medical terms commonly known to Chinese but not to Westerners - and vice versa

[tooironic]

The other day I was doing research about "nasal polyps"... yeah, I know what you're thinking - what the hell are they?... Well basically it's when you get a growth of gunk in your nose that causes your nasal passages to clog up...

Having no idea about what it was called in Chinese, I described it to a Chinese friend in English and they immediately came up with the translation of 鼻息肉 (hmm... "breathing meat"... quite vivid, huh?) Later on I confirmed with another Chinese friend that this is indeed the right translation.

But what struck me was that both of my friends were pretty familiar with this condition - while in Australia I don't think I've ever heard anyone mention nasal polyps before. Even the word "polyp" I had barely heard once or twice in my life, and only ever referring to the sea creature. Yet apparently this condition is relatively common in both Australia and China.

So I was wondering if anyone else has encountered a similar experience - where, in one culture a medical term is very well known, while in another hardly anyone knows about it? I know, for example, in China the idea of anorexia (厌食症) and bulimia (暴食症) seems hardly known, bulimia in particular.

Cheers!

[anonymoose]

I think with many scientific terms, the Chinese word is a lot more readily understandable than the English equivalent. Whilst "polyp" is an infrequently used word in English, obviously 息 and 肉 are common in Chinese, and it is not a stretch to infer the meaning of 息肉. I mean, if you used a different expression to refer to "nasal polyp", such as "fleshy swelling in the nose", then it would also be readily understandable, right?

[xiaocai]

The 息 in 鼻息肉 means in excess or overgrowing, similar to the 息 in 利息. And I think this meaning is not widely used now except in some compound words and it does not seem so transparent to me. And I think many Chinese people will also have no idea what 息肉 means exactly, apart from maybe it has something to do with flesh.

[hbuchtel]

I was translating for an American friend whose Chinese wife is in the hospital right now (for a minor condition), and we had some confusion over the symptom "胸闷".

I'm quite used to hearing this in China, but when I translated it as "a feeling of oppression in her chest" the meaning didn't really get across. Finally we got to "A feeling like an elephant is sitting in her chest?!? That means she's having a heart attack!" "Well no, more like a small cat...the docs are not even considering the possibility of a heart attack".

My impression was that the strongest association my American friend had of that symptom was his memory of 'signs that you are having a heart attack', while for the Chinese patient it was just a common description of a sensation that can occur during the course of many different conditions (common cold, chronic cough, motion sickness, etc).

[imron]

No list of such terms would be complete without 上火

[xiaocai]

胸闷

How about chest-tightness? And it is actually associated with many possible causes.

[hbuchtel]

How about chest-tightness?

Nice, that is much easier to understand. I'll try to remember that for next time. The reason 'oppression' first came to mind is because that is Nigel Wiseman, who wrote a definitive Chinese-English TCM dictionary, and whose terms I usually use in translations, consistently translates 闷 as oppression.

Yea, I agree it is associated with many different conditions, but for some reason it is just seems to be much more a part of the vocabulary that Chinese patients use to describe their symptoms.

[Eranee]

I would even say that 'stuffy' or 'chest stuffiness' could work. Bensky translates 胸闷 as 'stifling sensation of the chest', I'm just not a big fan of the word stifling. In the context of 胸闷 I feel stuffiness works, as it can be likened to the feeling you get when stepping outside into very humid (or opressive) heat. ie. 这天真闷！！， or; 我觉得胸口闷得慌！！

hope that helps.

Eran

[daofeishi]

Chinese people in general seem to be less aware of psychological illnesses than Americans/Europeans, like e.g. clinical depression and bipolar disorder. They also seem to have very little knowledge about autism-spectrum disorders such as Aspergers. Case in point: I remember seeing a short film made by a team of Chinese students for the international Autism week, where they seemed to interpret 孤独症 as meaning that one felt alone all the time. The movie devolved into a spiel about how you have to take care of the elderly so they don't feel alone.

Another thing I've noticed is that the Chinese are overly sensitive to pimples, red/irritated skin and the color of your lips, interpreting anything redder than normal as being a result of 上火.

Not sure about this one, but it seems like the Chinese are more concerned about vitamin B deficiency during pregnancy than people here. I think I've heard more people in China talk about the importance of getting extra 叶酸/folic acid during pregnancy than in America.

