creates problems. Qi is the vital energy that moves through the body. Blood and body fluids also have their own roles. The organs are not just physical structures. Each has a functional relationship with the others.
Illness is often described as excess or deficiency, heat or cold, dampness or dryness. A practitioner looks at the tongue, feels the pulse, asks about sleep, appetite, digestion and emotions, and builds a pattern. The treatment aims to correct the pattern rather than simply naming a disease. Two people with the same Western diagnosis might receive different herbal formulas if their patterns differ.
It is not magic. It is a different way of organising observations that have been collected over a very long time.
Chinese Medicine and Western Medicine Side by Side in Hong Kong
Hong Kong has a well-developed Western medical system. The Hospital Authority runs the public hospitals. Private hospitals add more capacity. There are around 16,900 registered doctors. Most serious acute care, surgery and emergency treatment is Western.
Chinese Medicine has its own infrastructure. The 18 district clinics provide government subsidised outpatient services. The new Chinese Medicine Hospital in Tseung Kwan O began outpatient and day-patient work in December 2025 and is expanding. Integrated Chinese-Western Medicine services operate in 26 public hospitals at 53 sites, mainly for stroke, cancer palliative care, musculoskeletal pain and a few other areas. These teams treat tens of thousands of patients a year.
The two systems are no longer completely separate. Many patients move between them.
Do Hong Kong People Mix the Two?
Yes. It is normal. A person with a high fever or a broken bone goes to a Western doctor or hospital. For chronic tiredness, poor digestion, joint pain that comes and goes, recovery after surgery, or general wellness, many people see a Chinese Medicine practitioner. Some take Western medicines and herbal formulas at the same time, though that carries risks of interaction and should be discussed with both sides.
Surveys and everyday observation show that a large percentage of the Chinese population has used Chinese Medicine at some point. It is not an either-or choice for most families. It is part of the toolkit. The government is now actively encouraging better integration rather than parallel systems that never talk to each other.
The Top 20 Chinese Medicines You Will See in Hong Kong
These are some of the most commonly stocked and discussed items. The benefits listed are the traditional Chinese Medicine claims plus what modern research has looked at. I am not a practitioner. This is for general understanding.
Ginseng (Ren Shen). The classic qi tonic. Used for weakness, poor appetite, shortness of breath and recovery. Wild or high grade cultivated roots command very high prices. Modern studies look at its effects on fatigue and immune function.
American Ginseng (Xi Yang Shen). Cooler in nature than Asian ginseng. Popular for clearing heat while still tonifying. Often taken in summer or by people who find Asian ginseng too warming.
Cordyceps (Dong Chong Xia Cao). The famous winter-worm summer-grass fungus. Traditionally for the lungs and kidneys. Wild specimens are extremely expensive. Cultivated versions are more affordable and widely sold.
Goji Berries (Gou Qi Zi). Mild, sweet, used for the eyes, liver and kidney yin. Eaten as food as well as medicine. Cheap and common.
Astragalus (Huang Qi). A major qi tonic that also supports the surface and helps with recovery. Often used in formulas for fatigue and immune support.
Angelica Root (Dang Gui). The classic blood tonic, especially for women. Used for menstrual issues and recovery after childbirth.
Rehmannia (Shu Di Huang or Sheng Di Huang). Prepared or raw. Nourishes yin and blood. Found in many kidney formulas.
Licorice Root (Gan Cao). Harmonises other herbs in a formula and has its own mild tonifying and anti-inflammatory uses.
Chrysanthemum (Ju Hua). Clears heat from the liver and eyes. Common in herbal teas.
Ginger (Sheng Jiang). Warms the middle, helps digestion and is used in many formulas to reduce the harshness of other herbs.
Chinese Yam (Shan Yao). Tonifies spleen and lung qi. Mild and food-like.
Poria (Fu Ling). Drains dampness and calms the spirit. Very common in formulas.
White Peony (Bai Shao). Nourishes blood and soothes the liver. Often paired with other blood tonics.
Cinnamon Twig (Gui Zhi). Warms and promotes circulation. Used in cold patterns.
Schisandra (Wu Wei Zi). Astringes and tonifies the lungs and kidneys. Used for chronic cough and night sweats.
