A taste for oolong tea: A tea importer opens a retail shop in the Friendly Street neighborhood
“Josh Chamberlain is a tea merchant, tea enthusiast, tea evangelist.
“Tea can bridge cultures,” he said. “Tea is a friendship builder. … It’s a mood enhancer.”
Chamberlain doesn’t deal in Twinings or Red Rose or Snapple. Rather, he sells high-end, loose-leaf oolong tea with such mystical-sounding names as Iron Goddess and Wen Shan Bao Zhong and Four Seasons Like Spring.”
A large Taoism center opens in Toronto, Canada–further proof of the growing interest in Chinese medicine and culture:
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Biddulph wasn’t looking for a new religion when she discovered Taoism, but the Barrie nurse was drawn to it when patients began telling her about Tai Chi’s ability to help with musculature and circulatory problems, to boost the respiratory system and reduce stress.
“As a medical professional, I could see that there was something very special to this art,” she says.
Today, Biddulph is preparing the new 450 square metre Fung Loy Kok Temple north of Toronto for its grand opening next month.
The $13-million temple and adjoining halls, meditation rooms and accommodations were built by Toronto’s Taoist Tai Chi Society as a place of refuge for those exploring China’s three ancient faiths – Taoism, Confucianism and Buddhism.
A planned three-day opening celebration will feature chanters and religious dignitaries from around the world, culminating in a gala festival Sept. 8.
The ancient faiths are resonating with a growing number of people today.
Between 1991 and 2001, the number of Buddhists in Canada, for example, jumped 84 per cent, though at 300,300, they still represented only about 1 per cent of the population. The number identifying themelves as Taoist doubled, to 3,400.
Part of that growth can be attributed to people like Biddulph, who incorporate parts of Taoism into their lives alongside the religious beliefs they grew up with.
Prone to back pain and with a mild case of scoliosis, Biddulph found herself slouching a few years ago and feared she’d develop a dowager’s hump as her mother had. Desperate for an answer, she decided to take her patients’ advice and give the slow-moving martial art a try.
“My back is a lot stronger doing this,” she says, and a lot straighter.
Tai Chi instructor Andrew Hung describes Tai Chi as a form of “physical meditation,” since the mental concentration needed to move so precisely and to breathe as instructed forces participants to push all other thoughts from their minds.
The result, he says, is that life’s stresses and conflicts are pushed from the mind as well.
At a time when some faiths demand strict adherence, Chinese religions allow followers to adapt only as much or as little as they are comfortable with.
Harvard professor Michael Szonyi, formerly of the University of Toronto, says Chinese faiths emphasize practice over doctrine.
“It doesn’t really matter what you believe, or think about the universe,” the East Asian civilizations expert says. “What matters is behaviour.”
Hung, who has been instrumental in setting up the temple, says that if some people want to simply practise Tai Chi for their health, that’s okay. If others want to go further in their exploration of the three faiths, that’s okay, too.
“We don’t force people to become Taoist,” he says.
Szonyi says the tradition of mixing the faiths dates back centuries. While the purest forms of the religions were reserved for monks and monasteries, ordinary people have long picked and chosen which elements of each faith to embrace.
He said the three faiths are sometimes described as a mountain with three peaks. From the base, where most people are, the peaks appear largely as one. Further up the mountain, among the most devoted, the peaks begin to be differentiated.
Groups like the Taoist Tai Chi Society, he said, tend to appeal to people further down the mountain, including many non-Chinese. “
Chinese medicine continues to gain a following in Western societies:
“Picture yourself at a clinic, flipping through magazines. The doctor asks you to go into her office for a chat. She takes your medical history and asks you about your disease. Then she asks you for your wrist.
She places three fingers under the bone of your thumb and to the outside of your wrist tendon. She changes the pressure, purses her lips.
“Your kidney is a little bit too yin,” she says.
This factor will go into her final diagnosis. The “yin” is opposite of “yang,” and the “kidney” refers not to the organ but to the kidney system in Chinese medicine, which controls fluids and endocrine functions.
Nothing you can solve with two Advil and a glass of water.
This is Chinese medicine, a practice that includes cures ranging from acupuncture to the ingestion of herbal brews. The goal is usually not just to treat a specific symptom but to treat the imbalance in the body that causes the symptom.
You may go to see a Chinese-medicine practitioner for a headache that won’t go away, a feeling of heaviness or a chest cold. You may even be there for a more serious reason: Chinese medicine has become a well-known alternative treatment for infertility and chemotherapy side effects.
But regardless of why you are there, you are part of a wider trend. Chinese medicine is becoming more and more popular as a legitimate alternative to conventional or “Western” medicine.
“[Chinese medicine] is slowly becoming universal, and both patients and providers come from every ethnicity possible,” said Henry McCann, a certified practitioner in Madison.
Although acupuncture has become popular in major hospitals as a method of pain management, herbals are rarer. That’s partly because New Jersey requires a license for the practice of acupuncture but not for herbs. Because of that, large insurance companies are much more likely to pay for acupuncture than long-term herbal treatment. McCann estimates that of the 500-plus Chinese-medicine practitioners in New Jersey, fewer than 100 have a certificate for herbal medicine.
Even if they have both skill sets, physicians may find themselves feeding greater demands for acupuncture. Dr. Dadong Wu of Tenafly, for example, works mainly with needles and suggests that patients think about herbal treatment if he notices symptoms that are better treated with medicine. (He was trained at the Beijing Medical College in the 1970s.) Once part of the same treatment, acupuncture and herbal medicine in the U.S. are separated by legal status.
Yet the tide is turning. Thomas Leung, an Englewood Cliffs resident who owns Kamwo Herbal Pharmacy, a Chinese-medicine pharmacy in Chinatown, says the demand for herbals is increasing by the year.
