Exploring the Cross-cultural Journey of Tibetan Medicine in Modern China: A Case Study in Rebgong

ABSTRACT: Tibetan medicine, also known as Sowa Rigpa (the science of healing) is the traditional medicine indigenous to Tibetan peoples across the Himalayas and the Tibetan plateau. Historically, its aetiology, nosology, treatments, and training have been closely connected to Tibetan Buddhism, language, and environments. The last three or four decades of standardisation and commercialisation in China and beyond have brought Tibetan medicine, ideas, experts, and institutions to new patient groups and new markets. This study investigates the ways in which Tibetan medicine has moved out of Tibetan communities to transcend cultural and ethnic boundaries in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) today. Focusing on users of Tibetan medicine in Rebgong, a multiethnic border area known to Tibetans as Amdo and located in the PRC’s Qinghai Province, the study explores and analyses how Tibetan medicine is perceived and used by diverse groups. Based on ethnographic fieldwork that combines formal and informal interviews with Tibetan doctors and both Tibetan and non-Tibetan patients (including Hui Muslims and Han Chinese), it investigates the motivations and experiences of users, their perceptions and assessments of its efficacy, and the nature of clinical encounters. KEYWORDS: Rebgong, Tibetan medicine, clinical encounter, medical pluralism, ethnic boundary.