Small dose, big job: TCM technician's 30-year devotion to pill-making

Angongniuhuang pills that have been waxed and stamped. [Photo/cctv.com]

Meticulous attention

Among the whole process, there's one tedious and boring step - picking out the many tiny fluffy from the musk - one of the ingredients of the pills, to ensure purity of the medicine.

"When I first tried this work, I cleared the musk seven times. But it still failed my teacher's standard after she examined it. I was really disappointed," said Zhang Na, apprentice of Zhang Dongmei.

According to Zhang, there's no criterion how many fluff should be taken out, all depends on the strict standard in the technicians' heart.

"People will never know whether all the fluff would be taken out, but doing the work with conscious is a rule that we medical technicians must pass down by generations," Zhang said.

Paying meticulous attention and keep improving to make it better, that what Zhang has been insisting on during the past 34 years.

Her laborious work also got her rewards. "This is a life-saving medicine, my friend in Nanjing specially asked me to buy it," a customer in Beijing told Zhang Dongmei.

"I admire your work so much, you inherited the traditional Chinese medicine prescription," a customer from Taiwan said.

After more than three decades of experience, Zhang Dongmei has mastered the skill with precision.

Zhang said her mother must be proud of her inheritance, and she has determined to devote her whole life in making the small pills.