Empty Words? The Problem with Suo
Originally published August 17, 2022.
To be upfront with you all, my general intention for this post is threefold. Throughout this post, I use the particle 所 suǒ to make my points:
Explain the concept of “empty words” or 虛字 xūzì;
Demonstrate the importance of “empty words” and the problems associated with not understanding and appreciating them properly;
Explore how you can learn about “empty words.”
1. What Are Empty Words?
First, I want to introduce you, dear reader, to an aspect of classical Chinese that you may not be familiar with: the concept of “empty words.” To show you how this works in real life, I will take a closer look at the magical little character 所 suǒ. Like so many others, this character was first explained to me by my Chinese teacher in Taiwan several decades ago as what literally translates as “empty character” 虛字 xūzì, or in other words, as belonging in a category of characters that were not only impossible but even unnecessary to translate, but that I would gradually and intuitively develop a vague sense of familiarity with.
Note: A similar term to 虛字, used with an overlapping meaning and more commonly in the context of modern or late imperial literature, is “empty phrase” 虛詞 xūcí, which refers basically to the same concept but covers not just individual characters but also groups of characters. My use of the English translation “empty word” covers both of these.
So what are these “empty words”? In addition to the somewhat misleading and more common modern literal meaning of these characters being words that are empty or void of any real meaning, like the English “ah,” or the Canadian “eh,” the classical Chinese concept of “empty words” also includes grammar particles or “function words.” As Edwin Pulleyblank in his outstanding Outline of Classical Chinese Grammar explains, they are one of two basic word classes, the other being what he translates as “full words” 實字 shízì, which refers to “content words… nouns, verbs, and adjectives that carry the main semantic content.” According to Pulleyblank’s definition, “empty words” are “particles whose main function is to show grammatical relationships.” Hopefully my example of 所 will demonstrate quickly why this definition is important.
As so often, even the definition and meaning of this key aspect of classical Chinese grammar may be affected by a problem of translation, since they are explained in Chinese sources like the Hànyǔ dàcídiǎn 《漢語大辭典》as something far from just being “empty”: “Unable to form sentences on their own, with more abstract meaning, they are words with specific grammatical functions, such as prepositions, conjunctions, and particles.” In other words, these words are not empty of meaning at all but carry the essential function of organizing and clarifying the structure of sentences and phrases. Unfortunately, many of them are notoriously difficult, if not impossible, to translate with a single term in English or any other modern language. While you can look up a “full/solid word” 實字 like 王 wáng or 治 zhì in a good dictionary and receive a list of more or less fitting equivalents, like “king” or “to rule/treat/manage,” respectively, from which you can then pick the one that fits best in each context, definitions of empty words often don’t get you very far.
Let us take a closer look at 所 suǒ as a typical representative of these “empty words,” to see how this all plays out in practice! If you are like most enthusiastic students and practitioners of Chinese medicine, especially those of a “classical” orientation, at some point you get inspired to learn some Chinese and feel an urge to look at the original texts. There are a couple of textbooks out there that aim to teach you how to read medical Chinese texts. Let’s see what they have to say about our friend suǒ:
In the section on “General Vocabulary,” Bob Flaws’ Teach Yourself to Read Modern Medical Chinese defines this character as a “relative pronoun” and then offers these compounds: 所屬 as “associated with, belonging to”; 所說的 and 所謂 both as “so-called”; 所依 as “hence, so, therefore, as a result”; and 。。。所致 as “be caused by…”. If you wonder what any of these definitions have to do with relative pronouns, you are in good company. So this feels like a dead end to me. But then, this is a textbook for modern Chinese, so by definition not appropriate for classical sources.
