Good evening, or rather good morning from
Japan
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
