Grandma's
Remedy

Chinese herbal medicine had been studied, mastered and perfected by ancient Chinese doctors for thousands of years. The herbal recipe to cure leukemia was originally part of a larger collection of books and recipes in treasured medical journals written by a "Master Healer" and the master healers before him. This type of medicine was the convention up until the Chinese Cultural Revolution attempted to eradicate and destroy their methodologies. When the Chinese Communist Revolution and Cultural Revolution began its destruction of Chinese traditions, culture, philosophy, and religion during the 1940s - 1960s, this Master Healer escaped the war-stricken country on a small boat to the island of Taiwan in order to preserve his livelihood and protect these medical treasures. In those days, immigrants from mainland China were often discriminated against by earlier “native” Chinese settlers in Taiwan much like later European immigrants processed through Ellis Island who faced nativist sentiment from US-born white men. With no money, no food, no job, and homeless, for months this Master Healer went from door to door each day begging local residents to spare some food and a warm bed.

On a rainy day, struggling in starvation, and bearing months of hardships of verbal and physical abuse, this Master Healer stumbled upon my grandmother’s front steps in the farmlands of Taoyuan, not far from where Taipei International Airport is today. Knock. Knock. Knock. "Hi. How are you? I am a traveler from..." My grandmother interrupted the stranger immediately with hysterical concern for his well-being, the type of genuine old-fashioned concern you always expect from your grandmother, especially on a rainy day soaking wet with no umbrealla, and invited him inside before he could continue to speak. My grandmother immediately drew up a hot bath for the stranger, and before he knew it, the man was bathing and cleansing himself of the wounds from his journey.

My grandmother always had a way with getting people to do exactly as she wished but always with the best intentions and concern for their well-being. Every meal anyone had with my grandmother, even if you were completely stuffed, she somehow found a way to convince you to eat twice or three times more. During our meals, she was always busy tending to everyone’s needs while she barely ate herself. So it was no surprise that under my grandmother’s direction, this man also ate until he couldn’t move. Although the dishes were simple farmer’s homemade foods, it may have been the best meal he had in his life.

After the meal, the man told my grandparents how he escaped from China to seek survival in Taiwan while purposely not disclosing his profession fearing that it may bring trouble for my grandparents. My grandparents told him not to worry and said that our family had more than enough to accommodate him and that he could stay with us for as long as he liked. My grandparents opened their doors to this stranger and treated him like a member of our family. Grateful for saving his life, the Master Healer did everything he could to help out on my grandparents’ farm and gave them several tips on farming and planting all sorts of vegetables, herbs, and fruits. As time passed, he gradually introduced my grandparents to many methods in which to prepare the different types of herbs they planted for various medicinal purposes.

After several months, the man finally saved up some money and decided that had to leave. His decision to leave was met with strong opposition from my grandmother as she felt there was no rush for him to leave. However, the man insisted and couldn’t bear to continue being burden in their lives. For once, my grandmother conceded but left him with an open invitation to return at any time. After his departure, my grandmother found the man's treasured medical journals with a heartfelt note expressing his everlasting gratitude and eternal debt to my grandparents. The man left the journals behind as a gift with all the secrets necessary for my grandmother to treat anything from a common cold, infections, cuts and bruises, to infertility, and even cancer. The man never returned and was never seen by my grandmother again.

My grandmother, being the overbearing caring person she always was, used the medical journals to try and help as many people as she could. All the neighbors, friends, and family would always seek her help when illness fell upon their loved ones and the entire town loved and respected her for all the people she helped over the years. That is how my grandmother became known for her herbal remedies for treating all types of illnesses and, to this day, if you mention her name in the older shops and markets of Taoyuan City you instantly receive a warm welcoming with many great stories of her life. If it weren’t for my grandmother’s passion to help others, she wouldn’t have learned the remedy to cure leukemia and I wouldn’t be alive today. In my opinion, I believe the Master Healer left the medical journals for my grandmother not only as a gift but also because he recognized my grandmother’s sincere care for others and knew that the secrets of the journals would be best put to use in her hands.

These herbal remedies and recipes have been administered, perfected, and prescribed by Chinese doctors such as the “Master Healer” for thousands of years. In the past, going to a western hospital was always a last resort for Chinese people, especially poor farmers. They have always relied on herbal remedies as the conventional method and viewed the expensive treatments of western medicine as “untrustworthy”. However with much of the Chinese medicine culture and its knowledge destroyed or lost during the Chinese Cultural Revolution, the preferred healthcare of choice slowly shifted towards western medicine. But, many still continued to secretly practice Chinese medicine and others preserved the culture and knowledge in rural parts of China or by escaping to Taiwan.

In recent years, increasingly more people are returning to Chinese medicine for various treatments as people begin to realize the significant long and short term side effects of western medicine. The culture of Chinese medicine is now slowly being brought back to light. With the demand for natural medicine rising, many hospitals in Taiwan now have Chinese medicine departments for their patients. Even large drug companies are now using science to discover the natural healing properties of certain natural ingredients. This trend towards natural medicine will only continue to gain popularity and by combining the power of natural ingredients via eastern medicine with scientific data via western methodology, it could revolutionize our entire approach towards medicine and potentially find the cure to various chronic diseases. I believe the best starting point would be to use the natural remedies and formulas with thousands of years of successful cases perfected by past Chinese doctors such as the "Master Healer" and research the validity of these formulas by discovering the scientific explanations on how these particular compounds can treat particular diseases. Of all the formulas, of course, I decided to begin with the formula that cured me of leukemia and continue my grandma's passion to help others, on a much larger scale.