I usually make a trip to Beijing once a year. I go to visit my wife’s family, to study acupuncture, tuina and to just take it easy. The first thing that I want to eat when I get off the plane is not one of the other famous Beijing dishes like Beijing duck, zha jiang mian, chao gan, etc. All I want are a few bowls of dou zhi. Dou zhi is a Muslim Beijing snack food that is very popular with old Beijing people. When I say old Beijing I mean both the elderly and people that have family roots in Beijing going back a few generations.
Dou zhi is a fermented soup/drink made from mostly mung beans. In the summer it can be drunk raw and in the winter it can be heated. All places that make dou zhi in Beijing keep the recipe a very closely guarded secret. There are definitely mung beans in there but I am not sure what other ingredients. Most restaurants that serve it need to have it brought in because most cooks do not know how to make it.When you walk into a restaurant or a dou zhi place you can smell it as soon as you walk into the door. When I first tried it I thought it smelled and tasted horrible. It smells like sweaty gym socks and tastes sour. It was awful. After two more times of trying it I started to love it. Now I am addicted to it. Local people say after three times you are hooked. Traditionally most people drink dou zhi with jiao chuan and some pickled vegetables. Jiao chuan looks like a thin doughnut but it is crunchy all the way through. continue reading
Did you know you can take control of your life and health by adjusting your lifestyle and diet? Beyond the well-known public health messaging of “Eat Less, Exercise More”, your body is a complex system of microorganisms that can fall out of balance with the slightest irritation to something you have eaten or are doing in your day-to-day life.
Acupuncture is a system of medicine that has existed for thousands of years in Asia. Today it is practiced in China, Korean, Vietnam, Japan and many other countries all over the world. There are many different styles with many different techniques. There is one single thing that makes acupuncture work regardless of the style that is being used. Proper needle manipulation to achieve the “de qi” sensation. You might be asking yourself what the heck is “de qi”. De qi is a sensation that the acupuncturist illicit from proper needle insertion and manipulation. A patient should feel pressure, soreness, distention, heaviness, warmth, or some sort of movement along the course of the channel. Some people describe the feeling of movement as a feeling of water or electricity. These responses tell the body to perform certain functions. They reprogram the body from a state of illness to a state of health. They also tell the practitioner that they have needled the point correctly.