Sabine’s Classical Chinese Program: An Overview
̌The purpose of this post is to explain the structure, features, and benefits of my various offerings on classical Chinese for potential and current students. I receive many questions about my courses, from visitors to my translation website TRANSLATINGCHINESEMEDICINE.COM, subscribers to my newsletter, attendees at my lectures, casual students who have signed up for my free Introduction course, or random strangers who found my name on the internet. Even my friends, family members, and current Triple Crown students or graduates have a hard time wrapping their heads around what I have been up to these past couple of years, and apparently my website may be pretty but is not the best vehicle for a clear summary of my offerings. So I have composed this post to address your inquiries more systematically and comprehensively. As you may know, I love hearing from you, so if you have any additional questions or constructive feedback, please drop me a message through THE CONTACT PAGE ON MY WEBSITE.
What is your whole classical Chinese program about, and what does it look like?
Until the pandemic shutdown of 2020, I had spent over a dozen years teaching classical Chinese medicine, culture, history, and language to Chinese medicine practitioners in person at conferences, in university and college programs, and in private courses all over the world. Being forced by Covid to make lemonade out of lemons, I decided to take advantage of technological innovation in creating and delivering online educational content, directly from my little home on an island in the Salish Sea to you, no matter where or who you are and how much time or resources you have at your disposal.
To contribute to the advancement of Chinese medicine as a highly sophisticated, globally relevant yet historically and culturally rooted medical paradigm, I have developed a menu of online options for learning to read the Chinese medicine classics. My intent is to train Chinese medicine students and practitioners (in the widest sense of that word), so that you can directly access the original historical sources of your medicine. In my decades of professional experience, the ability to engage with historical texts on Chinese medicine in the original language opens up a beautiful path towards personal growth, clinical expertise, and professional inspiration. Wanting to support students and practitioners at all levels, I have created a wide range of options, from the free Introduction to Classical Chinese, to a monthly self-paced mentorship on Reading the Chinese Medicine Classics, to the three nationally accredited Continuing Education courses (Foundations, Diamond Core, and Medical Medley) of my demanding Triple Crown intensive program, and culminating in the Peach Blossom Spring Collective. No matter how much time, money, and background knowledge you have at this particular moment, it is my honor and pleasure to connect with you and support you with all my heart in your personal and professional growth through my knowledge about traditional Chinese culture, language, and medicine.
What sets your program apart from other Chinese language courses? How have your education, life path, and professional teaching and writing experience shaped your approach in creating, developing, and now teaching this program?
This is a great question. It is wonderful that there are now a number of books, courses, and programs available to teach medical Chinese to practitioners of Chinese medicine in the West. Nevertheless, it can be challenging to find the teacher, format, and vehicle that are the best match for you. Beyond personal preferences, financial constraints, technological limitations, or other factors outside of my control, how are you to know which one to choose? Here are some facts that make my program stand out and may help you decide whether it is for you or not:
My program is unique in being classically oriented. As such, I do not teach modern Chinese, and you will not learn how to order dinner or say hello in Chinese! I also will not teach you how to read modern research reports. On the flipside, unlike most academic upper-level programs offered by universities, I do not require preexisting knowledge of modern Chinese, and we remain laser-focused on learning how to read the historical medical texts, which saves you a lot of time.
My program is designed specifically for students and practitioners of Chinese medicine. While we do study classical grammar and vocabulary, and early history, culture, philosophy, and religion through the passages that we work on, the ultimate goal is to read medically-oriented texts (in the largest sense of the word “medicine”). Discussions often focus on the clinical relevance of the material we study, from technical terms to literary genres to cosmology, medical ethics, personal cultivation, historical context, and selections of passages and chapters from the classics.
I am deeply steeped in the cultural and historical background of traditional East Asian medicine, due to my education (MA and PhD in East Asian Studies and Medical Anthropology, with doctoral research in Taiwan, Japan, Europe and US); my subsequent university teaching experience with courses on Chinese humanities, history, religion, and philosophy (University of Arizona, Pima Community College, Asian Institute of Medical Studies, National University of Natural Medicine, Yo San University, etc.); my professional connections with leading scholars and clinicians like Leo Lok, Donald Harper, Elisabeth Hsu, Charlotte Furth, Li Jianmin, Vivienne Lo, Nigel Wiseman, Long Rihui, Brenda Hood, Heiner Fruehauf, Liu Lihong, Sean Hsiang-lin Lei, etc.; and years of living, working, and studying in East Asia. For those of you who are unable to move to East Asia, I aim to bring East Asia to you, as much as that is possible in a virtual environment.
