EY Y04 L11 Alternative Medicine


  1. There are many types of complementary and alternative health practices, such as massage, acupuncture, reiki, tai chi, meditation and homeopathy. Name one that you have heard about or that you have read about online. Tell us about it.
  2. Is this something you have tried? If yes, how was the experience? Would you recommend it? If no, would you ever consider trying it?
  3. Have you or anyone you know ever taken Chinese medicine? If yes, what was it for? What were the results? Was the medicine expensive? If no, would you ever consider taking Chinese medicine?
  4. Do you take vitamin supplements or buy "genki" drinks? Why?
  5. Tell us about an alternative medicine that you feel is a scam, a con or a waste of money.
  6. Do you look up the medicines that you are prescribed by your doctor online? Why?

Question 1

Getting a massage when we feel under the weather is a common practice in my hometown. It's very conveninent too since you can just request a home massage anytime.

Question 2

I have tried a couple of reflexology massage sessions before. This type of massage mainly focuses on your feet, head, and hands. At first it felt ticklish when the therapist started massaging my feet but later on I was able to adjust to it. I think I was having a cold that time and in a way, the reflexolgy helped me relieve some symptoms.

Question 3

My sister's fiance is from a Chinese family so whenever my sister gets sick they always recommend her to drink some herbal tea or some medicinal soup. One time she got a stomachache and her fiance prepared a medicinal soup for her. She felt better afterwards. They sometimes send us a pack of herbs and tea too. They manually prepare their tea from raw ingredients.

Question 4

I don't but I think I should start taking supplements more since my body just feels so restless sometimes. Occassionally I would drink some collagen drinks but I haven't been consistent in taking them.

Question 5

I can't come up with a specific example but during the peak of the Covid pandemic, there were a lot of measures introduced on social media that I was hesistant to try. For example there was a sudden boom in selling copper masks and air-purifying necklaces. I was skeptical in buying them and thought I should wait for official statements from scientists and medical professionals first.

Question 6

Yes I do. I think it is very important to know what our body consumes. I have a lot of allergies so I always double-check what the medicine contains.

Tough Vocabulary