There is always something very magical about my Chinese visits, this the seventeenth over 12 years. My days in China always seem to feel as though time pauses when I am there, as we run our week’s seminar, and then time restarts as I get on the plane back to London. Much of the credit is due to my hosts who welcome me each time in their hundreds as though they are greeting a beloved friend, and cocoon me within what they express as their love for me from first to last day. From the moment we arrive in Beijing we are greeted by a large group who present us with lovely bouquets, with much hugging and kissing. And this continues until the day we leave, accompanied again by another large group, which includes both times my host of hosts, Professor Liu Lihong, the inspiration behind five element acupuncture’s so eagerly awaited return to its homeland.
Liu Lihong and I go back now a long way. Many years ago I remember our looking critically at one another as Mei Long introduced us at a Rothenburg conference. From the moment we laid eyes on one another, though, I think we both relaxed, because here were two fellow souls each in our own way determined to nurture the damaged roots of traditional Chinese medicine and restore them to the healthy condition they deserved, he through his practice of herbal medicine and I through mine of five element acupuncture. And between us there hovered the much-loved presence of my own great master, JR Worsley, who some years ago with his usual omniscience had foreseen the return of five element acupuncture to the place of its birth, telling me, “They will want us back in China soon, Nora”, as they now do in their hundreds.
I come back to England, as I always seem to do, inspired by the enthusiasm and warm response to what we teach them. At a deep level they understand what five element acupuncture is all about, since the elements are in their blood. I hardly needed to say anything before I could feel the agreement of all the 500 people who attended this seminar.
I spent a very warm last evening at a simple supper with Liu Lihong and a friend, accompanied as I always am by my good friend and translator, Lynn, to help Lihong and me understand one another. (Oh! how I wish that I, as a former linguist, had had the good sense to learn Mandarin many years ago before my old ears found it too difficult). It felt to me then, and it feels increasingly to me on my return, that together Lihong and I have drawn a five element circle around the world, with JR Worsley, smiling, there, holding out his hands to both of us. A slightly over-impressionist image, perhaps, but one that corresponds to how I feel as I reflect on my latest trip to China.
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