A bit more helpful, in his Classical Chinese Medical Texts, Richard Goodman at least devotes a full explanatory note to it, explaining that “所 changes the verb that follows it into an object and when used in this way means that which.” How does that work? He offers three examples with three sets of constructions, by combining it with the three verbs 治 “to rule,” 傷 “to injure,” and 主 “to rule”: The plain combination of 所+Verb apparently turns the verb into passive, since he translates 所治/傷/主 as “that which is treated/injured/ruled.” This may be one possible shortcut to translate these pairs of characters in certain contexts, but it is definitely not applicable as a general rule. Most importantly, if the relative clause formed by 所 has a subject (which will be the noun or noun phrase immediately preceding the 所, see below), you will find yourself out of luck. The more complex examples of complete sentences that Goodman offers make the limitations of his explanations painfully obvious: He correctly translates the sentence 「醫所治病也。」 as “That which doctors treat is disease,” but doesn’t this translation contradict his preceding example of 所治 as “that which is treated”? And how does the 所 in that sentence “change the verb that follows it into an object”? If you are confused here, again, you are not alone. His third example makes matters even worse: He offers “Doctors treat disease” as the translation of 「醫之治病也。」This third phrase is not only not helpful at all for our understanding of 所, but, much worse, it is plainly and simply grammatically incorrect. Translating from modern English into classical Chinese is always challenging but even my beginning students are able to translate the simple “Doctors treat disease” as a Subject-Verb-Object construction back into 「醫者治病。」! It seems to me that the author of this textbook treats our little “empty words” quite literally as that, as words empty of meaning, and is unaware of each of their specific grammatical function. While 所 is quite possibly the most difficult “empty word” there is in classical Chinese, the particles 之 and 者 are ones that most of my students master in my basic Foundations course during the first 13-week level of my Triple Crown training program.
Our next stop in trying to learn about 所 is obviously the dictionary. The standard Pleco dictionary entry offers three definitions: “1 place. 2 office; bureau; institute. 3 troop station in the Ming dynasty.” If you are a more experienced reader, you will then notice that it is also used as a “measure word [for houses, schools, hospitals, etc.]” and lastly as a “literary” kind of “auxiliary,” whatever that means, in a variety of combinations from “[noun or pronoun + 所 + verb]” to “[所 + verb],” to “[為 or 被 + noun or pronoun + 所 + verb expressing passive meaning]” to “[所 + verb used as the object of 有or 無].” Is your head spinning yet? I can barely make sense of this and I have been teaching this stuff for decades at this point! I am only citing it here to show you how impossible it is to learn about “empty words” by looking them up in the dictionary. Wiseman’s “Chinese Medical Terminology,” a wonderful free add-on dictionary that you can download on Pleco offers three terse definitions: “Place. Office. Grammar particle.” Not all that helpful, but at least it is not wrong. And so it goes.
If you are yet more experienced, you will know that modern dictionaries are not really appropriate resources to consult when you are trying to read classical Chinese sources. Instead, you will happily consult Paul Kroll’s Student’s Dictionary of Classical and Medieval Chinese, another wonderful add-on on Pleco. Again, you find the noun definition as “place, spot, site, location,” with the subordinate meaning of “measure-word for buildings and other items at specific site.” But then, you find two definitions that are likely to make your brain smoke, as a “marker of object nominalization, i.e., when prefixed to a VB makes a noun phrase referring to the object of the VB…” and as a “marker of indirect nominalization, i.e., when prefixed to a VB makes a noun-phrase referring to that in relation to which a VB-OBJ clause pertains…” Brilliant and doubtlessly correct, but are you able to make sense of that explanation?
For more sophisticated explanations on 所 as a grammar particle, we need to turn to actual textbooks for classical Chinese, as opposed to the two specialized medical ones I have mentioned above, Flaws and Goodman, which are both inappropriate for different reasons. In real academic textbooks for classical Chinese, we find explanations like this: “As a function word, 所 can stand in front of a verb and function as a special demonstrative pronoun marking the objective of the action expressed by the verb. In combination with a verb, it indicates ‘…person,’ ‘…thing,’ etc.” (Kai Li and James Erwin Dew, Classical Chinese: A Functional Approach). This is an improvement but at the same time also potentially misleading because it leaves out the important fact that verbal sentences nominalized by 所 refer to the OBJECT of the verbal phrase, instead of the SUBJECT, which would be a case of 者. So it is actually rare that you can translate 所 sentences as “the person who…” More on this below….
