Korean Job Discussion Forums

SweetLou · Joined: 26 Sep 2003 Location: mt. bu

Living in Asia has given me a bit of a passing interest in the usage of herbs and other staples of "oriental medicine," for their health benefits and/or any psychoactive / physiological effects.

Are there any good English-language resources about this -- online, in print, or otherwise?

Are there any plants or herbs that you guys use regularly?
(Try to refrain from making the obvious joke I've left the door wide open for...)

-SL

margaret · Joined: 14 Oct 2003

I'm also interested in Korean herbal medicine but have very limited info, and don't know any guide.
I regularly drink Ssanghwa tea which is supposed to be good for the immune system, some kind of black berries dried on twigs, which my boss said was "lung tea" and some tea made out of little red berries that taste like ajwain. Also some tea made out of dried fungus that my boss gave me and said prevents cancer. I know this is all not too helpful without names.
Margaret

Qinella · Joined: 25 Feb 2005 Location: the crib

bump

I'd like to know also.

skookum · Joined: 11 Mar 2005

white_shadow · Joined: 28 Mar 2005

I think most of it is BS. I grew up with it, my mom would make me take it when I was a kid. She took me to an acupuncturist for a broken ankle! I'm sure some herbs are an actually source of some random chemical that has benefits an uses in western medicine.

Just go to some market. When you see yellow jars of ginseng, you can ask the seller what you want. I'm sure he knows some catchy phrases like 'make you big man' and 'bone feel good', to sway you in the right direction.

Cedar · Posted: Wed Jun 15, 2005 9:49 am Post subject:

For muscle and tendon injuries accupuncture will heal you in 1/4 of the time of the western method (take these pain drugs, now don't move around, okay?).

There is a guy, I think he's Austrian, came to Korea about 10+ years back, studied Korean and graduated from a Korean tradish medicine program, he writes sometimes for the Seoul magazine I think. He's really awesome... knows tons of hanja, very popular as a doctor, excellent Korean... If you pick up a copy of Seoul magazine (at Kyobo) you could email him and ask him for his suggestions on reading material.

In general, when I feel sick I go to the pharmacies that carry tradish (han-yak) medicine and get hooked up... usually keeps me healthy.