Culture : Hong Kong Mixes Folk Arts Into Health Recipe : * Feeling run-down? Try drinking donkey skin and ginseng, some herbalists advise.

Donkey skin, powdered clam shell and ginseng root are among the 10 ingredients of a special Chinese herbal soup that 72-year-old Madame Ng has been drinking for the past decade to build up her vitality and resistance.

Citing the advice of her personal “drug practitioner,” Chan Hung Lam, she explained that by swallowing a cupful of the mixture every morning and evening for a total of six weeks each year, her enduring energy and glowing complexion can be restored.

“The worst part about drinking the medicine is that it tastes awful,” said Ng. “But it works, so I don’t really mind the bitter flavor.”

Madame Ng is one of thousands of Hong Kong citizens who rely not so much on the gleaming, high-tech world of Western medicine but on traditional mixtures of herbs and other natural elements whose healing powers have been part of Chinese lore since Europe was in the Dark Ages.

Her “doctor” is her local practitioner, an unlicensed counselor who gained his knowledge about healing potions not from any medical book but from Taoist philosophy and Chinese folklore.

To Ng, these bizarre-sounding concoctions are not just a substitute for Western pharmaceuticals, they’re a vast improvement. Like many others here, Ng believes that Western drugs only suppress bacteria rather than get rid of them. Traditional Chinese medicine, by contrast, is seen as improving overall health by cleaning out the body.

Although there is no definitive data available on the number of Chinese drug practitioners in Hong Kong, an interim report by the British colonial government suggests that there are at least 4,000 and possibly as many as 10,000. Hong Kong law permits any resident of Chinese descent to practice traditional medicine without a license, whereas the 6,013 doctors practicing Western medicine here must meet specific qualifications for registration and licensing.

Most residents apparently use a mixture of Western and traditional medicine. A 1990 study by the Chinese University of Hong Kong found that 95% of the 2,822 respondents consulted a Western doctor when ill, while 59.4% consulted a Chinese drug practitioner.

People don’t always have the time to wait for herbal treatments to work or to brew the preparations themselves, Ng explained, so they go to a Western doctor when immediate help is needed.

A 1989 incident in which two persons lapsed into a coma after consuming a potent herbal medicine caused a surge of community concern over the possible dangers of traditional Chinese medicine.

A government committee, appointed to look into traditional medicine after that incident, has recommended registering drug practitioners to enhance their professional status and safeguard the public interest. In an interim report, it also endorsed compiling a list of a potent and toxic herbs to promote awareness and safe use.

Any action must await the committee’s final report, due in April. But it seems clear that the document will propose some controls.

Taoist philosophy holds that a properly balanced diet does much to ensure a healthy harmony between the two major life forces in the body--Yin and Yang--and that medicinal cures should be considered only when diet has failed.

The Chinese often use medicinal herbs to supplement and flavor their daily meals, similar to the way Americans might use vitamins as supplements. It’s all part of a healthy diet, according to the teachings of the ancient Chinese drug practitioner Sun Simiao, who lived during the Tang Dynasty (AD 618-907).

Sun taught that what he characterized as “heat-giving” foods, such as beef and lamb, should be followed by “cooling” foods, such as watermelon and mandarin oranges, to restore the Yin-Yang balance.

Modern Hong Kong followers of his doctrine favor tasty double-boiled soups in winter, which contain cleansing herbs such as ginger mixed with garlic, and which are reputed to revitalize the body.

The versatile root of the ginger plant is also considered an excellent stomach tonic to stimulate the appetite and restore normal digestion. Ginseng, an herb only recently discovered by the West, was recognized for its healing powers in China over 2,000 years ago by the philosopher Confucius.

Ng’s drug practitioner, Chan, 75, is one champion of ginseng, which many Asians call the “root of life.”

“A sliver of ginseng root in a cup of hot water can serve as a herbal tonic used to increase the resistance of the body’s organs,” he said.

Chan, who sees an average of 50 patients a day at the back of his Kung Wo Tong medicine shop, charges about $4 for a consultation and from $2 to $55 for his herbs. Rare products such as rhinoceros horn and tiger bone are even more expensive.

Ng’s practitioner was inspired to learn traditional medicine from his grandfather, who long ago administered herbal potions to patients in a small village in southern China. Himself a Hong Kong native, Chan furthered his study at a traditional Chinese medicine school here.

Fan Siu Hang studied Western medicine “to understand the scientific side of drugs,” he said. But he returned to the practice of the traditional medicine he learned from his father and today sees about 70 patients a day. He sends them to favored shops which he says provide the best quality herbs.

“The Chinese medical approach can cover the whole of the body,” commented Fan. “For Chinese people, animals, minerals and plants are treated as a whole in nature. So they don’t bother with Western medicine. Instead, they seek medical cures in nature which become part of their daily lives.”

“The Chinese arrange their diet in accordance with the season,” said Gerald Boyle, 29, an American acupuncturist working in Hong Kong and a fan of practitioner Chan. “They will have soup before their meal which contains components of Chinese herbal medicines, so it becomes not a medicine as much as a diet.”

Boyle said he became a customer of Chan’s medicine shop “because whenever I walked by this place, I always saw a long line of people waiting to see him.” Thanks to introductions by Boyle, the lines now include many other foreigners.

Ng, who was suffering from an upset stomach, was back in Chan’s shop recently for a new potion which he said will strengthen her blood--a Yin force--to cool down the inflammation in her stomach--a Yang force.

Chan said a mixture of ground cuttlefish bone, chicken-egg lining and mother-of-pearl shell along with three other Chinese herbs would probably do the trick.