[hbuchtel]

I just came across this in Volker Scheid's 'Chinese Medicine in Contemporary China':

"Chinese patients enjoy relatively free access to their medical records and are surprisingly familiar with the quantitative parameters of their problems (surprisingly, of course, only if compared with the average patient in Britain). Patients in contemporary China take a keen interest in their bodies. They are able to provide their physicians with information about the functioning of various physiological processes that demand detailed attention and mental record keeping. Chinese patients spontaneously differentiate whether they sweat excessively during the day (zihan 自汗) or at night (daohan 盗汗), whether their chest feels stuffy (men 闷), distended (zhang 胀), or full (man 满). Women know precisely on what day their last menstrual bleeding started, when if finished, and how long their menstrual cycle is - details that in my own clinical experience require American, British, or German women to check their calendars. " (pps 122-123)

This matches with my observations. There are also an enormous number of different ways of describing physical pain - for example: 胀痛、刺痛、冷痛、灼痛、酸痛、绞痛、隐痛、走窜痛、固定痛 etc. I'm moving back to the US this year to practice medicine, and I'm curious to hear what kinds of symptoms American patients usually report.

[Eranee]

What Volker describes above is very typical of practice in the west, at least in my experience. Here (in Canada) many patients have a hard time describing their symptoms, ie; not sure if they feel warm or cold often, whether they sweat excessively (unless it's obvious), if their bowel movements are loose/formed, and several of the woman i treat offer very little insight into the nature of their cycles (time, volume, colour, etc.)

As for pain descriptions, I most commonly hear; stabbing pain (刺痛), achiness/or soreness (酸痛), sharp pain (绞痛) and even heavy pain (重痛).

I think the 胀痛 of China fits with the western idea of bloating.

I've never heard a patient come in saying they suffer from 胸胁苦满! Usually when a patient describes a side stitch or even difficulty catching a full breath, this concept seems to fit.

Interesting discussion. I've always wondered and occasionally struggled trying to fit Chinese disease concepts with real life clinical practice in the west.

Good luck in your venture back to the west. Oddly enough, my family and I will be returning to China next year for further study!!

[heifeng]

I would say these terms seem to turn up a bit in Chinese, but I don't think that I see/hear the equivalent medical terms out and about as much in English.

刮宫

鼻炎

I'm sure there are more...these were just the 2 off the top of my head in Chinese..

Autism week, where they seemed to interpret 孤独症

perhaps this needs to go into the thread of "same thing, different names", but I've seen it called 自闭症 in Chinese...

[OneEye]

Somewhat related, but a few weeks ago I had to take my wife to the ENT (ear nose and throat) doctor. I know the term in English, and I know 耳鼻喉 in Chinese. I wasn't paying attention to the Chinese on the signs in the hospital, figuring I would see "Ear Nose and Throat" or something similar on the sign. Everyone I know (including both my parents and my wife's, all of whom work in medicine in some capacity) calls it that in the US, and I believe signs in hospitals will usually also say "Ear Nose and Throat".

I was not expecting "Otorhinolaryngology", so we walked right past it. Of course, it's easy enough to figure out what the word means just by thinking for 2 seconds, even if you don't know it, but it kind of threw me for a loop that day.

[abcdefg]

No list of such terms would be complete without 上火

Isn't that the truth! The human body is one big thermostat.

[Leihuangdi]

@imron, as opposed to 上火：着凉（zhao2 liang2）

[tooironic]

Am working on a blog entry based on this concept of medical expressions common in Chinese but not in English.

Hope someone else can contribute some ideas. I particularly like the depth hbuchtel went into in his post, though it should be noted that terms like 自汗 are quite technical and generally used by doctors alone.

What I'm looking for is more terms Chinese people commonly use to describe symptoms and complaints, and hopefully something more interesting beyond 身体不舒服，头疼，etc.

Thanks in advance for anyone who can help.

[lingo-ling]

Not sure if it's a medical term, but 芬多精 seems to be almost universally known, at least in Taiwan, whereas as far as I know the English word "phytoncide" is barely known by any English speaker.

[abcdefg]

There are also an enormous number of different ways of describing physical pain - for example: 胀痛、刺痛、冷痛、灼痛、酸痛、绞痛、隐痛、走窜痛、固定痛 etc.

 

I encounter this every week or so when getting a vigorous blind massage. If I say the equivalent of "ouch," the masseur wants to clarify if it is a 酸痛 "ouch" or a “酸胀” ouch, for example. Apparently one "ouch" is a normal response to pressure on a certain sensitive point, whereas another type of "ouch" is an indication of something wrong.

[skylee]

Not sure if they fit the requirement here, but more than one person told me that my face was sometimes 水腫, and I frequently feel 頭重腳輕.

[tooironic]

Here's a disease name that is commonly known by Chinese people but not westerners: 頸椎病. English: spondylosis. It's that kind of severe neck pain that people who sit at computers all day often get. I doubt any of the native speakers of English here will have heard it, but it's a common word in Chinese.