Peifeng Alice Xian

Long before Alice treated anyone, she was the one being cared for.

A body that learned first

She was often unwell as a child. Tai Chi and Qigong slowly made her stronger, and Chinese medicine was a steady source of care through those years. She knew what both could do in her own body before she ever studied them.

An unexpected opportunity later turned that experience into a profession. At Southern Medical University she earned a master’s degree in acupuncture and captained the university’s Tai Chi team, and she holds a medical practitioner’s licence in China. The medicine and the movement have run side by side in her life ever since.

情不知所起，一往而深

“There is a Chinese saying for an affection that begins almost without our noticing and grows into lifelong devotion. That is how I feel about Chinese medicine: a long journey of learning, practice, and care.” — Alice

Acupuncture for pain

Alice has practised acupuncture in New Zealand for more than ten years. The Chinese Medicine Council recognises her as a specialist in two areas, Pain and Taichi Qigong, and her particular interest is relieving pain and helping people recover sensation and movement.

People come to her with acute or long-standing neck, shoulder, back, and leg pain, with lumbar disc problems, and with the numbness and altered sensation of radiculopathy. Others come while recovering from a stroke or surgery, including scar discomfort, or from concussion, with headaches and sensitivity to light. She also sees people for trigeminal neuralgia, bloating and reflux, dizziness, emotional stress, and menstrual health.

She starts from three things: the person’s symptoms, how they are moving, and what they want to get back to. The aim is practical: less pain, and a return of sensation and movement toward the activities that matter to that person. Her early research on pain left her with a habit of reading the evidence carefully before bringing it into the treatment room.

Part of a team

Alice rarely works alone. She has worked alongside physiotherapists, podiatrists, chiropractors, and GPs, and, when recovery calls for it, with rehabilitation and exercise professionals, so that acupuncture is one coordinated part of a person’s care.

She is a Veteran-Ready Certified Acupuncturist, through a programme run by Acupuncture NZ with the University of Otago.

Tai Chi and Qigong

The second of her specialist areas is the one that began her story. The practices that made a sickly child stronger are the ones she now teaches: she leads Tai Chi and Qigong classes in the community, sharing the movements and what they may offer for health.

She coaches Yang and Chen style Tai Chi, holds a 6th Duan coaching rank from the Chinese Wushu Association, roughly equivalent to a black belt, and is Vice President of the New Zealand Tai Chi Association.

She remains grateful to the Tai Chi coaches, mentors, and everyone who guided her, and hopes to pass on what she has learned to the people she treats and the communities she teaches.

Beyond the treatment room

• Her first research was on pain. An early animal study linked bee venom to less inflammatory pain; she still reads it as a lead, not a proven mechanism.
• She asked people what they thought. Her 2025 study of how patients and health professionals view acupuncture in injury rehabilitation was presented at the World TCM Congress in Sydney.
• Eight projects, thirteen papers. Research she has led or joined, in China and New Zealand.
• She has taught the next generation. At the New Zealand School of Acupuncture and Traditional Chinese Medicine she taught diagnosis, acupuncture, Tui Na massage, and Qigong, and coached its Tai Chi team.
• She serves the profession. An invited lecturer for Acupuncture NZ, and a member of the Chinese Medicine Council’s Competence Review Committee.