Based on my academic training, my program teaches to the highest academic standards of scholarship.
My decades of experience in teaching busy Chinese medicine students and practitioners allows me to be sensitive to and take advantage of your unique background and the specific strengths and challenges that you bring to the table, which I always take into account. My offerings are practically oriented and recognize the fullness of your professional lives and the challenges of learning a new language. My courses combine live events with asynchronous discussion forums and recorded lectures to maximize connection and learning while still creating multi-directional connection, all within the constraints of your busy lives. I also have decades of experience working with students with zero background in modern Chinese, so I have a whole lot of patience and compassion…It is my intention that nobody who seriously engages with my material and directly connects with me walks away from that interaction feeling like a failure.
All of my offerings aim to create a mutually-supportive community of classically oriented, passionate, sincere students of this sacred knowledge that we all treasure deeply. We leave our egos at the door and grow and play and struggle and laugh together, supporting each other on this journey with patience, compassion, joy, play, and good old love.
As a successful author, translator, and publisher, with dozens of published books and scholarly articles and years of working for the major publishers in Chinese medicine under my belt, I want to train and empower you as the next generation of leading experts, to create top-quality work that is worthy of publication.
I offer a complete and comprehensive training program, taking you all the way through from complete beginner to published expert or contributor to collective projects.
Can you tell me more about your Introduction to Classical Chinese? Is it really free and why should I take it?
As I explain on THIS WEBPAGE ABOUT MY INTRODUCTION COURSE, yes, this offering is completely free, with no strings attached! You can drop out at any time, spend as much or as little time on additional study suggestions, and retake it if your life becomes too busy to continue. So why don’t you follow the lead of over a thousand students from all over the world and give it a try?
This course gifts you a total of seven videos and 8 written posts (a $500 value!), drip-fed over 8 weeks and presented on an interactive platform. It can be started at any time, with no previous knowledge needed. It is equally helpful for students with no background at all and for more advanced students who need a refresher or lack clarity on the difference between modern and classical Chinese. The hundreds of comments by students who have already taken it from all over the world are reason enough, I think, to check it out….
Here is what you will get out of it:
A sense of the work ahead, should you decide to continue your studies, and of the challenges and rewards of studying classical Chinese, as well as an overview of the nuts and bolts of the learning process.
Guidance on what questions to ask going forward and how to find the right teacher and program for you and your background as you advance on this lifelong journey.
Immediate inspiration for your practice by introducing you to some precious classical quotations.
Deep metaphysical questions to contemplate each week.
Carefully curated practical suggestions for further study, from free online resources to potential local study opportunities, books, courses, etc.
An international community of over a thousand fellow learners who have been posting hundreds of inspiring comments, tips, and follow-up questions.
An entertaining yet enlightening no-risk, no-commitment window into the art of translation.
A sense of my teaching style, personality, and vision.
How does your mentorship Reading the Chinese Medicine Classics work, what does it require, and what benefits does it provide?
The Reading the Chinese Medicine Classics Mentorship (CLICK HERE TO FIND OUT MORE AND SIGN UP) is an affordable, moderately-paced, self-directed membership program that provides three to four lessons in the form of video recordings or written posts each month, as well as monthly live text readings, a library with permanent resources, and much more, on an elegant, user-friendly, and protected platform. Lessons are drip-fed from the time you sign up and cover eminently practical topics for Chinese medicine practitioners, from consulting dictionaries to finding solid digital editions to having fun with calligraphy to Pinyin spelling and measurements, and sometimes diving deeply into specific texts and passages. Inviting you to spend an hour or two a week on classical Chinese, this affordable mentorship is intended as a follow-up for students who have completed my Introduction and for anybody else to hone their language skills, review grammar and vocabulary, gain some understanding of cultural context, learn academic standards, and gather clinical pearls. It is the ideal long-term course for the busy practitioner, but is also intended as preparation for the Triple Crown Intensive course. If you are a self-directed learner in no rush, with no need for a guide, personal feedback, and structure to keep you working, or you just want to casually absorb information casually over time with no outside pressure, this offering may be a good choice.
Here are some things you will get out of it:
Affordable access to effective, sustainable, self-directed training in classical Chinese, at your own pace whenever you are ready for it, at whatever amount you choose.
