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Chinese TV Drama ‘The Imperial Doctress’ Brings 15th Century Female Doctor Tan Yunxian Back to Life

Top TV drama ‘The Imperial Doctress’ (明代女医师) brings the most famous female doctor of the Ming Dynasty to the TV screen. Tan Yunxian (谈允贤), who lived from 1461-1554, has become a recurring topic on Chinese social media.

Manya Koetse

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Top TV drama ‘The Imperial Doctress’ (明代女医师) brings the most famous female doctor of the Ming Dynasty to the TV screen. Tan Yunxian (谈允贤), who lived from 1461-1554, has become a recurring topic on Chinese social media.

T an Yunxian (谈允贤) was a female physician during the Ming Dynasty in China, a time when Confucian ethics played a crucial role in everyday life and women had a low status in society.

‘The Imperial Doctress’ (明代女医师), also known as ‘Ming Medicine Woman’, is a costume drama produced in mainland China in 2015 and aired daily since February 13th 2016 on Dragon TV (东方卫视) (19:30, 50 episodes total). The drama is directed by Li Guoli, Zheng Weiwen and Lu Zeliang (李国立、郑伟文、卢泽良).

The costume drama tells the story of the Tans, a family that has the doctor profession in its bloodline – even its past ancestors were imperial doctors. But when the family is set up by a grudgeful enemy, the royal court no longer allows them to practice medicine. Young daughter Tan Yunxian, played by Liu Shi Shi (刘诗诗, a.k.a. Cecelia Liu) secretly learns the art of medicine from her grandmother and helps to cure plagues and illnesses among the common people. The drama follows her as she grows up and struggles with her pursuit to become the doctor she wants to be. Emperor Zhu Qi Zhen (actor Wallace Huo) comes to play an important role in fulfilling her destiny (Viki 2016).

Tan Yunxian lived from 1461-1554. Her great-grandfather was a physician, as was her grandmother and grandfather, who passed their knowledge on to her. Tan Yunxian was a wife and a mother of four children, and combined these roles with learning to be a doctor. She started practicing medicine by treating her own children, and checking her diagnoses with her grandmother. She later on treated others, only women, for different illnesses (Ebrey 2009, 231).

Tan Yunxian became the first known female doctor in China to write about her work. Her writings have recently been translated by Lorraine Wilcox and Yue Lu in Miscellaneous Records of a Female Doctor (2015 – Amazon link). The book consists of one volume with 31 different cases.

As explained in the book’s synopsis about Tan Yunxian: “Tan Yunxian primarily treated women in her practice, and these records reflect insights into the pathology of female patients that male practitioners might not have been privy to. At this time, a wealthy woman could not see a male doctor without having a male relative such as her father, husband, or son present. Modesty was the utmost female virtue. The male doctor questioned the husband, not the woman herself. He might not be allowed to see her face. He needed to ask for permission to feel her pulse. Therefore, because Tan was a woman, she was allowed by her female patients to do things that a male doctor could not, and this intimacy in turn led to a better diagnosis of the patient’s problems.”

Tan Yunxian lived to be 93 years old.

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The TV series about Tan has already become a great success; it is currently one of most popular TV dramas in China according to Baidu charts. On Sina Weibo, netizens seem mostly very positive about the show. Under the hashtag of ‘Imperial Doctress’ (#女医明妃传#), fans share their love for the series with hearts and smiling emoticons.

In a world were female doctors were extremely rare, and women had a low status and were not expected to go out and be ambitious, Tan Yunxian could definitely, as the World of Chinese says, be described as a “Badass Lady of Chinese History”.

– By Manya Koetse

References
Ebrey, Patricia Buckley. 2009. “East Asia: A Cultural, Social, and Political History, Volume II: From 1600.” Boston & NY: Houghton Mifflin Company.

©2016 Whatsonweibo. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce our content without permission – you can contact us at info@whatsonweibo.com.

Manya Koetse is the founder and editor-in-chief of whatsonweibo.com. She is a writer, public speaker, and researcher (Sinologist, MPhil) on social trends, digital developments, and new media in an ever-changing China, with a focus on Chinese society, pop culture, and gender issues. She shares her love for hotpot on hotpotambassador.com. Contact at manya@whatsonweibo.com, or follow on Twitter.

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4 Comments

4 Comments

  1. Avatar

    Robert

    August 8, 2016 at 5:50 am

    It was a great movie if it had more real life parts in it. like she had 4 kids,but movie show’s 1 but died. Not enough of history here. doesn’t go with the real life of the history when u read up on it. Some women not shown their names. the Abbess not sure her name. So much missing here. writer made a love story more than on the real people.

  2. Avatar

    M.E. Perez

    August 20, 2016 at 5:03 am

    I just started watching tv drama in Chinese The Female Imperial Doctor; very interesting but I don’t speak Chinese and I would like to know if the movie is available in English so I can rent it; it seems like a beautiful history

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China Celebs

Hong Kong Police Find Head of Murdered Model Abby Choi in Soup Pot

“Reality is more gruesome than fiction,” some commenters wrote on Weibo, where the Abby Choi murder case has drawn wide attention.

Manya Koetse

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The gruesome murder of the 28-year-old Hong Kong socialite and model Cai Tianfeng (蔡天鳳), better known as Abby Choi, has been all the talk on Chinese social media this week.

