chinese_style_4_being_healthy

In Chinese culture, almost anything can be held to have a health benefit if used in a certain way — even being struck with a meat cleaver. Tapping the sharp edge of a cleaver on the flesh is said to benefit the skin and muscles and to be relaxing. The Huayuan Street night market in Hsinchu, northern Taiwan, this month promoted the meat cleaver healing method, attracting large crowds of curious onlookers to this often spectacular performance. The ‘doctor’ holds a cleaver — sometimes two — like a pork butcher and strikes the patient with the sharp edge… A city official said that the cleaver method is recognized as a form of legal alternative medicine, along with qigong, cupping therapy and gua sha.” w/ photo