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| Su Tungpo statue at Huichow |
He was once convicted of disrespect of the Emperor through
his poems, for which he was jailed for nearly five months. There were many exiles in his life time. He was once exiled to Huichow; Chaoyun went
with him. He was contented and used all
his saving to build a new house ready to settle down, then Chaoyun died before
the house was completed.
Two months after the completion of the new house, “he had
written two lines describing his beautiful nap in the spring wind, listening to
the temple bells at the back of the house.”
When Chang Chun [the chief persecutor] read the verse, he remarked, ‘So! Tungpo is having a good
time!’ Thereupon the order for the new exile was issued.” This is how Su ended up exiling to the island
of Hainan, outside the mainland of China.
“Bless are those who are deprived of the good things of this
earth! It was this type of
humor that enabled Su Tungpo to be happy and contented wherever he was. Later, when he was exiled outside
China where no medicine and doctor was available, he told his friends, “When I
think how many people at the capital are annually killed by doctors I must
congratulate myself.”
Thomas Jefferson also didn’t have the confidence of the
medical practice in his days. While
designing the curriculum for the University of Virginia he founded, he confined
medical studies to theory only. He
called the medical practice “the charlatanism of the body,” as he called
religion “the charlatanism of the mind.”
Voltaire also didn’t have kind words for the medical
doctors, “Doctors are men who
prescribe medicines of which they know little, to cure diseases of which they
know less, in human beings of whom they know nothing.”
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