The World of Ancient China

　　In ancient China, the World was referred to as "Everything Under Heaven" (tianxia 天下) or "the Universe" (yuzhou宇宙). Yu literally means the eaves of a dwelling, and zhou is the pillar. The Chinese ancestors believed that the world is like a big house: the Sky is the round roof, the Earth is the square floor, and surrounding the house are the Four Seas of North, South, East, and West. Therefore, they called their nation "the Central State" (zhongguo中国). These concepts may seem fantastic today, but many ancient peoples may have considered their homes to be the center of the world. Today, China is still called Zhongguo in Chinese.

　　A story by Zhuangzi (c. 369-295 BC), one of the founders of Daoism, sheds light on the ancient Chinese concept of the World (Zhuangzi, Chapter 17: "The Floods of Autumn"). Long, long ago, a frog lived at the bottom of a well. One day, the frog looked up and saw a turtle from the Eastern Sea silhouetted against the sky at the edge of the well. He tried to convince the turtle to join him in his wonderful well, of which he was the master. The turtle started to descend into the well, but she realized it was too narrow and she would get stuck. So she withdrew and told the frog instead about how deep and wide the sea is. The frog was left dumfounded. He could not imagine the immensity and magnitude of the sea, as he has never seen it. The idiom "frog at the bottom of a well," or "looking at the sky from the bottom of a well," which grew out of this Daoist fable, has come to represent a state of limited vision and even ignorance — of not being able to see outside of one's own immediate environment.

　　Actually, the frog's situation was very close to that of the ancestors of all nationalities. Due to the difficulties of long-distance travel and communication in the ancient world, most people knew of nothing beyond their own limited environment. Their entire world was limited to their own backyards. In contrast to today's global perspective, it may be said that humanity's ancestors all lived at the bottom of wells of varying depths and diameters. Their worlds consisted of what they could see from their wells, and they were at the center of these worlds.

　　Certainly, when standing on the Earth, the Sky seen from different latitudes is almost the same; the most visible differences are in the mountains, rivers, soils, plants, animals, and climates. These were the factors that constrained the perspective of ancient peoples and shaped their world views. Just as the characteristics of a plant will vary when it is planted in different soils and climates, so the diverse thoughts and cultures of humanity are direct outgrowths of different geographical conditions. Therefore, to understand acupuncture and traditional Chinese culture, one must first look to the home of the ancient Chinese people, the world that was peculiar to them.