Much more accurately than any of our previous examples, Bryan Van Norden defines 所 as a “general particle (transforms following transitive verb into a nominal phrase describing the object of the verb)” and dedicates a whole section to “Converting Verbs into Nominal Expressions with 所 suǒ” in Lesson 7 of his Classical Chinese for Everyone. As always, his grammar explanations are terse but spot on and ever so helpful:
One helpful way to think about 所 is as contrasting it with 者. Recall that 者 FOLLOWS a verbal phrase and transforms it into a nominal phrase that describes the SUBJECT of the verb. For example, 欲之, “desire it,” becomes 欲之者, “those who desire it.” The particle 所, in contrast, PRECEDES a transitive verbal phrase and transforms it into a nominal phrase that describes the OBJECT of the verb.
As a side note, Van Norden also explains the compound particle 所以 as a conjunction meaning “because of this, therefore” and an expression meaning “that by means of which, the reason why.”
Going much deeper yet, Michael Fuller dedicates an entire chapter to “The Modifier 所 and Nominalized Verbs” in his outstanding Introduction to Literary Chinese. Here he offers a more detailed, but also more challenging grammar explanation that emphasizes the tendency in literary Chinese to specify the emphasis of an action and to use nominalization as a technique that allows one to talk about an action. I can’t repeat his whole brilliant explanation here, but this statement is priceless:
所, like all other words, is a label. It is the label that allows us to refer to A SET OF OBJECTS SELECTED SIMPLY FOR THEIR ROLE AS OBJECTS OF VERBS. … The character 所 makes possible this shift to talk about the object of the verb.
Are you still with me? Can you see why and how we have run into a problem here? In my decades of experience in teaching this material, this particular chapter in Fuller’s textbook, and the issue addressed therein, is perhaps the biggest stumbling block for students in their journey of learning classical Chinese, one that they often really struggle with and need to return to repeatedly before they fully grasp it. Once students understand the difference between 者 and 所 as the two main nominalizing particles in classical Chinese, their ability to read classical Chinese texts has taken a giant leap forward, and their translations achieve a clarity and precision that I miss in the work of beginners. Basically, all these sources are trying, in a few simple words, to explain a complicated grammar structure in classical Chinese that has no clear equivalent in English. This is like explaining to a camel herder in the Sahara what a thimbleberry from Whidbey Island (my home in the Pacific Northwest rainforest) tastes like. Van Norden’s and Fuller’s explanations are brilliant and worth memorizing, but without proper explanation, patient guidance, repeated critical feedback, and loads of practice, I do not know anybody who could learn the meaning of 所 just from reading these textbooks. To round things out, I give you here my own humble definition of this magical character:
所 can be a noun that means “place” or a measure word for objects, but in the vast majority of classical contexts, it is a grammar particle that nominalizes the following verb, which is most easily reflected in English by creating a relative clause. In this use, 所 turns the transitive verb or verb phrase or coverb+verb combination that follows it into a nominalized phrase that allows the author to reference the object of this phrase.
In contrast to 者, which also nominalizes verbs or verbal phrases but FOLLOWS the phrase and is used to reference the SUBJECT of the phrase, 所 PRECEDES THE VERB and REFERENCES THE OBJECT!
In 所 constructions, the SUBJECT of the nominalized phrase PRECEDES 所 and may or may not be linked to it with an optional 之.
Here is an example of how this works in a really simple Subject + Verb + Object (SVO) sentence:
肝藏血。 Subject + Verb + Object: The liver stores the blood.
