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Questions people ask

问答wèn dá · asking and answering

Questions answered
18
Shelves
8
Oldest source
Huangdi Neijing, c. 200 BCE
Price
Free to read

Each of these pages takes one question people actually type — why do I wake at three, what is qi, why are my hands always cold — and answers it the way a physician would across a desk: directly, in the first paragraph, with the classical source underneath and a plain line about when a page is not the right tool. They are free to read and written to be quoted.

A wall of traditional herb-cabinet drawers in aged elm with small brass pulls.
Plate 01 · 问答A dispensary’s drawers hold their answers sorted by kind, not by question. These pages work the other way round: they begin from the question as it is actually asked, and sort from there.

眠 · 3 questions

Sleep

Waking in the small hours, what to eat, and which hour the tradition wants you in bed.

  1. An unmade linen bed at first light.Why do I wake up at 3am?The liver hourWhich organ holds the hour, the three usual pictures, and what tends to let you back under.
  2. A small handful of pale dried lotus seeds, photographed on warm plaster.What should I eat when I can’t sleep?The evening mealThe evening meal decides more than any single food; then four things the tradition has kept on the table.
  3. Morning light across a plaster wall, a celadon cup of clear infusion and dried herbs on a low elm table.What time should I go to bed, according to Chinese medicine?The hoursAsleep before eleven, up with the light, moved with the season; why the rising hour is the one to fix.

神 · 1 question

The mind

The mind that will not stop, read as a housing problem rather than a discipline problem.

  1. Hands writing case notes with a fountain pen, seen from above.Why can’t I stop thinking at night?The mind unhousedThe spirit with nowhere to rest: three pictures of the mind that runs after dark, and what quiets it.

气 · 2 questions

Tiredness and cold

Tired after a full night, cold hands and feet: what the tradition calls empty.

  1. Steam rising from a cup through a single beam of light in a dark room.Why am I still tired after a full night’s sleep?Unrefreshing sleepSleep that does not refresh, read as one rhythm with the day; four pictures, and the plank under all of them.
  2. Low dawn sun striking a rough warm stone wall.Why are my hands and feet always cold?Cold at the endsWarmth that does not reach the ends: three pictures of the cold hand, and what the tradition does about each.

脾胃 · 2 questions

Digestion

Bloated after eating, sleepy after eating: the middle burner and what it asks of a meal.

  1. Curled pieces of aged dried tangerine peel, dark amber, showing the pitted rind, photographed on warm plaster.Why do I feel so tired after eating?The after-lunch slumpA spleen carrying a meal it cannot lift: three pictures of the after-lunch slump, and what to change at the table.
  2. A bowl of plain congee with a wooden spoon on a linen cloth.Why do I feel bloated after eating?The swollen bellyThe turbid that will not descend: four pictures of the swollen belly after a meal, and what changes at the table.

肤 · 1 question

Skin

Why skin itches at night, and what the tradition reads in the hour.

  1. Condensation beading on cold window glass with grey light behind.Why does my skin itch at night?The night itchThe guard turning inward at dark: three pictures of the night itch, and what the tradition does about each.

头 · 1 question

Headaches

Headaches that keep an hour, and what the afternoon says about them.

  1. A dozen small dried chrysanthemum flower heads, pale gold, photographed on warm plaster.Why do I get headaches in the afternoon?The four o’clock headacheThe plain causes first, then the yangming hour: four pictures of the afternoon headache and what the tradition does about each.

舌 · 5 questions

The tongue

Teeth marks, a white or yellow coat, cracks: what the tradition reads on the tongue, and how to photograph it.

