Lan Li filmed and edited a series of short videos about how Buddhist temples serve as formal and informal networks for health care access in urban centers. The videos are featured on Lan Li's personal website.
Embedded across Philadelphia are over twenty Buddhist temples that serve as formal and informal networks for health care access. Largely invisible, these centers extend from distinct linguistic communities, including Vietnamese, Cambodian, Korean, Japanese, and Chinese, to offer translation services, affordable medical care, and medical courses. Buddhist institutions de-center hospitals and clinics as sites of medical care. From acupuncture needles to threadbare amulets, temples occupy spaces that lie between medicine and religion, experience and ritual, service and activism.