肝[之]所藏血也。Subject [之] 所 Verb, Object 也: That which the liver stores is the blood.
藏血者，肝也。 Verb Object 者, Subject 也: That which stores the blood is the liver.
So now that I have made you aware of the existence of “empty words” and of this pesky ubiquitous character 所, why should you care to know what it means? After all, if you are a camel herder in the Sahara, why do you need to know what Whidbey Island thimbleberries taste like? This brings us to the second question I want to address in this post:
2. Why Do Empty Words Matter?
I now want to show you why a lack of training in classical Chinese grammar is problematic for anybody who wants to work with Chinese texts from the pre-modern period. In other words and applied to this post in particular, I aim to demonstrate how a proper understanding of the grammar particle 所 will fundamentally change and improve your ability to read sentences from classical texts that include this particle. While it may take years to fully master this most challenging of all Chinese “empty words” in complex sentences, I hope that this post at least alerts you to its significance and gets you started on your path toward much greater clarity and understanding in your reading of the classics.
The best way to prove my point that Chinese “empty words” must not be ignored is, I hope, by just showing you some examples from important classical texts that you may even already be familiar with. I start, as I usually do, with the Yellow Emperor’s Inner Classic, because in these earlier texts, 所 constructions tend to be a bit more straight-forward. Right in the first three chapters, we find these examples that give you a good sense of the broad range of meanings that 所 can take on. Note that this section may be too technical for readers with no background in classical Chinese, so you are welcome to skip this section. Or simply take your time and enjoy the passages for their content…
各從其欲，皆得所願。 “All [the ancient sages] followed their desires, and always obtained what they wished for.” (Sùwèn 1)
所以能年皆度百歲，而動作不衰者，以其德全不危也。 “The reason why they were all able to pass through a hundred years in age without weakening in their activity is that they kept their Virtue-Power complete instead of endangering it.” (Sùwèn 1)
使志無怒，使華英成秀，使氣得泄，若所愛在外，此夏氣之應，養長之道也。 “Do not let your will be affected by anger! Make it flourish and bear fruit, and allow the Qì to spill out, as if what you love is on the outside. This is responding to the Qì of summer and the way of nurturing growth.” (Sùwèn 2)
夫四時陰陽者，萬物之根本也。所以聖人春夏養陽，秋冬養陰。 “Now the four seasons and Yīn and Yáng are the root and foundation of the ten thousand things. For this reason, the sages nurture Yáng in the spring and summer and nurture Yīn in the autumn and winter.” (Sùwèn 2)
陽氣者若天與日，失其所，則折壽而不彰。 “This Yáng Qì! It resembles the participatory relationship between Heaven and the sun. If it should lose the place or time where it belongs, it would break off longevity and would no longer produce radiance.” (Sùwèn 3)
陰之所生，本在五味。 “What yīn engenders is rooted in the Five Flavors.” (Sùwèn 3)
For a few more examples, I offer you the Nànjīng (Classic of Conundrums), which stands out, at least in my mind, for the clarity of its explanations. Again starting from the very beginning of the text, we find these examples:
寸口者，五臟六腑之所終始，故法取於寸口也。 “The Cùnkǒu is the place where [the movement in the channels of] the five zàng and six fǔ organs begins and ends. Hence the [best] method [of pulse-taking] is to choose the cùnkǒu. (Conundrum 1)
從關至尺是尺內，陰之所治也；從關至魚際是寸內，陽之所治也。 “[The area] from guān to chǐ is “inside chǐ”; it is under the management of Yīn. [The area] from guān to Yújì (“fish’s margin,” LU-10) is “inside cùn”; it is under the management of Yáng.” (Conundrum 2)
