Seventeen Years of Gao Fang Wellness: Xiyuan Hospital Opens a New Chapter in Its Herbal Paste Culture Festival
Oct 1, 2026
Beijing, China, October 1, 2026 -- On September 29, 2026, the 17th Gao Fang Wellness Culture Festival of Xiyuan Hospital, China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences, opened in Beijing under the theme “Nourishing Health in Golden Autumn, Promoting Well-being for Every Family and the Nation.” The event also launched a new round of the 2026 Haidian Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) Culture, Tourism and Consumption Season, the Beijing TCM Culture and Tourism Consumption Promotion Campaign, and the “TCM Culture for Communities Across Hundreds of Cities and Thousands of Counties” initiative at its Haidian stop. On the opening day, the first floor of Xiyuan Hospital’s outpatient building drew many visitors with a TCM cultural program that began with the traditional Chinese music and dance performance Osmanthus Fragrance and Gao Fang Traditions.
Seventeen Years: An Annual Gathering Centered on Gao Fang
Spring brings growth, summer brings abundance, autumn brings harvest, and winter brings conservation. Golden autumn is traditionally regarded as an ideal season for nourishment and conditioning with gao fang, or herbal paste preparations. Xiyuan Hospital’s Gao Fang Wellness Culture Festival has now been held for 17 consecutive years.
As the first TCM hospital in Beijing to offer gao fang services, Xiyuan Hospital follows a rigorous traditional standard: “one prescription for one patient, one batch of ingredients for one prescription, and one preparation for one batch.” Each formula begins with the four TCM diagnostic methods—inspection, listening and smelling, inquiry, and palpation—followed by syndrome differentiation and prescription. It then goes through ten preparation steps, including ingredient selection, soaking, decoction, sedimentation and filtration, concentration, and final paste preparation. Each batch must also pass three traditional quality checks: forming pearl-like drops in water, hanging in sheets, and leaving no penetration marks on paper.
Traditional processing techniques are combined with modern pharmaceutical technology. Today, Xiyuan Hospital’s gao fang is packaged in individual single-dose sachets for easier carrying, storage, and use. The service is available across multiple specialties, including internal medicine, pediatrics, dermatology,encephalopathy, geriatrics, nephrology, andrology, and the Preventive Treatment Center. It supports long-term health maintenance for middle-aged and older adults while also addressing sub-health concerns increasingly common among younger people. Every batch reflects both time-honored craftsmanship and careful attention to quality.
Opening Ceremony: A TCM Story Spanning a Thousand Years
Unlike previous editions, this year’s opening ceremony was structured around a six-part AI short-drama series titled A Thousand-Year Journey Through Gao Fang. Told from the perspective of the master-and-apprentice characters “A Gao,” the series moves between ancient and modern times, from a young apprentice’s early curiosity about medicinal herbs to the craftsmanship with which modern practitioners preserve the thousand-year tradition of gao fang.
Residents from Qinglongqiao Subdistrict performed tai chi fan, blending strength and grace and illustrating how TCM culture has become part of everyday community life. An interactive gao fang card magic performance offered a creative and accessible way to explain the principles of “treatment based on syndrome differentiation” and “one personalized prescription for each patient.”
During the interactive session, two featured gao fang formulas drew particular attention. Huang Jing, Director of Pediatrics, introduced “Tongkang Gao,” which is based on the Ming Dynasty formula “Yangchun Baixue Gao” recorded in Shoushi Baoyuan and incorporates the classic formula Si Jun Zi Tang together with ingredients traditionally used to nourish yin and moisten the lungs. Designed around the TCM understanding that children are often physiologically prone to spleen and lung deficiency, the formula is intended to strengthen the spleen, replenish qi, nourish yin, and moisten the lungs. It is used for children with recurrent respiratory infections associated with lung and spleen deficiency syndrome.
Dr. Wang Miaoran introduced “Day-and-Night Regulation Gao Fang,” a dual-formula regimen. The daytime formula is intended to support alertness and reduce fatigue, while the nighttime formula is designed to calm the mind and support sleep. The approach follows the traditional physiological rhythm in which yang qi moves outward during the day and inward at night, and is used to regulate insomnia associated with the TCM pattern of “liver fire disturbing the heart.”
Beyond the Hospital: Bringing TCM into a “New Chinese Lifestyle”
This year’s event extended beyond the hospital. On the opening day, the Tongqing Street Health Market in Qinglongqiao Subdistrict and the Beijing TCM Health Consumption Experience Center at Hanyue Tower in Yuanmingyuan also opened, complementing the cultural market in the Three Hills and Five Gardens area.
At the Xiyuan Hospital exhibition area, specialist consultations and four-diagnostic-method instruments offered one-on-one health guidance, while the Internet Hospital experience zone introduced visitors to new models of online TCM services. TCM nursing experiences such as auricular acupressure and head scraping therapy were especially popular. Live demonstrations of non-pharmacological dermatology treatments showcased distinctive TCM external therapies. At the gao fang tasting and pharmaceutical service booths, pharmacists explained preparation techniques and specialty formulations. The TCM cultural and creative products area transformed herbal culture into contemporary products that visitors could take home.
On Tongqing Street, the health services area brought together experts from several medical institutions to provide public consultations. The cultural market featured herbal beverages, light meals, and leisure offerings, while the intangible cultural heritage area showcased Chinese-style handicrafts and pop-up Baduanjin performances. By integrating TCM culture with tourism in the Three Hills and Five Gardens area, the event created a distinctive wellness space inspired by contemporary Chinese aesthetics.
From its first edition to today, after 17 years of continued development, “Xiyuan Gao Fang” has become a recognized symbol of Beijing’s TCM culture. The opening ceremony is both a celebration and a commitment: the ancient art of gao fang has not faded with time, but continues to evolve through the dedication and innovation of successive generations of practitioners, becoming part of modern life and increasingly accessible to the public. As this thousand-year tradition meets the autumn scenery of the Three Hills and Five Gardens, TCM culture is becoming a more tangible and accessible part of everyday urban life.
Contact Info:
Name: Zhang Kaiming
Email: Send Email
Organization: Xiyuan Hospital
Website: https://www.xyhospital.com
Release ID: 89204838
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