It was in Guangdong province that after three weeks of traveling from one side of China, nearly to the other, and back again, that I finally succumbed to an illness that all-but-incapacitated me. As I was struggling to keep anything down – or in – and playing every trick in my travel medicine kit in hopes of stabilizing myself sufficiently for the trip to Shanghai and then the long flight back to Seattle, my Chinese colleagues became increasingly concerned about me and in earnest efforts to help suggested that I allow them to take me to a traditional medicine practitioner.