所謂一陰一陽者，謂脈來沉而滑也；一陰二陽者，謂脈來沉滑而長也；一陰三陽者，謂脈來浮滑而長，時一沉也。所謂一陽一陰者，謂脈來浮而澀也；一陽二陰者，謂脈來長而沉澀也；一陽三陰者，謂脈來沉澀而短，時一浮也。各以其經所在，名病順逆也。 “What we refer to as ‘single Yīn and single Yáng’ is a pulse whose arrival is deep and smooth. What we refer to as ‘single Yīn and double Yáng’ is a pulse whose arrival is deep and smooth, as well as long. What we refer to as ‘single Yīn and triple Yáng’ refers to a pulse whose arrival is superficial, smooth, and long [in general] but occasionally singularly deep. What we refer to as ‘single Yáng and single Yīn’ is a pulse whose arrival is superficial and rough. What we refer to as ‘single Yáng and double Yīn’ is a pulse whose arrival is long, as well as deep and rough. What we refer to as ‘single Yáng and triple Yīn’ is a pulse whose arrival is deep, rough, and short [in general] but occasionally also singularly superficial. In each case, it is through the location of the channel that we identify [the progression of] the disease as favorable or unfavorable. (Conundrum 4)
所謂生气之原者，謂十二經之根本也，謂腎間動气也。 “What we call the ‘source of life Qì’ refers to the root of the twelve channels or, in other words ,the moving Qì in the area of the kidneys. (Conundrum 8)
And here are just some more random examples that present material from a wide variety of other texts, to show you that 所 is not just necessary for reading Hàn period medical texts but continues to be an essential aspect of literary Chinese, right down to pre-modern times:
自天子以至於庶人，壹是皆以修身為本。其本亂而末治者否矣，其所厚者薄，而其所薄者厚，未之有也！ “From the child of Heaven all the way down to the common people, as a single unifying thread for all, self-cultivation is the foundation. To have this core in chaos but the outlying tips in good order, that is an impossibility! To have what is substantial be made insubstantial, or to have what is insubstantial be made substantial, that is not something that ever happens! (Dàxué 《大學》 “Great Learning,” from 5th c.BCE)
夔謂蚿曰：「吾以一足趻踔而行，予無如矣。今子之使萬足，獨奈何？」 蚿曰：「不然。子不見夫唾者乎？噴則大者如珠，小者如霧，雜而下者不可勝數也。今予動吾天機，而不知其所以然。」 “The kuí monster [envying the millipede’s thousand feet] addressed the millipede: “Look at me moving forward by hopping around on one foot! There is no comparison to you! Now how on earth do you manage employing a myriad feet?” The millipede said: “It is not like that. Have you never seen a person spit? When they spurt it out, the big drops like pearls and the small drops like mist, all mixed together, they fall down in uncountable numbers. Now I [simply] activate my heavenly mechanism and do not know how or why it is like this.” (Zhuāngzi 《莊子》, 3rd c.BCE)
雖未能盡愈諸病，庶可以見病知源。若能尋余所集，思過半矣。 “Even though you will not yet be able to exhaustively cure all the various diseases, you may be able to look at a disease and know its origin. If you can unravel what I have collected here, you will have thought through more than half [of all problems you might face].” ( Shānghánlùn 《傷寒論》 “Treatise on Cold Damage,” Preface, 2nd c. CE)
若能具而學 之，則於醫道無所滯礙，盡善盡美矣。 “If you are able to learn all these [medical skills], then there will be no obstacles in your Dào of medicine, and it will be characterized by the utmost in both skill and beauty!” (Bèijí qiānjīn yàofāng 《備急千金要方》 “Crucial Formulas Worth a Thousand in Gold to Prepare for Emergencies,” from 652 CE)
大率治病，先論其所主。男子調其氣，女子調其血。“As a general rule in the treatment of illness, we first discuss the most dominant aspect. In men, we attune their Qì, and in women, we attune their blood. (Fùrén dàquán liǎngfāng 《婦人大全良方》 “All-Comprehensive Excellent Formulas for Women,” from 1237 CE)
I hope this suffices to show you how ubiquitous and multifaceted our friend 所 is throughout Chinese literature. And perhaps, for those of you familiar with Chinese characters, in the process of reading these various examples, you have gained a bit more familiarity with its usage and somehow achieved the beginning of an understanding? I wish we had the time to discuss each of these passages at length, to really explore the significance of 所, as I do in my courses. A written blog like this can only take us so far…
