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Introduction Elisabeth Hsu Received: 1 July 2008 /Accepted: 10 March 2009 /Published online: 30 May 2009 # National Science Council, Taiwan 2009 1 Introduction This volume presents case studies on the globalization of Chinese medicine and meditation practices from fields as diverse as medical anthropology, science and technology studies, traditional Chinese medicine studies, and religious studies. The case studies discuss processes of how Chinese medicine and meditation practices are being reconfigured in the process of their transposition into geographical regions and local histories outside China. Each study has theoretical implications of how to conceive of the currently observed processes of transforming Chinese medicine, which generally are discussed under the rubric of “globalization.” Volker Scheid’s article highlights that Chinese medical practices inside and outside of China have been constantly reconfigured over time as medical ideas of different provenance were taken up and interwoven with current practices, and/or triggered the revival and modification of forgotten aspects within the existent archive. The speed with which these transformative processes happened, their scale, and the specific forms of legitimation that ensued can often be shown to derive from societal processes other than merely medical knowledge and practice. Where the scholar–practitioner would speak of an adulteration and simplification of authentic Chinese medical knowledge and practice, the anthropologist–historian merely notes ironic twists of how the past is reinterpreted and applied to the present. Menopause is not a Chinese medical concept; it became integrated into the Chinese medical repertoire as gengnianqi 更年期, a term derived from the Japanese konenki, which in turn is a transliteration of the German Klimakterium. The traditional Chinese medical (TCM) teachings on how to treat this condition (with decoctions mostly) trace their legitimation to ancient texts. However, as Scheid demonstrates, what today is exported out of the People’s Republic of China as an East Asian Science, Technology and Society: an International Journal (2008) 2:461–464 DOI 10.1007/s12280-009-9084-7 E. Hsu (*) Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK e-mail: elisabeth.hsu@anthro.ox.ac.uk age-old practice has its origins in reinterpretations of the Chinese medical archive that date merely to the 1960s. The TCM recommendations for treating menopause are an example par excellence of how Chinese medical theory and practice was reconfigured in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Scheid, in line with Kim Taylor (2005), suggests this happened, not least, in response to Western biomedical exigencies in an era that, as the introductory article to this volume underlines, was driven by nationalistic and culturalist preoccupations. Iven Tao’s article on research in Germany to evaluate the efficacy of acupuncture needling also emphasizes how Chinese medical practice and rationale is in a constant process of transformation. His article focuses on xuewei 穴位, which, Sivin (1987:255n) insists, should be translated as “acupuncture loci” rather than as “acupuncture points,” since a point is a position that has no extension while xuewei have indeterminate dimensions, commonly in the order of a centimeter. In the case of xuewei, TCM promoters aimed to overcome the contentious issue of their indeterminate extension, which causes consternation to any natural scientifically trained mind, by adjusting the concept of a locus to that of a point. In introductory TCM classes (Hsu 1999:144n), teachers would often draw points with a pen onto the skin, indicative of xuewei as “acupoints.” As Iven Tao highlights in this volume, the notion of the “acupoint” has, particularly in recent years, become further reified as, in the struggle to gain recognition by a globally accepted science, promoters of acupuncture have sought devices to test the efficacy of acupuncture treatment by inventing the notion of a “sham-acupoint.” Sham-acupuncture is a device that was invented with the intention to fulfill the requirements set by biomedical research, which accepts as efficacious only treatments that have been tested in double-blinded randomized controlled trials (RCT). Sham-acupoints are located at positions other than those described in TCM textbooks, and the control group in RCTs is needled at these locations. However, as Tao argues, it is an erroneous suggestion that needling can happen in situations that are double-blinded, as is the assumption that acupoints have and...

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