Our reliance as a community on traditional Chinese medicine to cure many minor ailments means that what is almost orthodox here is wildly exotic elsewhere.
That is not to say there are not many problems with the way the practice of traditional Chinese medicine is regulated locally.
A couple of years ago, unqualified practitioners gave patients a toxic root called gwai kuo, instead of a similar looking one called wai ling sin.
But there is far more research and voluntary schemes to regulate the practice than there are for the other myriad alternative treatments springing up across the SAR.
Claire Penketh goes deep into what she calls the urban jungle tonight on The Pearl Report (Pearl, 8pm), to find out a little more about the clinics opening up in business districts, offering many kinds of cures for stress-related conditions bought on by all those shrinking profit margins.
There are some who are new to the business - and business it is - and some who have been talking total nonsense for several years.
One of the better-known local alternative practitioners wrote a curious and extensive piece for a local parents' newsletter on what to do when a very small child gets a fever.