Ultimately, I am convinced that 所 is a particle that is too complex to be learned from a book or by reading a blog. In my experience of trying to teach 所, at this point to literally hundreds of students over decades, it just takes practice, practice, and yet more practice. On a good day, you will come across a pretty straight-forward sentence and understand its function clearly. On a not so good day, or perhaps after too many hours of translating without a rest for your poor brain, you will get stumped and hit a wall. And as you collect more and more experience, you will also refine your ability to even detect these walls and to become aware when your reading is too murky and lacks the clarity that is very much present in classical Chinese, just as in every other language in the world. This is the step where it is essential that we all surround ourselves with peers and teachers who are willing to give us critical and honest feedback, so that we can evolve in our understanding by learning from our mistakes. Without such feedback, we either just don’t know when we are wrong and move on to the next passage or we are left with a faint sense of unease that we may ultimately ignore, but will not grow from. Far too often, I hear claims that classical Chinese lacks grammar or is just categorically vague and flexible in its meaning. As a result, I witness people just making up meaning that is not there and, in that process, introducing notions that are a reflection not of the classical Chinese context but of the reader’s contemporary Western perspective, simply because they lack a basic understanding of essential grammar structures like 所 constructions.
So, once you find yourself hitting such a wall in your translation process, hopefully this will now lead you not to invent a solution but to a) take a break; b) revisit some resources like Pulleyblank’s grammar book or notes from courses you have taken in classical Chinese; c) find a group of colleagues to share your problem with and bounce your ideas off of; and d) find teachers or tutors who can help you develop your skills. This leads me to my third question of this blog:
3. How Can You Learn About Empty Words?
In this last section of my blog, and to avoid just leaving you hanging with this onslaught of example sentences, I want to suggest a solution to and perspective on this quandary. Like any ancient language, especially one that is completely unrelated to your own, the ability to read texts written in classical Chinese is a skill that is acquired over many many years, even decades, of hard work. You are not just bridging a linguistic divide, after all, but also a cultural and historical one. To really do classical Chinese literature justice, you have to master not just the philology, or in other words, the meaning of individual characters in a particular context, but also the rules by which phrases and sentences are structured, by which characters relate to each other, or in other words, the semantics. Then you have to familiarize yourself with the rhetorical context of a text, its literary style and the conventions of a given textual category. Lastly, you have to know enough about the relevant history, culture, anthropology and related fields to be able to contextualize the content of your source, such as sensing when an author may be joking, exaggerating to make a point, or stating an extreme position with the assumption that their readers already know the alternative perspective, which is so well-known and obvious that it doesn’t even need to be mentioned or explained.
It may just be too lofty of a goal to try and master the art of translating classical Chinese medical texts as part of an intense masters-level or even doctorate-level training in clinical Chinese medicine, which also involves the acquisition of clinical skills, cultivation of a healing presence, and memorization of countless herbs, formulas, acupuncture points, and other material, all in the context of a busy personal and professional life. And there is nothing wrong with accepting that reality at all! There is a time and place for every endeavor in life, and by now, there are lots of excellent translations and courses available to bring the world of classical Chinese medicine right into your clinic or study without you having to be fluent in classical Chinese. BUT (and this is important) this does not mean that you should not even try, and that this is a black-and-white, either-or, this-or-that, white-horse-or-no-horse situation.
