Expensive magic healing chair to be investigated
Global Times
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The therapy chair sold in North China's Shanxi Province, glows with red light, and is heated with wormwood. (Photo: Screenshot from the Pear Video)

About 30 senior citizens in Taiyuan, North China's Shanxi Province, were recently found lining up at a Moxa-Moxibustion clinic every morning at 6 or 7 am. Many of them were also found sitting on a "magic chair."

Glowing with red light, the chair is warm and heated with wormwood. Staff said the idea of the therapy chair comes from Moxa-Moxibuston, a traditional Chinese medicinal therapy which includes burning dried wormwood on particular acupuncture points of the human body. 

Some senior citizens said that they were told that the magic chair is capable of healing any ailments, such as gallstones and cysts. 

A senior citizen told the media that the magic chair cost her 5,480 yuan ($774) and it is really in great demand among the local elderly. Some netizens joked that it is just like a newly released smartphone among young people. 

"The chair provides limited benefits, such as healing muscular soreness," a senior doctor from the Shanxi provincial hospital of traditional Chinese medicine told the Pear Video. 

According to the Pear Video, some locals have reported the clinic to the industrial and commercial authorities, and an investigation will be launched soon. 

"The elderly always hope for a healthy body, and that makes them vulnerable targets for fraudulent traps. Buying such things could make them feel that their diseases are curable," said a netizen on Weibo.