Comfortably spaced offerings to keep you engaged, from translation challenges to entertaining videos to serious lessons and advanced live text readings.
Frequent invitations for additional studies and resources.
Access to Sabine's inexhaustible treasure bag of tips and tricks to produce professional, top-quality translations and develop clinical expertise.
A community of fellow Chinese medicine nerds, as well as direct access to top-level expertise from Sabine, participating Triple Crown graduates, and an engaged group of some of the leading translators, sinologists, and clinicians in the world!
Immediate inspiration for your practice and deep metaphysical questions to contemplate.
What is your Triple Crown training program, what do I need to be successful, and what are the benefits?
The Triple Crown program (VISIT THIS PAGE TO FIND OUT MORE AND APPLY!) is my offering for the most committed, motivated, and sincere students, who have made up their mind to dedicate substantial periods of time and resources to learning classical Chinese for several months at a time, over a total of two years.
This nationally and internationally accredited program consists of three separate courses, which can be taken consecutively over two years for the most rapid progress possible, but can also be broken up and completed as individual segments over several years. The courses are held online, in a combination of prerecorded 1-hour lectures, asynchronous discussion on a user-friendly private discussion forum, individual homework assignments with continuous detailed feedback and support from me throughout the course, and a live (and lively) 1.5-hour Question-and-Answer session on Zoom at the end of each lesson, in a small cohort. Given the speed of progress and challenge of the homework load, students should come prepared with some previous background knowledge in Chinese (or be ready to work a bit harder) and must be able to consistently set aside several hours per unit to watch the 1-hr pre-recorded lecture, complete the readings and study the homework package, memorize vocabulary, prepare the required translations and exercises (which are always shared and critiqued within our course community platform), and participate actively in the discussion forum and live 1.5-hr Q&A sessions.
I ask a lot of my students but am ALWAYS there to lend a helping hand and cheer you on. I consciously keep each cohort small so that I can give each student the personal attention, support, and critical feedback that is necessary for the rapid progress of this program. Successfully completing all three levels of my Triple Crown training program provides you with these benefits:
Experience in a wide range of technical medical literature, from theory to acupuncture, pulse studies, case histories, materia medica, and formularies.
Learn about the cultural context of Chinese medicine through discussion of philosophy, poetry, and history (medical and general).
Memorize key classical vocabulary, both medical and general.
Master all the important grammatical structures, with an emphasis on Hàn dynasty style but additional exposure to later medical texts and commentaries.
Learn about the key classics of early Chinese medicine and know how to approach each one in terms of sources, commentaries, vocabulary, content, and grammatical particularities.
Closely study with one of the foremost translators and teachers in the field.
Learn to work with some of the best academic resources, from consulting specialized dictionaries to accessing critical editions and manuscripts, finding top-notch secondary literature, and performing academically solid internet research.
Motivation for sustained study in the happy company of other sincere, mature, and deeply committed students, as we all travel this path together.
Immediate inspiration for your practice and deep metaphysical questions to contemplate.
Personal and professional cultivation of virtue-power 德.
Will I be able to read historical Chinese medicine texts on my own upon graduation from your Triple Crown program?
This is a great question that is unfortunately impossible to answer with a simple “yes” or “no.” The actual outcome of these three courses in terms of your ability to read historical Chinese medical texts after graduation depends on far too many factors to make firm promises, from your pre-existing knowledge and experience with reading Chinese to your consistent engagement with the material for the duration of the course, to the difficulty of any particular text you choose. Here are some examples:
Clinical instructions for acupuncture and medicinal treatments: These are generally easy and straight-forward to read, so chances are good that you will be able to consult the key works in your field of specialization independently after successfully completing my program. Graduation from the Medical Medley (the third and final course level) will thus unlock the treasure house of clinically oriented literature on Chinese medicine in any given specialty when you have reached the limit of what is available in Western languages or modern Chinese.
Huángdì nèijīng: You will certainly be able to engage with the Yellow Emperor’s Inner Classic at a much deeper level by studying solid English translations alongside the Chinese original text. Some passages will come to you easily while others are too obscure for even the most seasoned translator to understand fully. Even the Foundations course alone will provide you with the basics of grammar to provide clarity in deciphering sentence structure, navigate different character meanings and usages, and recognize linguistic features like parallelism or rhetorical questions.
