The beliefs of Vietnamese folk medicine associate illness with the absence of any of the three souls which maintain life, intelligence, and the senses or of the seven spirits which collectively sustain the living body. A number of rituals performed at childbirth, which are aimed at protecting the mother and the infant from medical and magical dangers, derive from these beliefs but they play a relatively limited role in medical behaviour generally. Conversely, Chinese medicine plays a major role in the maintenance and restoration of health and is observed by Vietnamese. Principles from Chinese medicine provide the scripting for the management of birth for both groups and more generally, establish guidelines whereby good health may be maintained.


Traditional Vietnamese medical theory

Read More



If we could shrink the earth’s population to a village of precisely 100 people, with all the existing human ratios remaining the same, it would look something like the following:
There would be: 60 Asians, 10 Europeans, 14 people from the Americas, 16 Africans
There would be: 50 females and 50 males
There would be: 73 non-white and 27 white.
There would be: 31 Christians, 23 Muslims, 15 Hindus, 7 Buddhists, 8 people who practice other religions, 16 people who would not be aligned with a religion
There would be: 25 children, 75 adults, 9 of whom would be 65 and older
There would be: 12 would speak Chinese; 6 would speak Spanish; 5 would speak English; 4 would speak Hindi; 3 would speak Arabic; 3 would speak Bengali; 3 would speak Portuguese; 2 would speak Russian; 2 would speak Japanese; 60 would speak other languages
78 people would have a place to shelter them from the wind and the rain, but 22 would not; 86 would be able to read and write but 14 would not
1 would be dying of starvation; 11 would be undernourished; 22 would be overweight
91 would have access to safe drinking water; 9 people would have no clean, safe water to drink
7 would have a college degree; 40 would have an Internet connection

If the world were a village of 100 people

Read More

Copyright © Phoenix | Designed With By Blogger Templates
Scroll To Top