Five Internal Organs, The Concept Of Chinese And Western Medicine And Tcm Cross-cultural Research

Intercultural communication of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) started as early as the Tang and Song dynasties, mainly with neighboring countries as Japan and Korea, the success of which was guaranteed by the then controlling position of Chinese culture. Modern intercultural communication of TCM includes two stages of development: from traditional culture to modern culture, and from modern culture to western culture. Generally speaking, TCM intercultural communication study requires conscious understanding of the status quo of both home and host cultures, even including mutual influences from the perspectives of politics, economy, and science.For the past 30 years, TCM intercultural communication has experienced a fast development and is in urgent need of universally accepted criteria for standard definition of TCM terms and concepts. However, experts in this field are facing a difficult situation that TCM clinical practices and researches are greatly divorced from TCM theories or are insufficient to uphold its uniqueness. As a matter of fact, researchers are not satisfied to see TCM be accepted as another complementary and alternative medicine (CAM).So taking five zang-organs concept as an example, this research aims at exploring the basic principles of TCM intercultural communication and providing advices on how to achieve efficient intercultural communication with TCM characteristics. Concepts of the five zang-organs represent a summarized term group of five interrelated systems on physiological functions and pathological of the human body in TCM. The five zang-organs are important composition in TCM theory and share the same characteristics of TCM in almost every point, including both advantage and disadvantage.This paper first discusses the differences of five zang-organs concepts between TCM and Western Medicine and the scientizing processes of five zang-organs. The paper proceeds to the approaches and thinking style in TCM intercultural communication from the aspects of medicine, science, culture, politics and economy. Finally, the paper analyzes an effective intercultural communication of TCM, using existing classics of TCM, as well as genetic methods, investigative questionnaires and interview with people of different culture backgrounds.This paper has three parts.First, it summarized differences of modern research on five zang-organs concept between TCM and Western Medicines, as well as its history, current condition and the confronting problems of TCM intercultural communication. The five zang-organs concept in TCM and the five organs concept in Western Medicine share the same name but are not the same matters. The five zang-organs concept is combined with ancient Chinese philosophies of qi, yinyang, and five-element theory. Besides some direct observation, most of the interpretations of the concept are obtained through observing outside phenomenon to hypothesize internal structures and validated by clinical practice repeatedly. Western five viscera concepts, named the same as five zang-organs literally in Chinese, were knowledge from delicate anatomy assisted by modern science and technology. They are different in essence. The anatomical structures in heart, liver, kidney, and lung are almost the same substances, while the position of spleen is still a question open, whose functions involve many viscera, organ systems, and energy metabolism. However, we cannot evade the differences by replacing TCM five zang-organs concepts with the western ones. Current research is not capable to explain the connotation of five zang-organs concept. Until now, the TCM intercultural communication of five zang-organs concept is not a successful process with approaches of modern science.Ever since modern Western Medicine came into China, TCM has not learned to rise from its passive position. TCM's entering into western society encourages TCM's study in China. It is considered as a good chance for TCM to establish a new image in the world. If TCM is accepted by westerners, it means TCM can find a position in modern medicine system. But there are three problems bothered TCM's intercultural communication: standardization, failure to coincidence in image and value, and academic intercultural difficulties.Secondly, comparison was done between five zang-organs concepts in TCM and those of the viscera in Western Medicine through physiology and academic system. We focused on the general, essential, and inevitable factors, especially unique methodology, in the forming and developing process of five zang-organs concept and TCM theory."Qi-monism,""correspondence between man and nature"in philosophy,"attaching much more importance to law of development and changes than matter,"and"image"thinking model in traditional culture formed qi-five elements-five zang-organs model, which were different from the five viscera concept established in atomism of traditional Western Medicine, greatly and essentially different from ones in reductionism of Western Medicine. Until now, TCM field are still unable to explain essence of each of the five zang-organs satisfactorily. But there still remain values in scientific explanation of some syndromes of five-zang organ and their interrelations.Thirdly, the paper explored factors influencing TCM intercultural communication through culture, politics, economy, as well as translation and writing. The paper discussed the basic measures in promoting efficient TCM intercultural communication: to modernize TCM system, to follow culture-domesticating principle, and to establish subject on TCM intercultural communication for its continuable development. The paper took five zang-organs as an example in TCM intercultural communication and proposed the above measures to be used in new cultural platform so as to promote TCM intercultural communication.