  1. A shallow celadon dish of still water catching window light.What does your tongue say about your health?The photograph of the insideThe oldest looking in the tradition: what the colour, shape, coat and moisture of the tongue are each read for, and how to photograph it in daylight.
  2. Three chalk-white cubes of dried poria, matte and porous, photographed on warm plaster.Why does my tongue have teeth marks?The scalloped edgeThe scalloped edge: why a tongue that is a little swollen takes the print of the teeth, the four pictures it belongs to, and what changes at the table.
  3. A small heap of polished job’s tears barley grains, bone white, photographed on warm plaster.What does a white coating on your tongue mean?The white coatThin, thick, greasy or dry: what the tradition reads in a white coat on the tongue, why it says the stomach makes it, and when white needs looking at.
  4. A few dried mulberry leaves, brittle and sage-grey, photographed on warm plaster.What does a yellow tongue coating mean?The yellow coatThin or thick, greasy or dry: what the tradition reads in a yellow coat, the heat it points to, the coffee that can fake it, and when yellow needs looking at.
  5. Moonlight on still dark water.Why is my tongue cracked?The cracked tongueDeep or fine, red or pale, bare or coated: what the tradition reads in a cracked tongue, which cracks are simply yours, and when a crack needs looking at.

养生 · 3 questions

Nourishing life

Qi, warm water, the hours of the day: the ideas the other pages rest on.

  1. An aged thread-bound volume on dark stone under a single museum light.What is qi?The word itselfThe word, the classical picture, the four kinds and the five jobs: what Chinese medicine actually means by qi, and what it is not asking you to believe.
  2. Bare branches against a pale winter sky seen through a window.What is yangsheng, and how do you actually do it?Nourishing lifeNot a supplement and not a secret: the four pillars the classics ask of an ordinary week.
  3. A knuckle of fresh ginger root and three thin dried ginger slices, photographed on warm plaster.Why does Chinese medicine say to drink warm water?The warm cupThe stomach as a pot over a fire: what the classics actually ask, who the warm cup is for, and where the advice is overstated.

What these pages are

One question, answered once, with the source underneath

If you arrived here from a search, you were probably not looking for Chinese medicine. You typed a question into a search box at some inconvenient hour — why you wake at three, why your feet are never warm, whether the tongue really shows anything — and a page on this site answered it. That is on purpose. The tradition has been answering exactly these questions for two thousand years and answers them well; it simply does so under names most people have never heard.

So each page opens with the answer, in plain English, in its first paragraph. Under that comes the classical name for the thing, the passage it rests on with its date and its original characters, the two or three pictures the complaint usually sorts into, what tends to help, what the kitchen has offered, and a line about when the question needs a person rather than a page.

Suwen, chapter 1Plain Questions, On the Heavenly Truth of High Antiquityc. 200 BCE

Those of high antiquity who knew the Way modelled themselves on yin and yang, kept to the arts and the numbers, ate and drank with restraint, rose and rested with regularity, and did not wear themselves out with rash labour.

法于阴阳，和于术数，食饮有节，起居有常，不妄作劳

The pages rest on the rest of the site. Where a question has a longer answer, it hands you on to the six common concerns; the pictures it names are the five patterns; the foods are from the shared-origin list; the points are the three you can reach yourself.

Questions

About the question pages themselves

Can I act on what a question page says?

You can act on the floor — the hours, the meals, the warm feet — because none of it depends on which picture you are. The parts that do depend on it, the foods that cool against the foods that build, are the parts a reading exists to decide. Nothing on these pages is a promise, and nothing on them replaces a clinician licensed where you live.

Why do the pages avoid Western illness names?

Because the tradition never grouped complaints that way, and because we are not licensed where you live to use those names about you. A question page describes what you can feel and see. Where the word you arrived with matters, the longer Common concerns page it links to has a section on exactly that.

How do I know which picture I am?

Usually you cannot, from the complaint alone; that is the honest reason these pages exist beside a reading rather than instead of one. The tongue decides more than the story does, and a person can rarely read their own. A reading takes thirty answers and one photograph and names the picture in writing.

How are new questions chosen?

From what people ask us by email and across the desk, and from what they type. Each page is one question as it is actually searched, answered once and properly, with the source underneath. We add a few each month and date every one.

The reading

A page answers one question. A reading answers yours.

Thirty questions, one photograph of your tongue in daylight, and a physician’s written reading of what sits underneath — in Chinese and in English, sent within 48 hours.

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