Ophiopogon (Mai Men Dong). Nourishes yin, especially of the lungs and stomach. Common in dry cough formulas.
Notoginseng (San Qi). Stops bleeding and moves blood. Famous for trauma and cardiovascular support in modern use.
Lingzhi (Ganoderma). The reishi mushroom. Used for spirit, immunity and overall tonification. Widely sold in capsule form.
Jujube Dates (Da Zao). Harmonises and nourishes. Often added to formulas for their mild sweet nature.
Hawthorn Fruit (Shan Zha). Aids digestion, especially of rich or fatty foods. Common after heavy meals.
The myth and incorrect numbers regarding Ginseng grown in Wisconsin in the USA
The claim is not accurate. Wisconsin does not produce over 90% of the world’s ginseng.
What is true is that Wisconsin produces roughly 95% of the cultivated American ginseng grown in the United States. Almost all of that comes from Marathon County in central Wisconsin. American ginseng is the species Panax quinquefolius. The other main commercial species is Asian ginseng (Panax ginseng), which is grown mainly in China and Korea.
Globally, China is by far the largest producer of ginseng overall. Canada (especially Ontario) is also a major producer of American ginseng and has overtaken Wisconsin in volume in recent years. One estimate puts Wisconsin at around 10% of the world’s total ginseng supply. The “over 90%” figure is a common mix-up with the US share, not the world share.
What makes Wisconsin ginseng special, according to the growers and the buyers in Asia, is the combination of soil and climate (what the Ginseng Board of Wisconsin calls terroir). The glacial soils in central Wisconsin are rich and fast-draining. The long cold winters and cooler summers suit the plant. Most growers leave the roots in the ground for 4–5 years rather than the minimum 3. The result is a root that is described as more bitter, bolder and more aromatic than American ginseng grown elsewhere. In Chinese Medicine terms, American ginseng is considered cooler in nature than Asian ginseng, so it is often preferred in hotter climates or by people who find Asian ginseng too warming. Wisconsin roots have long been regarded as the premium grade of that cooler type, which is why they still command higher prices in Hong Kong and Mainland China markets even though volume is smaller than Canadian or Chinese production.
So the short version is: dominant in the US for American ginseng, highly regarded for quality, but nowhere near 90% of the world total.
Acupuncture is a Core Part of Chinese Medicine
Yes. Acupuncture is one of the main treatment methods alongside herbal medicine, moxibustion, tuina massage and dietary advice. Thin needles are inserted at specific points along the meridians to influence the flow of qi. In Hong Kong it is practised by registered Chinese Medicine practitioners. Many clinics offer it for pain, recovery and various internal conditions. The new Chinese Medicine Hospital has dedicated rooms for acupuncture and moxibustion.
On a personal note, my wife tried acupuncture in Hong Kong for a back problem and it had no effect. I do not read anything into this, I have had some medicines prescribed over the years that had no effect
What You See in a Typical Chinese Medicine Shop
Walk into a traditional shop in Sheung Wan and the first thing that hits you is the smell. Dried herbs, roots, bark and fungi create a distinctive, earthy, slightly sweet or bitter aroma. The walls are lined with wooden cabinets full of small drawers, each labelled in Chinese with the name of the herb. Glass jars sit on the counters holding whole ginseng roots, slices of American ginseng, goji berries, dried chrysanthemum flowers and other items that customers can see and choose.
Behind the counter there is usually a large brass or electronic scale. The shopkeeper weighs out the prescription exactly as the practitioner has written it. Some shops still grind or cut herbs on the premises. You will also see packaged proprietary medicines, bird's nest, dried seafood in the neighbouring shops, and sometimes velvet antler. The atmosphere is practical rather than clinical. People come in with a paper prescription, chat with the staff, and leave with a bag of individually wrapped daily doses or a ready-to-boil packet.
Would you ingest a dried out lizard in powder form on a daily basis?
Common in many Chinese Medicine stores and there is a great display of them in the Yue Hwa Emporium Jordan, Kowloon, these unfortunate creatures are not hidden away in a drawer they are front and centre in a glass display cabinet.
What you are looking at in those shops is almost always Ge Jie (蛤蚧), the dried body of the Tokay gecko (Gekko gecko).