Rather than discouraging you with this information, I want to end on a positive note by applauding you for your interest in this ambitious task and encourage you to dip your toes in the water. I want to remind you that you don’t need to become a seasoned expert translator in order to gain very concrete benefits from learning some classical Chinese. And you also don’t need to spend years hidden away in your study, struggling on your own with your books and flashcards, as many of the first generation of Western experts in Chinese medicine have done. If you do that, at some point, no matter how hard you study, you will simply not be able to advance further on your own and then you will most likely either give up in frustration, if you are smart enough to know what you don’t know, or, unfortunately much more commonly, simply dwell in your bubble of ignorance and tell yourself that classical Chinese is just a murky language and that the texts themselves lack the clarity of modern languages. As I mentioned above, it is so common to see self-identified “experts” accepting and perhaps even attempting to explain away or covering up a lack of clear meaning in classical literature that is the result of their inadequate grammar training, with that same old tired argument that classical Chinese is vague and can mean all these different things. Yes, there is some truth to that, especially when we are dealing with texts of an esoteric nature or those suffering from a lot of textual corruption. But this cautionary attitude should never be an excuse for us to not recognize a lack of clear understanding first and foremost as a challenge to our own ability as readers of classical Chinese and as an inspiration to continuously search out advanced training opportunities from people who know more than we do.
I have made it my life’s work to create a number of resources to ease your entry into the vast deep boundless ocean of classical Chinese literature, from regular casual blog posts, to book-length translations with extensive discussions (see, for example, my Humming with Elephants) for readers with no background at all in classical Chinese, to my free self-paced Introduction to Classical Chinese, to my ongoing two mentorship programs Reading the Chinese Medicine Classics (for students interested in classical Chinese medical language and literature) and Imperial Tutor (for students of traditional Chinese medicine in its cultural background), and lastly, to my year-long Triple Crown Training Program.
I want to finish this long post by encouraging you consider signing up for my FOUNDATIONS course that begins every other year in September, as part of my two-year-long Triple Crown training program. In this online course, it is my honor and joy and passion to cover the basics of classical grammar by means of a combination of tools that have proven effective over the years:
Weekly prerecorded lectures that complement our weekly homework package and the lessons in the textbook;
Weekly free-flowing live Q&A sessions where we make sure all your questions are answered and you all receive the honest critical guidance and community support that is such an essential part of the learning process;
A lively discussion forum where we can share asynchronous questions, comments, insights, supplementary materials, and observations during the week, so that we can all support and inspire each other as we engage with the material on our own;
All the supportive material and additional learning suggestions you could ever want (those of you who have taken the free Introduction course or are part of my mentorships know that I am not kidding here);
Personalized, detailed, honest critical feedback on your work each week;
A very compassionate (and passionate) teacher and a fellow group of advanced and highly committed, self-motivated learners like yourself from all over the world, who share your struggles as well as your achievements; and definitely not least,
Almost half a year of intellectual, professional, and personal growth as we all find inspiration, joy, wisdom, virtue, and a deep sense of inner peace by dipping into the ancient world of classical China in the delightful company of like-minded companions.
Here is the website and link for that program, which begins with a new cohort on September 14, 2023: https://www.translatingchinesemedicine.com/programs/triplecrown
If you are not sure whether this intensive program is for you, start by FILLING OUT THIS ADMISSIONS SURVEY.
Even if you just complete the Foundations course and don’t go on to the Diamond Core course, I can guarantee that you will never look at classical Chinese texts in the same way, because you will have developed a clarity and sensitivity that would otherwise take you years to acquire on your own. AND in that process, you will have so much fun! More than anything else, I think it is essential that we cultivate our collective ability to read and translate classical Chinese medical literature in an ever growing community of lifelong, committed, mutually supportive learners who all understand that we are in this together. This is my life’s passion! I personally have benefited immensely from reading classical Chinese literature and love doing it to the point where it may even keep me from jumping on my beloved paddle board with my pup on a sunny day! I hope that some of this passion will rub off on you, and that some of you may get inspired to join me in my Foundations course, just like my pup is learning to ride the paddle board with me these days…
