Taiwan's traditional medicine stores struggle on life support
Chinese medicine store owner Gu Cheng-pu knows her dispensary can only stay open as long as her ailing father-in-law lives, their careers hostage to a quirk in Taiwanese law that is killing off the industry. At the back of her shop in New Taipei City, Gu tips a plate of freshly cut Chinese liquorice roots into a wok of boiling honey, the first step in preparing one of her many traditional remedies.
"Chinese medicine store is a unique cultural icon," the 36-year-old explains. "They are not just a place where you come when you are sick to pick up medicine." But shops like hers are dying out—with some 200 closing their doors every year—even though traditional medicine remains wildly popular in Taiwan. Authorities have not issued any new licenses since 1998 and those that exist cannot be passed down to younger generations.
The lower pay and profits struggled to attract young doctors and pharmacists while patients kept going to the mom-and-pop dispensaries they trusted. The average age of a chinese medicine store license holder is now 61 while the number of remaining stores has halved in the last 20 years to just 7,900. Taiwan's approach contrasts with that of the China and Hong Kong where authorities have pushed policies to boost and export traditional medicine.
According to the Compendium of Materia Medica, the sixteenth-century text that is the lodestar for traditional practitioners, there are more than 1,500 different kinds of herbs used in Chinese medicine. The average store might stock between 200 and 500 herbs, roots, animal parts and minerals—355 of which are classified as medicine in Taiwan.
Traditional medicine also permeates Taiwan's cooking—the island's signature beef noodle soup dish usually contains at least eight herbal ingredients—meaning ingredients are just as likely to go in the cooking pot as they are a tincture.
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