It is not native to Hong Kong. The main sources are southern China (especially Guangxi, Guangdong and Yunnan) and parts of Southeast Asia such as Vietnam, Thailand and Indonesia. The animal is gutted, stretched flat on a bamboo frame so the limbs stick out, and then dried. That is why the finished product looks like a flattened, desiccated lizard. They are often sold in pairs (one male and one female).
In Chinese Medicine it is classified as a tonic for the lungs and kidneys. The traditional claims are that it helps with chronic cough, asthma or wheezing (particularly when the pattern is described as the kidneys failing to “grasp” the lung qi), and that it supports kidney yang (used for weakness, frequent urination or sexual function issues). It is salty and neutral in nature. It appears in classical formulas such as Ren Shen Ge Jie San (ginseng and gecko powder).
How it is taken:
Most commonly ground into powder and taken in small doses (a few grams a day).
Made into pills or capsules.
Soaked in rice wine or spirit for several weeks to make a tonic liquor, then sipped in small amounts.
Less often boiled in a decoction (it does not extract as efficiently in water).
You do not normally eat the whole dried gecko as a snack; it is processed into a medicine. The tail is sometimes considered the strongest part.
There is limited modern research supporting the traditional respiratory and tonic claims, and nothing that matches the evidence level of conventional treatments for asthma or other conditions. Wild populations have been heavily harvested in the past; the species is regulated under CITES, and much of the supply now comes from captive breeding.
So when you see those dried lizards in a Sheung Wan shop or in the Yue Hwa Emporiu, you are looking at a traditional animal-based tonic material from southern China and Southeast Asia, prepared and sold for lung and kidney patterns, not a local Hong Kong species and not something most people consume casually.
Why Food Tours Stop at Chinese Medicine Shops
I have walked past these shops with guests more times than I can count, and I have also watched the food tours do the same stop. My first thought was always the practical one. A popular restaurant sits on Des Voeux Road West, the Chinese medicine and dried goods shops are right there, and the whole stretch is easy to walk. The products on display are herbs, roots, and the occasional desiccated lizard or other animal part that makes a Westerner pause. It is a cultural stop more than a food stop, and I have never seen a proper Chinese Medicine Tour listed as a standard private tour or group tour option in Hong Kong.
As I do not do food tours in Hong Kong I have no particular reason to be in Sheung Wan on a regular basis to visit the Chinese Medicine Stores but I do visit the Yue Hwa Emporium in Jordan in Kowloon on a frequent basis as it is just a few minutes away from the Temple Street Night Market.
So I am not missing as much as it first looks. The connection is real, but it is often thinner than the way some food tours present it, and a lot of the time it is convenience plus atmosphere more than deep culinary theory. Des Voeux Road West and the streets just off it are still the main dried seafood and Chinese medicine trading strip. The shops sell two things that overlap heavily. One is the classic Chinese medicine herbs and roots. The other is dried seafood, bird's nest, fish maw, dried scallops and the rest, which restaurants and home cooks use every day. A lot of the same premises do both. The smell, the jars, the scales and the stacks of dried goods are the same streetscape whether the customer is a Chinese medicine practitioner, a restaurant kitchen or a family buying ingredients for soup.
What the better guides are trying to do, when they bother to explain it, is point out that some of the same ingredients turn up in both the medicine cabinets and the kitchen. Goji, red dates, Chinese yam, ginger and the dried seafood next door appear in everyday soups and in restaurant tonic dishes. Chinese cooking, especially Cantonese, has a long tradition of using food as a form of everyday medicine. The idea is that certain ingredients warm or cool the body, tonify qi or blood, clear dampness, or support recovery. You see it in the slow-simmered soups that many households still make, and in restaurant menus that list double-boiled tonic soups with ginseng, cordyceps, Chinese yam, goji, angelica root or snow fungus. Bird's nest, dried scallops and fish maw appear in both banquet dishes and medicinal preparations. A stop at one of those shops can be framed as this is where the ingredients for the soup you just ate, or the soup your grandmother used to make, come from. That overlap is real in Cantonese cooking. It is also no different from every other culture telling its children that certain foods are good for them. My mother used to say the same thing about Brussels sprouts.
