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Well, while this about a sort of “personal endeavor”, it is not really about me, but rather about Japan. And I definitely DO NOT have any qualifications that would make me a legitimate representative of Japan.
But, …
I have now lived in this country for 33 years, but only 22 years in my “home country” Germany. That means, I spent more than half of my live in Japan.
While my original purpose to come here was Japanese archery (Kyudo), I entered a vocational school for acupuncture here, obtained my licenses something like 28 years ago and for 17 years now run my own little (microscopic!) clinic.
Personally I believe, that Japan is a sort of “treasure island” in regard to variety and amount of information, skills, technical know-how etc. when it comes to ORIENTAL MEDICINE. I prefer the term “oriental medicine” over “Chinese medicine”, because it suggests, that there are also other possibilities/views than the state-sanctioned, uniform (the Chinese like to call that sometimes “standardized”) and thus rather dull single pattern TCM. Many people do argue about it, but I am always under the impression, that here in Japan there are as many “styles” as there are practitioners.
While the Chinese vigorously pursue their declared goal of achieving “world domination” in regard to the “intellectual property” of Chinese medicine, the Japanese people on the other hand appear to be somewhat handicapped: first, they are rather shy = are not much interested in “speaking up”; second (related to the first aspect), they seem to suffer from an inferiority complex, because they are not good (at all!) at English and third, they themselves have not very much ambition to present themselves to the world.
Yet, you can rest assured, that in addition to ALL the information pertaining to acupuncture available in China, there is a tremendous amount of additional information available. While I would be VERY cautious when viewing so-called scientific reports originating in China, there is usually MUCH LESS likelihood, that (scientific or otherwise) reports from Japan are outright fake or at least highly questionable. This does not rule out, that some people have opinions that oppose those of other people and a quarrel about right or wrong would be rather futile here.
I have been trying to convince the Japanese people for something like 20 years now, that they should make more of their information, including books, magazines etc., available to the world – meaning they should prepare at least summaries in western languages like English, German, French, Spanish etc. So far, I had very little success.
I do have a little website of my own (with many flaws, because I am not very computer savy): http://www.einklang.com/
Most of it is in Japanese, but there are also German and English sections. And these were the trigger for my above mentioned endeavor. Occasionally foreigners stumble across my pages on their search about information on Japan. It then happens, that I am asked about possible sites/occasions to study a little about acupuncture in Japan. Unfortunately, I am not a very social person and therefore know only few people, who would be willing to help out.
Maybe my constant bugging has contributed to lead to an “official decision” to promote acceptance of foreigners in Japan on the general assembly of the JSAM 4-5 years ago … but nothing much has happened since.
The way I see things, and some of my efforts are detailed here:
http://www.einklang.com/Foreign%20study.htm
or also in blog entries
https://nyuwa.wordpress.com/2012/02/06/ … -a-chance/
https://nyuwa.wordpress.com/2012/02/06/ … e-excuses/
Last year, during the great earthquake Australian visitors were here and one is going to return this year. Incredible!
https://nyuwa.wordpress.com/2012/01/30/ … le-return/
As I said, personally I would love to see the “Japanese way of acupuncture” find a greater audience in the world.
Even if no one here actually has any intention of coming to Japan (that is just fine!), maybe if there were once in a while inquiries as to the possibility of learning (as a foreigner) about acupuncture in Japan, or shadowing in clinics … maybe the Japanese people would finally become a little more stimulated/motivated to actually SHARE some of their very valuable material.
You could try for example the website of the The Japan Society of Acupuncture and Moxibustion (jsam):
Japan Society of Acupuncture and Moxibustion -> http://www.jsam.jp/ -> honbu@jsam.jp （ask for: Mr. Hirokazu Inami)
http://en.jsam.jp/contents/010000SsehRk/
Japan Acupuncture & Moxibustion Association -> http://www.harikyu.or.jp/ -> info@harikyu.or.jp
Tel：03-3985-6771 Fax：03-3985-6622 (no English page):
If it should prove helpful, please feel free to mention, that you learned about the above mentioned websites through my website (the page about “foreign studies”).
I believe, there is an abundance of material AND techniques probably better suited for western people than a major part the Chinese style.
In case this is completely off course here, I would like to beg your pardon and apologize again.
Greetings from Japan
