Traditional Chinese medicine has been practiced for thousands of years. Practitioners offer a wide array of remedies including countless blends of plants and fungi. But this could be changing as some now say they want to modernize the ancient art of healing.

Abraham Chang, president of the Modernized Chinese Medicine International Association explains: "What we are doing now is we are making every single herb(/s) into soluble granules, just like instant coffee. Now after you've got the prescriptions, just go to the dispensary. The pharmacist there will mix up the granules according to the prescriptions. And you will go home having one little sachet(/s) where you can just tear it up, put it in hot water and dissolve it and drink it and it saves a lot of time. ”

Modern versions of acupuncture are also being introduced as well as new techniques of Chinese massage. While the modern twist on tradition is growing in popularity, there still seems to be some way to go.

Doctor John Wu, director of Doctor and Herbs, a Chinese medical practice in the UK. "The Western medicine is the core of the people thinking, is the core of their spirits. So you cannot replace the Western medicine(/s). But (/a) the Chinese medicine can start from the complementary and then go to the alternative. Then finally may be 100 years, the Chinese medicine will be parallel with the Western medicine.”

An ongoing concern remains China's use of animals including very threatened species, although the controversial tiger bone remains officially banned.

Doctor Timothy Choi at Tong Ren Tang, a centuries old Chinese medicine purveyor.

"The use of the seahorse in the Chinese medicine is a long history. The benefit of (/a) the seahorse is it is good for kidney and upgrading the people’s energy. The other, the snake, we use a variety of snakes as a medicine to deal with that skin problem of people. And we using this deer tail, the deer tail is good for the weak people to improve their blood circulation.

But BeiJing is now keen to establish global standards as the interest in traditional remedies gets on the rise.

People across the world are increasingly using Chinese traditional medicine as an alternative or to complement western medical practices. But Chinese medical practitioners on the other hand say they are keen to modernize the image of Chinese medicine in order to help boost its global appeal. Mina Mehra Reuters, HongKong