Promotion of my acupuncture book

Good afternoon
I believe I was about 2 years ago so bold as to promote one of my own little "books" here. This is less a "book", much less any sort of text book, than an outline of my personal views on acupuncture "the Japanese way" as opposed to the so-called "authentic" Chinese style. Personally I am firmly convinced that MOST people (individuals and nations!) would benefit from the softer Japanese style much more than the Chinese way of doing acupuncture. (I would not volunteer to receive a Chinese style treatment)
In the end, everybody has to form her/his own opinion about this. (an Australian person studying Japanese acupuncture in Japan found this text very helpful)
I just took the liberty of summarizing MY views of the topic, along with some reference material and quite a number of pictures. Maybe those pictures could help YOU to make your own picture of the situation. If there are any questions I am capable of answering .. I will do my best.
The book is available via Smashwords.com in a whole array of formats and via Amazon as Kindle format.

"Acupuncture: The easy way - or the hard way"
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/420707

Unfortunately, this and the other ebooks are "not selling". That is why I choose to make them available for "free". Free means, you can download and read them, but I would be eternally grateful, if you could spare a tiny "donation" AFTER reading them. In the style of "shareware" items. The ebook is commercially available for about 5 USD. So, a "donation" of let's say 3 USD would be great. The send small amounts like that, I think PayPal should be suitable: my PayPal account is: thomas@s7.dion.ne.jp
http://www.einklang.com/Books.htm



Thank you.

Acudiversity ...

English: Hua Shou. Expression of the fourteen meridians. (Tokyo, 1716). http://www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/historicalanatomies/Images/1200_pixels/hua_t08.jpg (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I have been trying to help foreigners wishing to observe Japanese acupuncture in Japan for at least 15 years. Unfortunately, I must say, Japanese practitioners are not very forthcoming when I ask/ed for their help.
Most (close to 100%) of the people who contacted me in the past already hold some licence(s), whether those are related to acupuncture, herbal medicine or western medicine. Most also had already studied, at least to a certain degree, the kind of Chinese medicine often designated als "TCM" (Traditional Chinese Medicine). It is well known, however, that there is only a limited amount of "traditional medicine" in TCM, since it has been cooked up in the 1960s by Mao as a propaganda tool. So, the people who contacted me, did so, because they were dissatisfied and wanted to learn "something else". This latter one is usually named "Japanese acupuncture".

However, there is a problem with "Japanese acupuncture".
In China EVERYTHING is controlled by the state and only state sanctioned things / concepts are permissible, so that people go there and "learn" (teaching TCM is a commercial product, marketed in a quite capitalistic manner) in a month or so. That's easy, because there is only one state sanctioned TCM, which is not to be questioned or doubted and presented in palatable form for "those foreigners".

Here in Japan things are different. Nobody in a position of power cares enough to even try to regulate oriental medicine. Since the introduction of Chinese medicine to Japan about 1,500 years ago, the Japanese have adapted it to their own particular needs and added quite a number of ingenious inventions (probably most well known: the use of needle tubes) of their own. Over this period of 1,500 years "Chinese medicine" evolved into "Japanese medicine". Anybody claiming that it must today be still the same it has been 1,500 years ago is a little out of touch with reality. The reality of evolution.
As opposed to China, there has been no "cultural revolution", permitting only one "true TCM" and eliminating everything that might pose a threat (?) to the welfare of the state, all the different schools and techniques that have developed in Japan are alive and well. Mildly exaggerated: there are probably as many styles out there as there are practitioners.

To the best of my knowledge, even in the face of all those rather unpleasant efforts at "standardization", there simply is no "THE Japanese acupuncture". No practitioner I know could give a definition of what Japanese acupuncture is.
But precisely THAT is, what makes is interesting: the wondrous variety, where nobody can claim to be right and tell others they are wrong.
With reference to the term "biodiversity", I would like to name this situation:
        acudiversity

The other day, somebody from Germany contacted me, wishing to study "Japanese acpuncture". The person claimed to have already studied "TCM" (4 weeks) in China.
When I told that person, that in the absence of any organized (commercialized) courses in languages other than Japanese the only way getting a taste of Japanese acpuncture would be spending some time here and visit as many practitioners as possible, the person apparently got angry at me ("so there is no way of learning Japanese acpuncture?") and terminated the correspondence. That's fine by me.

However, I would like emphasize (again and again!): the variety of Japanese acupuncture styles is exactly what makes it so attractive.
Attractive in itself AND for the needs of the people of the world at large.
Personally I am convinced, that the "Japanese acupuncture" is much better suited for the world population than "Chinese acupuncture".
I would not volunteer to get a Chinese acupuncture treatment, BUT use moxibustion or acpuncture on myself before I consider anything else.

For people interested: I summarized some of these views in a little ebook: "Acupuncture .. the easy way - or the hard way".
It ***IS*** commercially available through Amazon and Smashwords.com, but since nobody has been buying it, I now offer it as free download from my website:

http://www.einklang.com/Books.htm

Chinese coral poaching -> Chinese people speak up

There are now not 1-2 vessels in the area .. there are HUNDREDS!

Chinese people ... what would YOU say / do, if a large gang of dirty robbers bashes in your front door, destroys everything in its paths, steals / kills all of your nations valuable pandas and as a replacement leaves tons of garbarge in a natural reserve that has been designated world heritage???

Speak up ... WHAT exactly is it that justifies this kind of Chinese behavior?

Those hundreds of pirate vessels operate within sight from the shore!!!
By national and international laws, common sense etc. they cannot have ANY right be there.

Basically I am a pacifist.
But those Chinese pirates, that appear to be even (Chinese) GOVERNMENT SUPPORTED !!!, really piss me off!

Every last one of those pirate ships should be sunk!!!
Since I am not a killer like those Chinese ... maybe give them a few rubber boats so they can swim
back to the dirty shores they came from.

World heritage ...

When we got a little typhoon over here the Chinese pirates temporarily evacuated the affected area.
But only to be back in 2 days.
Now, again, +200 vessels are "operating" = systematically destroying something the world at large had choosen to be a "World Heritage" = a treasure for the entire planet = human race + and generations to come.
https://nyuwa.wordpress.com/2014/11/02/chinese-coral-poaching-chinese-people-speak-up/
The beloved Chinese pirates are back, grining into the cameras of coast guard and press vessels as if to say: "We can kill and destroy everything we like at will, because our holy motherland is right behind our back. Nobody can hurt us."

SHOOT EVERY LAST OF THOSE BASTARDS!

I think
THAT would be PRECISELY what the Chinese would do, if a gang of foreign bandits came trampling over their ground to kill every last giant panda to make dog food. And they would justify it in front of the United Nations.

So, if this is WORLD heritage, once destroyed very unlikely to recover any time soon, if ever!, I was wondering whether the world at large has any opinion about this.
If there are any Chinese people, in particular those rich people = the only ones able to buy the products, how about speaking up and tell the world exactly why you have the "right" to destroy something that belongs to humanity and NOT YOU.