In “1994 when I first started, 10 percent of our business was non-Chinese,” said Leung. “Now it’s the other way around.”
Thanks to the Internet and fast mail delivery services, Leung’s staff can receive specific prescriptions of 10 to 12 herbs from physicians, brew the dried plants, package just the liquid in individual dose-size vacuum packs and send the medicine directly to the patient. Orders come in from all over the country, including clinics in North Jersey.
McCann, a past president of the New Jersey Acupuncture Association, led a charge in New Jersey for an official recognition of herbal medicine by the state. Under that recognition, Chinese-medicine doctors would be required to get a license before prescribing herbals — a law that would protect consumers and possibly open the door to insurance coverage. This law has yet to pass.
In the meantime, patients should look for the national gold standard of Chinese medicine: certification in “Chinese Herbology” or “Oriental Medicine” from the National Certification Commission for Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine.
“It’s a buyer-beware situation,” cautioned McCann. “The potential for hurting people with herbs is greater than that of hurting people with acupuncture.” He cited herb-drug interactions as a major concern and warned that practitioners who do not ask for a full medical and drug history at the first meeting should be regarded as suspect. Practitioners should also be able to account for the origin of their herbs.
“[Chinese-medicine practitioners] wrote down everything from different regions through the millennia about what worked and didn’t work,” said Leung. “It’s a very strong system.”
There’s nothing mystical about reading the symptoms and prescribing medicine according to this system, said Leung, but “people think that it’s something done ‘by feel,’ something like a feng shui master or a martial-arts master.”
Gouquizi (lyceum berries). Can be used to improve vision in the elderly.
Sangye (mulberry leaves). Can be used to clear heat, such as a cough with yellow phlegm.
Gancao (licorice root). Can be used to moisten the throat.
Yiyiren (barley). Can be used to treat a urinary tract infection.
Xinyihua (magnolia). Can be used to treat allergies.
Jinyinhua (honeysuckle). Can be used to clear heat, such as red eyes.
Pugongying (dandelion). Can be used to treat breast abscesses.
Xiyangshen (American ginseng). Can be used to treat fatigue.
Lianzi (lotus seeds). Can be used for diarrhea in certain cases.
Danggui (angelica sinesis). Can be used to regulate the menses.”
More and more people are using alternative therapies like acupuncture and herbs to treat a variety of conditions:
“As more diseases are identified, the challenge is on to find cures for each. Usually, the search begins and ends in medical research laboratories.
However, more people are turning to alternative methods of treatment for illness through the centuries old method of Chinese herbs and acupuncture.
Many swear by the method, such as Santa Rosa Beach residents Woodie and Dot Long.
The Longs have been regular visitors to the Tortoise Medical Clinic in Miramar Beach since 1994. Dr. Kenneth Suh is the current doctor at the clinic and has been there since October 2006.
In 1994, Woodie was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis in his eyes and was losing his eyesight. He began drinking herbal teas and taking acupuncture treatments and responded immediately.
Within two weeks, he was free of the disease, he said.
Dot Long concurs with her husband. She visits the clinic about once a week.
“It’s good stuff,” she said.
Laurie Beck, owner of Pilates by the Sea at Shops of Grayton, backs up the Long’s testimony.
Last year, she experienced what she calls a “hiccup” in her life. The hiccup in Beck’s life was non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
She opted to try to heal her body and started acupuncture treatments on May 19, 2006 at the Tortoise Clinic. She had never had acupuncture before, but the doctor at the clinic told her that if she listened and followed his program, he could rid her body of the disease.
She began drinking 30 ounces of herbal liquid daily along with energy healing, walking and breath work.
After three months, Beck’s blood count was normal and her oncologist told her to keep doing whatever she was doing.
Subsequent CT scans showed everything to be normal and that she was in spontaneous remission with no treatment. She continues to take the herbs and acupuncture therapy.
“It’s been around for thousands of years,” she said.
Dr. Suh confirms Beck’s story. “We treat all diseases from the common cold, neurological, head to toe. We treat the whole body and mind. We take symptoms and trace and treat the pattern using differential diagnosis, but individual specific,” he said.”
A Hong Kong study has shown that Chinese herbs can help treat eczema:
” HONG KONG (Reuters) – A mixture of five traditional Chinese herbs can help control and manage eczema, a study by researchers in Hong Kong suggests.
Considered a chronic condition, eczema is the inflammation of the upper layers of the skin that results in rashes, dryness, itching, flaking, even blistering and bleeding.
While there is no definitive cure for it in Western medicine, traditional Chinese medicine has long held that eczema can be countered by clearing heat and removing dampness in one’s body and strengthening the spleen.
In an article published in the August issue of the British Journal of Dermatology, doctors at the Chinese University of Hong Kong described how they ascertained the efficacy of the five Chinese herbs which have long been used to treat eczema.
Between February 2004 and July 2005, they recruited 85 children suffering from eczema; 42 of them were given capsules containing extracts of the five herbs twice daily for 12 weeks, while the remaining 43 children were given placebos.
By the end of the treatment, the conditions of the children who were given the herbs improved and their use of corticosteroid creams and ointments was reduced by one-third, the researchers wrote.
Corticosteroids are a class of hormones that do not cure eczema, but are effective in controlling or suppressing the symptoms.
Ellis Hon, one of the researchers and associate professor with the Department of Pediatrics at the university, stressed that the herbs were not a cure.
“Such chronic diseases cannot be cured … But they can help some patients control and manage the problem. People like to think that there is something magical and mystical about Chinese herbs. But there’s no such thing,” Hon told Reuters. “