Historical case studies: While the descriptions of symptoms, formulas or acupuncture prescriptions, and modifications and outcomes may be fairly easy, this tends to be a difficult genre to work with, unless you are familiar with the particular historical context, because it requires knowledge of official titles, occupational activities, sometimes obscure references to contemporaneous physicians and their theories, etc. My program will, however, teach you about academic resources to consult and how to extract the clinical information.
Daoist and Buddhist references: In traditional China, there was no strict boundary between “medicine,” “religion,” and “philosophy,” in the way that we are familiar with in the modern context. Especially literature on yǎngshēng (“nurturing life”) tends to contain religious content that can so easily be misunderstood and be downright dangerous when applied in a modern clinical context to an uninformed patient by a practitioner who is inadequately trained in the religious background of these practices and instructions. I will give you some tools to help you recognize this material and find support in tackling it.
Late Imperial and modern commentaries on the classics and other literature on classical Chinese medicine: Even with fluency in reading modern Chinese medical texts, you may still run into problems because of the frequent classical quotations and phrases, which are often unmarked. Training in classical Chinese will vastly improve your ability to access this material without the squishy murkiness that is so prevalent in our profession these days.
Learning to read the Chinese medicine classics is truly a life-long journey, and there is no single finish line that you get to cross and then call yourself a master. I am still learning and growing after several decades of doing this almost every day of my adult life. So it would be unethical for me to guarantee that you achieve the ability to read classical Chinese literature on your own after graduation from a 2-year program. Can any of us ever say that we truly understand an esoteric text like Língshū 8 “Rooted in the Shén” 本神? It is one of my professional goals in this lifetime to inspire as many practitioners as I can to embrace the study of classical Chinese medical literature as a life-long journey of both personal and professional cultivation.
That said, even the Foundations course on its own will have an immediate, noticeable effect on your reading ability, since the mastery of even simple grammar structures and key classical vocabulary will provide a clarity and direction that you simply cannot achieve by teaching yourself. It’s like learning to cook or farm or play an instrument. Yes, you can teach yourself in a lifetime of perseverance and commitment and hard, hard work, but will you ever reach the level of expert and be able to run a successful restaurant kitchen or commercial farm? Will you even know what you are missing in your musical career if you haven’t jammed with others or played in an orchestra? Would you feel comfortable being treated by a self-taught acupuncturist or herbalist who has acquired their skills in isolation from books and constantly has to look up formulas on the internet? And on the flip-side, why on earth wouldn’t you want to learn from the experts and thereby dramatically accelerate your learning process, avoid costly mistakes and embarrassments, and instead find joy, inspiration, and support in a community of fellow students?
What are the three levels in your Triple Crown program? How do they relate to each other?
My Triple Crown program consists of three nationally and internationally accredited courses: the 6-month Foundations (34 PDAs), the 4-month Diamond Core (21.5 PDAs), and the 7-month Medical Medley (31.5 PDAs). These three levels start every two years in September, the following March, and the following September, respectively. They can be completed as a single program over the course of two years, or they can be taken one level at a time. The three courses do build on each other and, with very rare exceptions, I require students to start with the Foundations and successfully complete each level before being allowed to advance.
Level 1 of the Triple Crown: The Foundations course contains 14 lessons (and 4 text readings) over six months and starts on the second Thursday in September every other year. For this course, we use Bryan Van Norden’s Classical Chinese for Everyone as our main textbook, supplemented by my own material to make the lessons medically relevant and flesh out the material. The lessons in our textbook start gently with short selections that gradually increase in length, mostly from the classical philosophers, always providing complete vocabulary lists and excellent basic grammar explanations. While this textbook is deceptively simple at first sight, it offers an excellent overview with very rich content that I flesh out with extensive additional material and intensive ongoing support for the entire duration of the course.
Level 2 of the Triple Crown: The Diamond Core course runs for 4 months from March through June and contains 9 lessons (and 5 text readings). This course is based on the 8 lessons in Part 1 of Michael Fuller’s Introduction to Literary Chinese, again supplemented with medical and other content created by me. Compared with Van Norden’s “Guide for Absolute Beginners,” the level of difficulty in this academic text, intended for university graduate programs, increases sharply from one lesson to the next, in terms of grammar structures, theoretical explanations, and amount of vocabulary covered. For each lesson, the book provides an excellent introduction, carefully chosen selection from a classical source, detailed vocabulary list, grammar notes, and open-ended questions and exercises. This is most definitely not a textbook a student would be able to master without an experienced teacher. It is my pleasure to make this material accessible to you by really helping you along on every step of the way, but it is also immensely helpful to have your fellow students in our small group responding to your questions, struggles, and successes! It is together as a group that we all succeed.
