Introduction

[Guest guest]

All,

 

Apologies for my recent difficulties posting, which

remain unexplained. By joining under a new alias,

I have invoked the self-introduction routine. I recall

that in years gone by, those of us who have been

plugging away at CHA since its early days have

occasionally reintroduced ourselves to the membership

as its ranks have grown. So I'll take this opportunity

to actually introduce myself...again.

 

I am a writer. I am also a long time student of

traditional Chinese medicine, having begun my

study of the subject in 1970 with Marshall Ho'o

at the California Institue of the Arts, who was

also my first teacher of taijiquan. In 1971 I met

Martin Inn and have studied and practice taiji

with Martin ever since, although I all too rarely

and briefly am able to attend his classes in

San Francisco.

 

The bulk of my clinical training and practice

is in Chinese massage therapy, and I am

currently working on a book and courses that

deal with the integration of the principles and

method of taijiquan in clinical massage

and in treating patients before they get sick.

 

I have written several books, articles, essays,

poems and other forms of literary expression

about Chinese medicine and related subjects.

Some of these have been published including

Who Can Ride the Dragon? and A Brief History

of Qi, both of which were co-written with Zhang

Yu Huan. Back in 1999 I published an article in

the journal of myth and folklore, Parabola,

introducing the ancient Chinese concept of

evil, as in "evil qi", which is actually a poor

rendition of "xie qi" into English. But I won't

go into that now.

 

A third book with Yu huan is due out next

year from Paradigm Publications, which also

publishes the other two books. The subject

of this book is Daoist Sexual Alchemy and

related topics having to do with the art of

long life.

 

For nearly three years I have edited a journal

called Clinical Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine,

published by Churchill Livingstone (AKA Elsevier Science).

 

I currently live and work in Beijing where

I serve as an editor in the features section

of China Central Television. Among my

various duties at CCTV is development of

programming on the subject of traditional

Chinese medicine.

 

I think of my work in general as being addressed

to a single question:

 

How can contemporary non-Chinese individuals

approach, study, and eventually understand and

apply ancient Chinese ideas?

 

I find that answers are hard to come by, but it

is a question that has served to evoke an almost

endless cascade of questions in the years since

I began to ask it.

 

I have spent most of the past eleven years in

the People's Republic of China, the bulk of

that time in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan

Province, which is the most populated province

in China. Including Chong Qing which was made

an independent municipality a few years back,

Sichuan is home to over 110,000,000 people.

 

I mention these figures because they can serve

to illustrate an important principle I have learned

about China and more or less all things Chinese.

Scale, that is to say, order of magnitude, matters.

 

When the real numbers get to certain threshold

levels, the quality of the things they represent

begins to change in unpredicted and unpredictable

ways. I first started to notice these phenomena

in shopping malls on Sunday mornings in Chengdu.

 

Then one day in the old airport in Shuang Liu,

I experienced what it means to be crowded.

It was raining, and the airplanes were unable

to take off. That's because the rain in Sichuan

is not ordinary rain. It rains in waves. Curtains

of water fill the air when the summer rains

come. A meter falls in each of July and August

on average. So when these daily (and often

more than daily) deluges appear, everything

just stops.

 

This particular day it rained and rained.

 

Despite the fact that no planes were taking

off, planefulls of passangers continued to

arrive. After a few hours, the departure lobby

in the little airport was literally packed.

 

It was not possible to walk. I had to crawl,

in a standing position, between the bodies

to get to the bathroom to wait half an hour

to use the facilities. The press of human

flesh, when it is entirely unwanted, can leave

a distinct impression. It is everybit as memorable,

if not more so, than a lover's caress.

 

China is a strange place. I think even the

Chinese find it strange.

 

Chinese herbal medicine is a strange subject.

 

And the discussions about it here at the Chinese

Herb Academy may just be the strangest of all.

 

I enjoy them immensely and over the years

this list has served as an important laboratory

for my research into the question I posed above.

 

So there's a bit of self-introduction.

 

But there's a curious coda to the perhaps pointless

story of my day spent as a human sardine in

the airport outside Chengdu. At one point, after

about four hours of waiting, I looked across the

lobby to see a familiar face among the legions

of Chinese faces, a foreigner. It looked like but

I could not believe that it could possibly be

Ron Teaguarden. I had studied with Ron a few years

earlier in Los Angeles, and as I crept through the

crowd, rolling between the bodies like an inefficient

ball bearing that had grown hands, I began to realize

that it was indeed Ron. We spent the next few hours

huddled in the coffee shop and catching up on

our respective adventures in China.

 

That day I learned my lesson about order of magnitude

and a wide range of issues related to scale in

China...at least started to learn it.

 

The size of thoughts.

The accumulation of thoughts.

 

Both essential aspects of the study of Chinese

herbal medicine.

 

But don't take my word for it.

 

KenKen Rose

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