That is the proper link. It is not that the restaurant is serving Chinese medicine as a course. It is that the culinary tradition and the medicine tradition have shared ingredients and shared ideas about balancing the body for centuries, and this particular stretch of street is where a lot of those ingredients are still bought and sold in bulk. What many food tours are actually doing is simpler. The walk to or from the meal takes you past the shops. The shops look distinctive, they smell distinctive, and guests usually find them interesting even if they buy nothing. A short stop lets the guide point out ginseng, goji or bird's nest and say a couple of sentences about food and health in Hong Kong. It fills time, adds a visual and sensory moment, and makes the tour feel more local than just moving from one restaurant to the next. The ground herbs for tea are part of what the shops sell, but they are not the main reason the stop is included.
The connection can feel forced if the guide does not explain the food-therapy side or the dried-seafood overlap. If the stop is only here is a Chinese medicine shop, they grind herbs, then the link to the meal you just had is weak. When it works, it is because the guide treats the shop as a window onto the ingredients and the everyday thinking that still sit behind a lot of Cantonese cooking, not as a separate medical experience. Whether any of it works better than a decent diet and a bit of common sense is another question. I remain a sceptic about the claim that a root priced at US$200,000 has medicinal properties that a cheaper piece of the same plant somehow lacks. If Chinese Medicine were the decisive factor in long life, the numbers would show a clearer gap than they do. Hong Kong people live a long time, but so do plenty of other places with different systems. The shops are interesting to look at, the street has history, and the food and medicine idea is part of how some families still cook. That is as far as I am prepared to take it on a tour.
A Chinese Medicine Store is also in reality a Dried Seafood store
There is no clean line, and the shops themselves do not try to draw one.
In the Sheung Wan strip in Western District on Hong Kong Island the same premises, or the shops next door to each other, sell two overlapping ranges of goods:
The classic Chinese Medicine materials: ginseng, astragalus, angelica, goji, chrysanthemum, rehmannia, cordyceps, and the rest of the herbal pharmacopoeia.
The dried seafood and tonic ingredients that restaurants and home cooks buy for soups and banquet dishes: dried scallops, fish maw, abalone, bird’s nest, dried shrimp, sea cucumber, and similar items.
Both sit under the same roof or along the same stretch of street because, in Cantonese practice, many of those ingredients have been used for both purposes for a long time. A family might buy goji, red dates and Chinese yam for everyday soup. A restaurant might use dried scallops and fish maw in a tonic soup that is also understood to have a “warming” or “strengthening” effect. A Chinese Medicine practitioner might prescribe some of the same roots or fungi. The trade has never kept the two strictly separate.
Just for context, I am a typical Brit of a certain age and I like my soup from Heinz in a tin and I am culturally lacking in imagination when it comes to food, as long as the soup tastes great I do not for one second think about the ingredients other than that there are thousands of articles out there telling me that tinned soup is bad for my health!
That is why a shop can look like a Chinese Medicine store to a visitor and still do a large part of its business in dried seafood. The signage often says both “Chinese Medicine” and “dried seafood,” or the neighbouring shops specialise in one or the other while sharing the same customers and the same street. For practical purposes most people, and most tour guides, simply call the whole stretch Chinese Medicine shops or dried-goods shops. The distinction is real in theory (a prescribed formula versus an ingredient for cooking), but on the street and in daily use it is blurred.
So my observation is right. Once the volumes of dried seafood are high enough, and once the same ingredients appear in both the medicine cabinet and the kitchen, calling it a Chinese Medicine store is the simplest and most accurate description of what the visitor sees.
The Best Place to Explore Chinese Medicine in Hong Kong
Western District on Hong Kong Island, particularly Sheung Wan and the streets around it, remains the historic centre. Ko Shing Street is often called Chinese Medicine Street. Wing Lok Street and Des Voeux Road West are lined with ginseng, bird's nest and dried seafood wholesalers and retailers. Queen's Road West has more retail shops. The area has been the Nam Pak Hong trading district for well over a century. It is still the place where the trade is most concentrated and where you can see the raw materials in volume. Other districts have shops, but this is the traditional heart of it.