Level 3 of the Triple Crown: The Medical Medley runs from September through March and consists of 12 lessons (and 5 text readings), using my very own Imperial Tutor’s Medical Medley as our textbook. This is your final reward since we finally get to focus exclusively on medically-oriented literature as we dive deeply into some of the most famous texts of our profession. But along with its many rewards, it is also the most challenging class as I ask you to prepare increasingly longer and more difficult passages from a wide variety of sources. In the Medical Medley course, we study selections from the Sùwèn 《素問》 (Plain Questions) and Língshū 《靈樞》 (Magical Pivot), Zhuāngzi 莊子, Sūn Sīmiǎo 孫思邈, Shénnóng běncǎojīng 《神農本草經》(Divine Farmer’s Classic of Materia Medica), Nànjīng 《難經》 (Classic of Conundrums), Nèiyè 《內業》(“Inner Training”), Biǎn Què 扁鵲, and Nǚkē bǎiwèn 《女科百問》 (Hundred Questions on Gynecology), including many of the key texts that you can directly apply in clinic. While the basic structure of this course is identical to the Foundations and Diamond Core, my Medical Medley textbook provides you not only with the assigned source text, a carefully chosen character list, and grammar and vocabulary notes, but additionally offers a detailed introductory essay for each lesson’s medical context, a list of key terms to memorize, clinically relevant discussion questions, and more.
For all levels, the live discussion sessions are currently scheduled to take place on ZOOM on Thursday mornings, 9-10:30 am Pacific Time. Depending on enrollment and scheduling issues, we may be able to add a second cohort at a different time. Attendance is mandatory for the majority of the live sessions if you need Continuing Education Credits or a graduation certificate, unless you have a serious reason to miss them, in which case you can always watch the recording to catch up.
For all three levels, your weekly required work consists of
a. Watching my prerecorded lecture.
b. Reading the homework package.
c. Writing and studying vocabulary and assigned passages.
d. Contributing in the discussion forum throughout the week.
e. Posting your translation and graciously receiving the detailed individual feedback I provide, always with the option to ask for clarification.
f. Actively participating in the live Question-and-Answer session.
How do I prepare for your program and how do I get started?
If you have no or minimal background in Chinese, I have created the ideal preparation for my Foundations class for you:
Complete my free Introduction to Classical Chinese course.
Actively attend my Reading the Chinese Medicine Classics mentorship for a number of months, but hopefully at least for the first 7 weeks of the “Basics” section.
If you already have some background or have enough time, energy, and commitment to jump right in, you may skip one or both of these offerings. Given the fact that each student has different strengths and weaknesses, the first step is always to get in touch with me by filling out the admissions survey (HERE IS A DIRECT LINK TO THE ADMISSIONS SURVEY), to give me an idea of who you are and how to support you to the best of my ability. I will get in touch with you once I have received your information, and we can make a plan together on how to proceed.
I have heard you mention the Peach Blossom Spring Collective. Can you tell me more?
This is my dream and my long-term vision, with six major goals:
I want to continue supporting the graduates of my Triple Crown training program and to build on all of our hard work. While I am certainly not comfortable calling myself “master” and you “disciples,” I envision working with my most advanced students by gently guiding you in a framework somewhere between a traditional apprenticeship, internship, and creative artist collective.
I want to gradually step back from my role as your teacher to become more of an advisor or senior colleague, helping you to create your own work that holds up to the highest professional standards. After decades of writing and translating books myself, I now want to train you all to assist me in this work until you are ready to do your own.
As a group effort, the Peach Blossom Spring Collective will ensure the quality of the work we produce, where we all hold each other accountable, ask the hard questions for and with each other, and provide each other with critical yet constructive feedback. We shall create works that far transcend the sum of our individual skills.
Pooling our resources and combining our individual strengths will allow us to tackle difficult questions and ambitious projects that no single individual could finish. We can also pursue outside sources of funding.
It is my intention, as part of this collective effort, to create bridges across disciplines, time, and space, by building a network of connections and collaboration between clinical practitioners and academics; between translators, scientists, and doctors; and between specialists in East Asia and the West.
In specialized working groups, we will create translations or classically-oriented research articles that we shall publish in a variety of formats, from an open-access quarterly journal to zines and small e-books and to physical books or even series of books.
