Acupuncture in Australia - article by Gunnar Stollberg

[Guest guest]

Yes, interesting article. Lots of hard data on multiple aspects of

the ethnography of Asian medicine's influence, or not, in Europe.

 

One statement -- " In the USA developed a medical counter culture in

the 1960's. " -- I would like to see more evidence for. My sense is

that, while clearly " counter culture " developed in the mid to late

1960's, the " medical " aspect appeared more clearly in the 1970's. I

lived more or less in the middle of it -- Berkeley Calif 1964-1970,

and San Francisco, 1970-1976, and in a commune to boot.

 

While things like the YiJing (in the form of the I Ching

Wilhelm/Baines translation) and TaoDeJing started to attract

attention in the late 1960's around here, it wasn't until the early

1970's that things like TaiChiChuan started to gain ground, i.e.

spread beyond the small groups working with Man-jan Cheng

( " Whiskers " ) and his students. Circa 1971-1972 the ideas of

Chinese-style communal structures derived from Red Guard ideas also

became popular (in the more radical fringes of the counter-culture).

 

From what I saw, it was only after the Nixon visit to China (and

famous encounter of journalist James Reston with post-operative pain

relief through acupuncture) that the medical ideas began to spread

(beyond China Town, where it had always been practiced within the

community). One of my colleagues ( " comrade " , perhaps) in the commune

was in the first group of lay people to visit China ca. 1973-4, after

the Nixon opening. I recall he brought back a souvenir for me -- a

poster illustrating QiGong / DaoYin (neither term was known, however,

at that time here) eye exercises used to instruct children in China.

(Encouraging this was apparently more economical than providing

optimetrical services to the masses.)

 

By the middle 1970's, Americans (the avant-guard ones) were flocking

to Asia and Europe (Jack Worsley) for training. In the late 1970's,

my (first) wife become an acupressure therapist, starting with

Shiatzu, which was previously around, and then becoming a student of

Stephen Chang in the Chinese acupressure (later TuiNa), and various

Daoist lifestyle notions. And she came across and introduced me to

DaoYin/Do-In through the books of Jacque LeLange (who had learned a

form of these exercises, ostensibly from Michio Kushi -- the father

of " macrobiotic diet " , and knowledgible in JM/CM).

 

Others may know more about this, but my sense is that, while there

were some small pockets of people acquainted with various forms of

Asian medicine earlier, the spread of popularity in terms of the

counter-culture, took place in the 1970's.