How Prices Are Set, Especially for Ginseng
Price depends on species, origin, age, size, shape, colour, and whether the item is wild or cultivated. A small, ordinary piece of cultivated ginseng might cost very little. A large, well-shaped wild or high mountain root can cost thousands of Hong Kong dollars for a single piece. Cordyceps follows the same logic. Wild specimens from the Tibetan plateau are scarce and expensive. Cultivated mycelium or flower is far cheaper.
Shops grade their stock. They know their regular customers. Tourists sometimes pay more because they do not know the grades. The outrageous prices you see are usually for the rarest, highest grade material that is bought by people who want the best or by wholesalers supplying high end customers. Everyday herbs such as goji, ginger, chrysanthemum or common tonic roots are affordable.
Yue Hwa Emporium on Nathan Road in Jordan is one of the places where the price of a single ginseng root can stop people in their tracks. The big family run store has been part of the district since the 1970s and still carries a proper Chinese medicine and tonic section on the ground floor alongside the clothes, ceramics and souvenirs. Walk past the counters and you will see whole roots sitting under glass with price tags that run into the hundreds of thousands of Hong Kong dollars, and in some cases US$200,000 to US$250,000 (roughly HK$1,560,000 to HK$1,950,000) for a single high grade wild American or Asian ginseng root. I have stood there with guests who simply stare at the number and shake their heads. Most people buy the ordinary sliced American ginseng or the packaged products that cost a fraction of that. The rare pieces are there for the buyers who want the absolute best, or simply to look at and wonder how anyone decides to spend that much on a dried root. It is the same logic you see in the smaller shops in Sheung Wan, just displayed on a larger stage.
The Nathan Road Kowloon Paradox when it comes to Chinese Medicine in Hong Kong
I am not the only one that has asked this question, why are there are bunch of stores on Nathan Road in Kowloon in TST selling Chinese Medicine and dried seafood specifically to Mainland Chinese Tourists, the shops in TST (near the Peninsula Hotel) have some of the highest retail rentals in Hong Kong.
The main reasons are perceived quality and convenience, not a genuine shortage of the same goods across the border in Mainland China.
Mainland Chinese tourists have long treated Hong Kong as a place where medicines, proprietary Chinese medicines, ginseng and dried goods are more likely to be authentic and properly regulated. That perception dates from earlier decades when counterfeiting and quality problems were more common on the mainland. Even though many of the roots, fungi and dried seafood on Nathan Road are imported from the same Chinese or Southeast Asian sources that supply shops in Guangzhou or Shenzhen, the Hong Kong packaging, the shop environment and the general reputation still carry weight for some buyers. Buying a box of ginseng or cordyceps in Tsim Sha Tsui also functions as a gift or souvenir with a Hong Kong origin story attached.
The location itself does the rest. Nathan Road is where the tourists already are, seven days a week. High rents are covered by high margins on a relatively small number of expensive sales rather than high volume at low prices. The same strip has a long record of complaints to the Consumer Council about pricing tricks: quoting a price per catty while charging per tael or mace, grinding herbs into powder before revealing the total, or pressuring people who “look unwell.” A large share of those complaints come from Mainland Chinese visitors. The shops know the audience and the flow; the audience knows Hong Kong has a reputation for reliability, even when the individual shop is trading on that reputation rather than delivering it.
So the practical answer is a mixture of lingering trust in Hong Kong standards, the convenience of buying while already there, and the willingness of some operators to charge tourist prices that would not work on the mainland. The goods themselves are rarely unique to Hong Kong.
Standards, Testing and Government Regulation
Western medicine has strict clinical trials, manufacturing standards and post-market surveillance. Chinese Medicine in Hong Kong is also regulated, though the system is different. The Chinese Medicine Ordinance (Cap. 549) covers practitioners and proprietary Chinese medicines. Practitioners must be registered or listed. Proprietary products must be registered before they can be sold. They have to meet requirements for safety, quality and efficacy claims.
Chinese herbal medicines are subject to market surveillance. The Department of Health takes samples and tests them for heavy metals, pesticide residues, sulphur dioxide, aflatoxins and other contaminants. Limits exist. Some minerals used in traditional formulas contain heavy metals by nature, and those are handled separately. Accredited laboratories in Hong Kong can perform the required tests. The Government Laboratory also supports this work.
