"Jiebai Wan, Jiebai Wan." In the Zhongyou drugstore in Lanzhou, capital of northwest China's Gansu Province, two foreign customers are talking to the shop assistant with hand gestures, trying to buy medicine.

Jiebai Wan is a Tibetan medicine, used to stop diarrhea and it was made by the famous Tibetan Buddhist temple Labrang Lamasery inthe province's Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture.

Tibetan medicine is a kind of unique medical system which combines the medical and health experience of Tibetan people with the quintessence of traditional Chinese medicine and Indian and Arabic medicine, said Yang Hongquan, head of the hospital attachedto the Gansu Tibetan medicine research institute.

Yang said Tibetan medicine, as part of the Tibetan culture, wasstrictly restrained to be developed or studied in the lamaseries for quite a long time.

Though the medicine was popular in western China, people could only have access to it in the lamasery.

Yet today, the medicine is produced with modern equipment. A large number of Tibetan medicine factories have been established in Gansu, Qinghai and Tibet.

The small, white pill now appears in drugstores worldwide and has become an important part of China's medical products, said Zhou Shouke, head of the health bureau in Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture.

People can buy Tibetan medicine almost everywhere in China. Many hospitals use Tibetan medical methods to cure patients, said the official.

At the same time, education and studies on Tibetan medicine have become popular since the 1980s in many schools and colleges in the western part of China.

More people learn and experience this unique medical system. Research institutes on Tibetan medicine have been built in more than 30 countries in Europe and America.

"The wide spread of Tibetan medicine is a good reflection of the opening up of Tibetan culture," the official said.

Editor: Wing