Between Qi and Science
My Experience of What Can't Be Measured
Can healing be real if science can't measure it?
Between Qi and Science: My Experience of What Can't Be Measured is a six-episode audio memoir about qi, Chinese medicine, and the limits of Western biomedicine. It follows a Cantonese immigrant sweatshop worker who became a self-taught community healer in Brooklyn's Coney Island. His son, Dr. Kin Cheung, a scholar of religion and Buddhism, takes us on the journey of living with and learning from his father.
The story starts with a teenage encounter with qigong (hei gong). From there it traces the sweatshop labor, poverty, and immigration that shaped a "wounded healer." Later episodes dig into acupuncture, placebo research, and the politics of "traditional medicine." Other episodes cover Asian American masculinity and stereotypes, and the challenge of holding mainstream medicine, Chinese healing practices, and Buddhism as equally real.
The series blends personal narrative, oral history, and religious studies scholarship. It's for listeners interested in alternative medicine, Asian American stories, religion and science, and healing and grief across generations.
The first episodes will premiere on October 12, 2026!
Additional Show Information
About the Host
Dr. Kin Cheung is Priscilla Payne Hurd Chair in the Arts and Humanities and Associate Professor of East and South Asian Religions at Moravian University, where he chairs the Religion and Society Department and Philosophy Department. His research investigates how contemporary agents use Buddhist doctrine and ritual practices in Chinese and American contexts as well as transnational networks. Topics include Buddhists in relationship with healing, meditation, ethical dilemmas, economics, capitalism, secularism, whiteness, masculinity, science, and technology. He is editor of Teaching Asia during a Resurgence of Anti-Asian Racism (Association for Asian Studies, 2024) and co-editor of Buddhism and Healing in the Modern World (University of Hawai‘i Press, 2024).
Host
Dr. Kin Cheung
Straight White American Jesus
The flagship show examining Christian nationalism and democracy.
Listen Now
Reign of Error
Explore how religious and ideological extremism—especially white Christian nationalism—has become central to U.S. politics in the Trump era and beyond.
Listen Now
