This is one of
most common questions Americans ask about Chinese Medicine, and not an easy one to answer. Qi (pronounced "chee" and sometimes spelled 'chi') is possibly most essential and most controversial aspect of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). Biomedicine often feels it can quite easily dismiss parts or all of TCM by maintaining that modern science cannot verify existence of qi. The false idea that qi is an 'energy' like electricity has worsened this controversy.Is Qi Energy?
Some TCM practitioners say qi is 'energy.' This is not too bad of an explanation. But don't go away thinking we believe there are electrical circuits running through your body! Some scholars (D.E. Kendall, and Paul Unschuld) maintain that idea of qi as 'energy' was a mistranslation from Chinese.
Then What is It?
In terms of basic TCM ontology ("what exists"), Qi is one of four basic constituents of body:
Yin Blood Qi Yang < --- Substance Function --- > < --- Cold Hot --- >
(Yin and Blood are substantial, yin is cold; qi and yang are functional, yang is hot) Consider this convenient car-engine analogy: Yin is water from radiator to cool engine, blood is oil, qi is force that moves pistons, and engine can be said to be in a yang state when operating. Perhaps explosion itself is yang, while force of explosion is qi. We can also say that gas contains a qi that has yet to be utilized.
(In actual chinese character for word, qi is steam rising from a cooking pot of rice. I hope that explanation made sense to ancient Chinese, because it doesn't make much to me! To be fair to ancient chinese, we can think of steam coming from rice as being less substantial, more yang than rice itself, but still...)
