Students from Zimbabwe and Bangladesh of a vocational college in North China's Hebei province experience acupuncture treatment at a TCM clinic in June. [Photo by Fu Xinchun/China Daily]

It was needles that brought Anaelle Regniel to China. She was intrigued by the "tiny silver needles that could sooth the pain of a patient" used in acupuncture.

Following her curiosity, the then high school student in France who was learning Chinese about a decade ago, was prompted to find out more about traditional Chinese medicine.

She majored in both Chinese language and TCM at college. Then, considering TCM to be more developed in Britain than France, where there are a few private Chinese hospitals, she did an internship at a TCM clinic in Leeds, Britain.

That was where she heard about the scholarship of the first Confucius Institute for Traditional Chinese Medicine, which is located in Leeds.

In 2013, she studied Chinese at the Confucius Institute in Leeds for three months, passed the third level of the Chinese proficiency test and won a scholarship.

She then commenced a one-year internship in the acupuncture department of Heilongjiang University of Chinese Medicine in Harbin.

"I thought at the beginning that with the knowledge and techniques of acupuncture, cupping therapy and Chinese massage that I had learned before, it would not be so difficult. After all, acupuncture should be the same everywhere, right?" recalls the 27-year-old.

Before long, she found with dismay that she was wrong.