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Vice Blog

BEIJING - I CALL BULLSHIT ON 中医

So I was on holiday in Beijing and I decided to try out some traditional Chinese medicine. I had a go at candling (left) and fire cupping (right) and I’ll tell you right now that both procedures are a total bullshit con.

Candling, also known as ear coning or thermal-auricular therapy, involves sticking a hollow candle in your ear in the hope that the heat from the flame creates a vacuum that draws out ear wax and ear mites (whatever the fuck they are).

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Done in the dark to heighten the drama, candling sure looks the part. It also sounds like it’s working; I can hear the wick fizz and pop. After doing each ear for 15 minutes the therapist turned the lights back on and showed me a splurge of yellow-brown debris that the procedure had apparently sucked out.

I had hoped that my hearing would be a lot sharper after candling, but there was no noticeable difference. Then, after researching the procedure, I wasn’t surprised to learn that candling is widely ridiculed by real doctors. They say that the yellow-brown "evidence" presented to me mostly comes from the actual candle, not from my ear canal. Amidst all the fakery there is a very real danger of burning wax dripping onto the ear drum.

Next I decided to get some fire cupping done. It went like this: the lady pulled out a glass cup and wafted a flame inside it. She then pressed the cup into my back and the heated air creating an acupressure vacuum that sucked flesh up into it. Kind of like getting a love bite from a glass.

The12 cups affixed to my back didn’t hurt, but they did pinch a little. After about 10 minutes the lady popped them off, leaving me with some pretty gruesome looking marks on my skin. The procedure is meant to suck out impurities from your body. The darker the marks, the more impurities are drawn out.

Did it have any effect? Well, the scientific verdict on flame cupping is largely disparaging. But to be honest, I did feel smidgen of tension relief, especially in my shoulders. However, I probably could have gotten the same relief from an aspirin. And they don’t leave gross marks all over your body.

TOM DUNON