The Hong Kong influencer went missing on Tuesday. Just a week ago, Choi was featured on the cover of the magazine L’Officiel Monaco.

On Saturday, South China Morning Post and Hong Kong Free Press reported that Choi’s partial remains, including her dismembered legs, were found cooked and stored inside the freezer at a village house and that four people had been arrested for murder.

The village house at Lung Mei Tsuen in Tai Po was allegedly set up as a “butchery site” equipped with a choppers, hammer, an electric saw and a meat grinder that had been used to mince human flesh.

Choi was entangled in a financial dispute with her ex-husband’s family over luxury property in Hong Kong’s Kadoori Hill. The persons arrested in relation to her murder are her ex-husband named Alex Kwong, his elder brother, his mother and his father, who reportedly is a retired police officer.

Abby Choi and Alex Kwong had two children together, a daughter and a son.

Cho was last seen in Fo Chun Road in Tai Po on Tuesday afternoon. CCTV footage captured her before she went missing. Choi was supposed to pick her daughter up on Tuesday together with Kwong’s elder brother, who drove her. She was reported missing after she did not show up to collect her daughter.

While earlier media articles reported that some of Choi’s remains had still not been found, news came out on Sunday that the decapitated head had been found in a soup pot. Seeing over 300 million views, the topic went trending on Weibo (#蔡天凤头颅在一大汤煲中找到#), where many people have closely been following the latest developments in the case. Later on Sunday night, the topic hashtag was taken offline.

Local police disclosed that the head remained “intact” although it is believed that someone tried to “smash” it. Some of Choi’s ribs were also found.

“Reality is more gruelsome than fiction,” some top comments said. “What a terrifying family,” others wrote, calling them “inhuman” and “devilish.”

Another topic related to the case also went trending on Sunday, namely that Choi’s ex-husband and his family allegedly had been planning the murder for a month (#蔡天凤前夫家1个月前开始布局#, 180 million views).

Some Weibo bloggers said the case reminded them of another well-known and gruesome Hong Kong murder case, namely the 2013 murder of Glory Chau and Moon Siu. At age 63, the couple was murdered by their own 28-year-old son Henry Chau Hoi-leung and his friend. After killing them, the two chopped up Chau’s and Siu’s bodies and cooked their remains and stored them inside the refrigerator. The 2022 crime film The Sparring Partner (正義迴廊) was based on this story.

About the Kwong family, some Weibo users write: “Too bad that Hong Kong law does not have the death penalty.” Capital punishment in Hong Kong was formally abolished in 1993.

By Manya Koetse 

 

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China Arts & Entertainment

South Korean Actor Yoo Ah-in Dropped as Brand Ambassador in China after Propofol Scandal

The current drug scandal involving Yoo Ah-in also has consequences for the South Korean actor’s activities in China.

Manya Koetse

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The South Korean actor Yoo Ah-in (刘亚仁) has become a trending topic on Chinese social media for getting caught up in a drugs scandal in his home country.

Yoo Ah-in (1986) is an award-winning actor who is known for starring in various well-known dramas and renowned movies, such as Voice of Silence, Burning, and Hellbound.

Yoo is currently being investigated for alleged illegal, habitual use of the anesthetic drug propofol and has been banned from overseas travel.

On Thursday, the hashtag “Yoo Ah-in Admits to Using Drugs” (#刘亚仁确认吸毒#) received over 310 million views on Weibo, where several accounts reported that Yoo allegedly started using propofol in 2021.

Yoo issued a statement via his management, saying he is cooperating with the police in the investigation. He also apologized for causing concern among his fans and followers.

The drug scandal also has consequences for the actor’s activities in China. Liu was the brand ambassador for the Chinese men’s clothing brand Croquis (速写), but Croquis immediately removed him as their representative after the scandal.

Croquis issued a statement saying the company has been closely following the latest developments regarding the investigation into the actor’s alleged drugs use, and stated that they have “zero tolerance” when it comes to drug use and therefore would temporarily take all content offline in which Yoo represents their brand.

South Korean media reported on Feb. 9 that Yoo is among a group of 51 people that is part of an illegal drug use investigation initiated by the Food and Drug Administration, which found that Yoo went doctor hopping and “hospital shopping” to obtain multiple prescriptions.

Propofol is a sedative that is widely used by anesthetists for the induction and maintenance of general anesthesia and for long-term sedation. Over recent years, the abuse of propofol in South Korea has been getting more media attention.

Although propofol is classified as a controlled substance in South Korea since 2011, the recreational use of the drugs has been a problem and various celebrities have previously been charged for illegally using the drugs.

On Weibo, some people say that there indeed should be “zero tolerance” for drug abuse among celebrities and artists, but there are also those who think Yoo Ah-in’s drug abuse is a result of his alleged (mental) health problems, and that he needs help instead of punishment.

By Manya Koetse 

 

Get the story behind the hashtag. Subscribe to What’s on Weibo here to receive our newsletter and get access to our latest articles:

Spotted a mistake or want to add something? Please let us know in comments below or email us. First-time commenters, please be patient – we will have to manually approve your comment before it appears.

©2023 Whatsonweibo. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce our content without permission – you can contact us at info@whatsonweibo.com.

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