Chocoviv’s Lifestyle Blog

Image Courtesy of Wikipedia

Summary

A cardiothoracic surgeon, Choi Yeon-kyung, from modern day Seoul meets the infamous acupuncturist, Heo Im, from 400 years ago, Joseon, when he travels through time……

Themes

1) oriental and western medicine:

At first, Choi was very against oriental medicine despite the fact that her own grandfather was a practitioner of 50 years. She blamed her grandfather for not able to cure her terminally ill mother with his knowledge…..She was only a child, who had also lost her father previous from a motorcycle accident. But, she lost memories of this till the appearance of Heo Im.

Despite being extremely skilled in acupuncture at a young age, being born of low status commoner, he was looked down and ridiculed his whole life. He was burdened by the fact that he had to postpone a little girl’s treatment as he was summoned by the king. When he finally got the chance to heal the king’s migraines, he struggled internally as the king was not a good king. This ended badly as he got chased out of the palace and shot to his death by arrows. His death landed him in modern day Seoul, where he learned CPR and other modern techniques like sterilization to advance his skills as he travelled back to Joseon.

(I grew up with both aspects of medicine as a child. I am glad to see that acupuncturists and oriental medicine practitioners are a recognized by the government and insurance companies.)

As each of the doctors travelled into the other’s time, both were laughed at and called a quack even though they were both extremely skilled in their trade.

But as they got to know each other, they learned to respect and even admire each other’s knowledge and skill.

2) real characters:

There were two characters who actually existed in history that stood out.

“Heo Im (허임, 1570 – 1647) born in Naju, South Jeolla Province was a medical scientist of the Hayang Heo clan during the reign of King Seonjo of the Joseon Dynasty in Korea who was known for his contribution to the development of acupuncture.”—- Wikipedia

“Kim Chung-seon, born name Sayaka and often known by his pen name Mohadang, was a Japanese general who defected to Korea during the Japanese invasion. During the Japanese colonial era in the 20th century, Japanese officials and scholars tried to deny Kim’s existence.“Wikipedia

Conclusion:

Ignoring the fact that anything minuscule should cause a huge change in the future, I enjoyed watching them go back and forth the two time periods.

I hope that as time progresses, more and more communication between the oriental and western medical world shall happen to help more people.

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