A traditional Chinese medicine garden of herbs, a TCM herb and culture museum, a restaurant and teahouse have just opened in Pudong, illuminating the ancient mysteries of healing. Zhang Qian decocts the story.

A parklike garden is filled with flourishing medicinal herbs and the air is rich with aromas of brewing herbal potions. A clear stream meanders through this rustic setting, crossed here and there by old-style wooden bridges. A pavilion overlooks the stream. And there are a few traditional Chinese buildings with whitewashed walls, upturned eaves and black-tiled roofs.

This restful setting is the recently opened Yida Herb Garden, a TCM theme park that introduces traditional Chinese medicine and explains basic principles and healing culture dating back several thousand years.

The garden, named after famous Yida TCM Pharmacy in Shanghai, covers 23 hectares in Kangqiao Town in Pudong New Area.

It's perfect for an educational spring outing and there's plenty to do, but construction is still in progress and at this time it is only open to group booking in advance.

The garden features not only an herb garden containing around 500 herbs (TCM recognizes more than 10,000 herbs, animals and natural substances in its pharmacopia), but also a museum of herbs and museum of TCM culture, including basics of acupuncture, acupressure and moxibustion.

Visitors can see rare and valuable medicinal ingredients, get a general idea of herb processing, learn to identify herbs and finally enjoy a healthy TCM meal at a nicely appointed restaurant with VIP rooms. They can also sit in a traditional teahouse and enjoy herbal teas. Some people practice healing tai chi.

In the future, a TCM practitioner will be on site for consultations, writing prescriptions to be filled at a complete apothecary.

Bottle gourd

At the park's front gate stands a statue of a large bottle gourd; hollowed and dried gourds were widely used as bottles for TCM pills in ancient times. Gourds symbolized TCM pharmacies and physicians.

"Xuanhu jishi," literally "hanging a bottle gourd to save lives in the world," is a TCM motto and the principle that guided the ancestor of Chen Weirong, founder of Yida Herbal Garden.

The name Yida Pharmacy was familiar to many old Shanghai residents for decades. Chen's great grandfather, a TCM doctor, opened Yida Pharmacy on Waixiangua Street in the Bund area in 1910 in the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). Though the family had to move, suspend and restart operations several times because of war and upheaval, the family is still in TCM.

While Chen did not train as a doctor, he still works in the medical field, running a TCM drug company.

Seeing that so many Chinese young people were not familiar with traditional healing, Chen was thinking about an attractive way to popularize TCM.

The chance came in 2009 when he bought a large parcel of farmland in Pudong for the industrialized cultivation of earthworms, a TCM ingredient. Hu di long (earthworm) literally means "Shanghai earth dragon" and is used to help dispel pathogenic heat (yang energy), soothe the liver, ease difficult breathing and unblock energy channels. Since they are grown underground, Chen was inspired to use the surface area for a TCM park.

More than 500 species of plant are grown in the garden, many of them flowering and providing attractive scenery. They are labeled, so visitors can identify them and learn their uses.

"Every plant in the garden can be used as a medical herb if you can distinguish them," says Xue Genrong, in charge of the general operations of the park. Almost all the herbs that can survive in Shanghai are planted in the garden, even the "lawn" is "cool" (yin energy) malan grass that helps cool the blood, stop bleeding and dispel pathogenic heat and damp.

To Chen, the TCM park is not a simple herb garden but a window offering a small but meaningful view of many aspects of TCM.

"This is a huge plan and big job, and it's not completely finished, despite all the construction in the past few years," Xue says.

Largely completed are the garden, the TCM Herb Museum, TCM Culture Museum, Herbal Restaurant and Herbal Teahouse. But the Saviors' Corridor exhibiting statues and stories of 70 famous TCM figures is still under construction.

The herb museum, a highlight, is structured like a traditional TCM pharmacy containing both a consulting room in front and a herb processing workshop in the rear.

"There's complex processing before a herb is finally used for medication and different ingredients need different kinds of processing, though most people know only about the final decoction cooking step," Xue says.

The workshop displays traditional steelyard scales, winnowers, knives, choppers, grinders, mortars and pestles. Visitors watch herbs being weighed, winnowed, washed, shaped, chopped, ground, then fried, steamed, boiled or otherwise prepared.

"By walking clockwise, visitors get an idea of all steps," Xue says.

Rare agarwood

About 400-500 TCM ingredients are exhibited. TCM recognizes more than 10,000 natural medicinal ingredients, including plants and animals, but this small sample contains fascinating items.

Displays include a 2-meter-long piece of chen xiang or agarwood, a precious, dark, resinous heartwood used for essential oils and fragrances. "Warm" (yang energy) agarwood helps regulate energy circulation, relieve pain and soothe the digestive system.

Rows of dragon bones (long gu), the fossils of ancient mammals are also displayed under glass. "Cold" (yin energy) dragon bones help soothe nerves and the liver and help heal wounds.

"Most dragon bones used in TCM are fossil fragments; these complete pieces of ancient mammal bones are quite rare in the market and give visitors a clear idea of what dragon bones really are," Xue says.

The rare items are all part of Chen's private collection.

The culture museum uses physical and interactive exhibits to demonstrate principles of TCM, classic texts, famous physicians, basic diagnostic methods, acupuncture, acupressure, tai chi, TCM massage and other aspects of healing.

Videos screen tai chi and classic wu qin xi (five mimic-animal exercises). There's also room to practice.

Afterward visitors can relax and sip herbal tea in the pavilion near the stream. They can dine in the Herbal Restaurant featuring seasonal healthy and energy-reinforcing dishes. Herbal wines are displayed, including snake wine tonic, with the snake clearly visible.

The TCM theme park is part of a Popular Science Education Center in Shanghai, expected eventually to handle around 40,000 student visitors a year, Xue says.



Address: 599 Mianxin Rd, Kangqiao Town, Pudong New Area

Tel: 2091-6801

Tickets: 25-30 yuan/person, group visits only