It is not identical to the Western pharmaceutical system. Herbal formulas are complex mixtures. Individual response varies. Interactions with Western drugs are possible. The regulation aims to keep dangerous contamination out of the market and to ensure that what is sold is what the label says it is. Serious side effects are reported and investigated.
Typical Prices for 10 Popular Items
Prices move with grade, season and shop. These are rough retail ranges seen in Hong Kong shops and online in recent months. Converted at roughly 7.8 Hong Kong dollars to 1 US dollar.
American ginseng slices, ordinary grade, 150 g: HK$78 to HK$140 (US$10 to US$18)
Higher grade American ginseng, 150 g: HK$250 to HK$480 (US$32 to US$62)
Cultivated cordyceps capsules or powder, typical pack: HK$250 to HK$500 (US$32 to US$64)
Wild cordyceps, small quantity: thousands of HK$ (hundreds of US$)
Goji berries, 500 g: HK$40 to HK$80 (US$5 to US$10)
Astragalus root slices, 100 g: HK$30 to HK$60 (US$4 to US$8)
Angelica root (Dang Gui), 100 g: HK$40 to HK$90 (US$5 to US$12)
Dried chrysanthemum flowers, 100 g: HK$25 to HK$50 (US$3 to US$6)
Lingzhi spore capsules, typical pack: HK$300 to HK$600 (US$38 to US$77)
Notoginseng powder, 75 g: HK$120 to HK$200 (US$15 to US$26)
Consultation at a local Chinese Medicine clinic: HK$120 to HK$300 (US$15 to US$38), plus the cost of the herbs.
Is It All in the Mind or Are There Real Benefits?
Some of it is expectation and the therapeutic relationship. That is true of any system of medicine. Some of it is not. Acupuncture has a reasonable body of evidence for certain types of pain, including knee osteoarthritis, low back pain and some headaches. The effect is not always larger than sham acupuncture, but it is often better than no treatment and comparable to some standard pain medicines for specific conditions.
Herbal research is more mixed. Many studies are small or of variable quality. Some individual herbs and formulas show promising results for particular symptoms or as supportive care. Others do not hold up under rigorous testing. The fact that millions of people use the system and report benefit does not prove every claim, but it also does not mean the whole tradition is placebo. Hong Kong's increasing integration of the two systems, including in public hospitals, suggests that clinicians see practical value in selected areas.
A Westerner's Scepticism and a Practical Note
Yes, I am a sceptic and living here for over 50 years has not changed me, I think part of the problem is that the Government has not made much of an effort to make it clear that there is a role for Chinese Medicine not as a replacement for Western Medicine but as an alternative holistic therapy - I used to be a lot blunter about Chinese Medicine, one of my favourite response is not for publication as it invoved the death of my younger brother in Hong Kong when he was 33 and the whole Chinese Medicine thing played a significant role in his passing
Time is a great healer and now I actually read articles about Chinese Medicine particularly in relation to my own own medical issues and I have asked my own Doctor if there are any advances in their healing abilities as it pertains to my own issue, not yet is the answer to that
I still take my Western medicines. I am not about to replace them with a bag of dried herbs or ingest dry lizard powder on the strength of a shop sign. At the same time I have watched friends and neighbours use Chinese Medicine for years for conditions that Western medicine manages but does not always resolve. The new hospital, the district clinics and the integrated services in public hospitals show that the city has decided this is not going away.
If a Chinese Medicine shop owner looked at my list of 16 daily medicines he would almost certainly produce a formula or a set of recommendations based on the pattern he saw. The list includes insulin, heart medicines, kidney medicines, weight loss drugs and high blood pressure drugs. I simply cannot imagine any Chinese medicine formula keeping me medically sound in the way those prescriptions do. Insulin is the clearest example. There is no known Chinese medicine, herb or formula that has been shown to match the measurable, reliable effect of insulin for people who need it. Some traditional formulas and individual herbs have been studied for modest supportive effects on blood sugar in type 2 diabetes, usually alongside conventional treatment, but none replace insulin or come close to its proven role. Whether any Chinese medicine formula would do the same job as my current regimen is a question for proper clinical assessment, not for a casual conversation over the counter. The sensible approach is to tell both your Western doctor and your Chinese Medicine practitioner exactly what you are taking.,
So there you go.
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