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Hands-on veteran cures the sick
By Xu Wenwen |
March 3, 2010, Wednesday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
JIELIAN Community resident Yang Zhengjun picked up massage skills to help her sick husband and since retiring she has forged a second career helping patients with her hands, acupuncture and doses of TCM, Xu Wenwen reports.
A Hangzhou woman was determined to learn traditional Chinese medicine after she retired from work so she could give free treatment to her neighbors and others.
Yang Zhengjun, whose original job had nothing to do with medicine, is helping society through healing others in a second "career" in the twilight of her life.
The 68-year-old woman has been well-known in Hangzhou's Jielian Community since 1998 when she started providing free massage services in the park.
As the results of her treatment became better known, the residents' committee offered Yang a 20-square-meter room with three beds to continue treating people.
And these days it's not unusual for queues of patients to form outside, keeping her busy from morning to night.
Yang receives 20 patients a day, from children to senior citizens - most are regular customers but new faces are attracted by her fame.
She doesn't charge anyone for treatment or medicine, but she collects 10 yuan (US$1.46) from regular customers each month to cover the utilities bills.
Yang rose through her working career to be the director of a leather clothing factory, so her job was not linked to medicine.
She learned massage techniques to give pain relief to her husband who suffered from lung cancer from the 1970s.
After her husband passed away, she volunteered after 1998 to help massage other people.
Her extended massage services started by accident after she was wandering through a park one day. She heard an old woman crying about the misery of feeling aches all over her body.
Yang immediately offered her a massage and after several weeks the old woman felt better.
Other older people suffering various pains started lining up in the park to avail themselves of Yang's free massage and from then on she offered regular services.
"When I realized that so many people needed help, I thought I owed it to society because my husband and I received lots of help when he was sick," recalls Yang.
She eventually quit her well-paid job, bought a blanket and draped it on a big flat rock in the park so the people she was massaging would be more comfortable.
Yang has no formal massage training but has picked up her skills by reading books and watching professional massagers.
The residents' committee eventually made available a small room as her clinic so she could continue treating people when the weather became too bad outdoors.
She was also sent to acquire formal massage, acupuncture and herb prescription skills.
Yang gives massages in her clinic during the day and studies at school at night. She has already obtained a junior and an intermediate massage license.
The first patient Yang cured of a major problem was an engineer who was working in America. The man, a former resident of Jielian Community, suffered a herniated disc and was told in hospital that he needed surgery which had only a 50 percent success rate.
The engineer looked in desperation for help from Yang. Though relatively inexperienced at the time, she tried her best with massage and acupuncture to alleviate the hernia.
Four months later, the man was cured and able to return to work in the United States.
Three years ago, Yang took in a six-year-old girl as a patient. The girl had suffered hearing loss as a result of excessive medication.
She had been told by a hospital in Shanghai that there was no hope of a recovery because her auricular muscles were all dead.
However, through Yang's acupuncture treatment and food therapy, the girl regained her hearing and is now a substitute volleyball player in a country team.
So far, Yang has spent 28,300 hours treating patients, most suffering from lumbago, and more than 200 of them have been completely cured.
"It is not that I'm better than hospitals, but some people cannot afford expensive medical costs," says Yang. As well as massage and acupuncture treatment, Yang prescribes medicine for people as well. She grows many herbs behind her clinic, mainly common prescription ingredients, like honeysuckle and self-heal.
To test the efficacy of her remedies, Yang insists on taking at least a double dose of the medicine she prescribes to others before giving them to patients.
"I test my medicine in the daytime, so I can be saved if some tragedy happens," jokes Yang.
Last year, the community allocated a 50-square-meter yard for her to grow herbs and a bunch of senior citizens formed a volunteer group to maintain the plants.
A Hangzhou woman was determined to learn traditional Chinese medicine after she retired from work so she could give free treatment to her neighbors and others.
Yang Zhengjun, whose original job had nothing to do with medicine, is helping society through healing others in a second "career" in the twilight of her life.
The 68-year-old woman has been well-known in Hangzhou's Jielian Community since 1998 when she started providing free massage services in the park.
As the results of her treatment became better known, the residents' committee offered Yang a 20-square-meter room with three beds to continue treating people.
And these days it's not unusual for queues of patients to form outside, keeping her busy from morning to night.
Yang receives 20 patients a day, from children to senior citizens - most are regular customers but new faces are attracted by her fame.
She doesn't charge anyone for treatment or medicine, but she collects 10 yuan (US$1.46) from regular customers each month to cover the utilities bills.
Yang rose through her working career to be the director of a leather clothing factory, so her job was not linked to medicine.
She learned massage techniques to give pain relief to her husband who suffered from lung cancer from the 1970s.
After her husband passed away, she volunteered after 1998 to help massage other people.
Her extended massage services started by accident after she was wandering through a park one day. She heard an old woman crying about the misery of feeling aches all over her body.
Yang immediately offered her a massage and after several weeks the old woman felt better.
Other older people suffering various pains started lining up in the park to avail themselves of Yang's free massage and from then on she offered regular services.
"When I realized that so many people needed help, I thought I owed it to society because my husband and I received lots of help when he was sick," recalls Yang.
She eventually quit her well-paid job, bought a blanket and draped it on a big flat rock in the park so the people she was massaging would be more comfortable.
Yang has no formal massage training but has picked up her skills by reading books and watching professional massagers.
The residents' committee eventually made available a small room as her clinic so she could continue treating people when the weather became too bad outdoors.
She was also sent to acquire formal massage, acupuncture and herb prescription skills.
Yang gives massages in her clinic during the day and studies at school at night. She has already obtained a junior and an intermediate massage license.
The first patient Yang cured of a major problem was an engineer who was working in America. The man, a former resident of Jielian Community, suffered a herniated disc and was told in hospital that he needed surgery which had only a 50 percent success rate.
The engineer looked in desperation for help from Yang. Though relatively inexperienced at the time, she tried her best with massage and acupuncture to alleviate the hernia.
Four months later, the man was cured and able to return to work in the United States.
Three years ago, Yang took in a six-year-old girl as a patient. The girl had suffered hearing loss as a result of excessive medication.
She had been told by a hospital in Shanghai that there was no hope of a recovery because her auricular muscles were all dead.
However, through Yang's acupuncture treatment and food therapy, the girl regained her hearing and is now a substitute volleyball player in a country team.
So far, Yang has spent 28,300 hours treating patients, most suffering from lumbago, and more than 200 of them have been completely cured.
"It is not that I'm better than hospitals, but some people cannot afford expensive medical costs," says Yang. As well as massage and acupuncture treatment, Yang prescribes medicine for people as well. She grows many herbs behind her clinic, mainly common prescription ingredients, like honeysuckle and self-heal.
To test the efficacy of her remedies, Yang insists on taking at least a double dose of the medicine she prescribes to others before giving them to patients.
"I test my medicine in the daytime, so I can be saved if some tragedy happens," jokes Yang.
Last year, the community allocated a 50-square-meter yard for her to grow herbs and a bunch of senior citizens formed a volunteer group to maintain the plants.
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