Chinese Medicine in Singapore

Can this man make traditional Chinese medicine sexy?

SINGAPORE, Jan 13 — We’re not sure how far we would trust Desmond Tan with our lives, but we’ll say one thing about him: The guy can make it look like he knows what he’s doing. Even if he doesn’t.

That skill comes in handy for his role as a traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) practitioner in the upcoming long-form half-hour series Peace and Prosperity on Mediacorp TV Channel 8.

Production for the show will commence this month, and it also stars Xiang Yun as the matriarch of a family that runs a Chinese medicine practice. Her six daughters give her almost as much grief as her lack of sons does.

Tan, who plays the young, hotshot doctor employed at the practice, had received a crash course in all things TCM at a medical hall in Toa Payoh, alongside co-stars Belinda Lee and Dawn Yeoh. It included shaving an antelope’s horns, and packing and weighing herbs with a traditional hand-held scale. He was also instructed on how to perform cupping and acupuncture procedures.

“The hardest part is to look like a pro doing it,” he quipped. “I’m very afraid of needles, so I was trying very hard to look cool.”

Yes, Tan knows that in matters of utmost importance, style is the vital thing. That’s why he asked the production team to let him wear a pouch on his side, from which he can take his lighter out easily, “do a swirl, and put it back, like a cowboy”.

He’s making sure his character has all the right moves. “Even packing and talking about medicine can be very cool. And if you can make it impressive, more guys will want to practice TCM to woo the girls,” he declared. “It can be a good pick-up line, right? I’ll just look at you and say, ‘Judging by your skin tone, I know you’re not sleeping enough. I believe that taking medicine A, B and T will help you a lot. If you want to find out more, come to my place and I can tell you more about it’.”

So, can Tan make TCM cool? “I always hope I can make things cool,” he said. “When I was playing a barista (in 96C Cafe), I hoped to raise the profile of coffee culture in Singapore. For this — I hope I can make it sexy as well, because the thing about TCM is that youngsters don’t know much about it.

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