Amid the dual tides of globalization and modernization, the survival of traditional culture has increasingly become a central issue in civilizational dialogue. Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has been endowed with the symbolic mission of “cultural revival,” while simultaneously subjected to the dual pressures of scientific skepticism and identity anxiety. Taking the contemporary practice of TCM as its point of departure, this article—through policy analysis, ethnographic observation, and cross-cultural comparison—reveals the cognitive disjunctions, technological disciplining, and cultural discounting it faces. The study seeks to demonstrate that the vitality of traditional culture does not lie in rigidly preserving its original form, but rather in achieving creative transformation: establishing new coordinates of meaning within the dynamic balance of deconstruction and reconstruction, so that the ancient philosophy of “the unity of heaven and humanity” may enter into substantive dialogue with the lived experiences of the digital age.

Shengkang Wang. Revisiting Traditional Chinese Culture in the Context of Modernity: The Case of Traditional Chinese Medicine. Academic Journal of Humanities & Social Sciences (2025), Vol. 8, Issue 8: 89-94. https://doi.org/10.25236/AJHSS.2025.080814.

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