My Chinese name is Du Xiang Jun (杜湘君）.
I am more fully realizing that my life has become for the sake of others, sharing knowledge and experience, Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and all facets of healing to alleviate suffering in the world.
I will be returning to China to continue doing fieldwork, exploring the "Social Fabric of Healing," the "Why Foreign Patients Explore Traditional Chinese Medicine in Mid-South China" and "Chinese Medicine-Cultivation and Innovation", hoping to provide the world health system, including the WHO with a better understanding and insight into these 5,000 years old healing practices. I am also teaching English and Chinese Medicine here and studying the practice of Qi-Gong and the application of Chinese Medicine.

I was introduced to the Omidyar community through my dear friend Dr. Ashis Brahma, whom I am so honoured to have encountered and followed many of the omidyar alum here to Razoo:)

In this life, I have been many things, cast into the flames and carved by them many times. For eight years I served as a Behavior technician working with dual diagnosis adults and delinquents in the US. I have researched and written freelance for more than 25 years, including documents and reports for the UN Human Rights Committee, the WHO Traditional Medicine Branch and Intellectual Property Rights and others.

My main interest in this life is to alleviate suffering. Consequently, that path seems to have led to the connection between culture and medicine, health and healing. Although I once aspired to become a surgeon, I would like to help M.D.s and other scientists understand the value of Traditional Medicine and help integrate more practices throughout the world. I sincerely believe we all have so much to learn from each other if only we open our eyes, ears, minds and hearts!

Fate or as the Chinese would say,"yuanfen" intertwined my life irrevocably with medicine and healing arts. My own battle with SLE merely propelled it and blazed the path. I have studied Western medicine for more than 30 years, Native American healing methods for more than 10 years, particularly those of the Sioux, the Lacondon Maya, Tibetan and Traditional Chinese Medicine for nearly 10 years. I strongly believe that Traditional Medicine offers affords a more culturally accepted and sustainable solution to many problems many nations and persons face. Eighty per cent of the world uses it! My specialty is difficult and chronic conditions and uncovering obscure research. A link to some of my work: http://www.tcmtreatment.net/inte rnational-case/102.htm
Because I was always driven by the idea that culture and medicine go hand in hand I went back to school to study. I focused on Cultural and Medical Anthropology, International Studies, east Asian Studies and Humanities and am now pursuing my PhD and Chinese Medicine Doctor (CMD) degree from China. Through these disciplinary studies and more than ten years of field research I have gained a great deal of insight on how we can and should apply traditional medicine and integrate their practices. I am currently formulating a new anthropological theory relating to health and healing- a more holistic one. (The ones available are segmented and ironically circumvent what it is to be human!)

I am currently putting together a team of people to gather and compile the healing traditions that are being lost so that the world could benefit from them. This also requires a little applied anthropology because we must see through "native healer's eyes" and consider the patient's belief systems. Anyone can accommodate. The marriage between the two is essential. We cannot simply treat the body without the mind and spirit. They are as connected as we are all connected to one another.
Because health is a universal right, I am networking to achieve a more balanced and accessible world health system. Since the signing of the 1978 WHO Alma Ata, inspired by China's Barefoot Doctors, no one has effectively managed the combination and consequently missed the goals of the declaration. Upon discovery, I realized that we could no longer wait. Suffering is universal. Accordingly, I am in the process of starting an international foundation and networking with other keepers of the traditional methods to make this a reality.---I'm putting this into action now, dedicated to my Algerian brother who lost his battle with ALS at home and the countless others like him...building from the ground up:-), healing, intertwining and engaging ancient wisdom and indigenous/traditional medicine practices and learning- eternally!

Mitakuye Oyasin! (We are all related.) Namaste, Debra 湘君

Promote health and healing in accordance with the 1978 WHO Alma Ata "Health for One," which states that health is more than a mere absence of disease. Rather it is the social, emotional and physical well-being of a person.

By doing so, we not only restore health to the body, mind, and spirit but also restore our balance with nature, the universe and each other.

Bridge healing methods through the marriage of medicines on various health and rescue teams.

Serve as a bridge of humanity

Reinforce the value of collective knowledge and ONENESS

"Translate" other ways of seeing disease and applications of medicine and healing arts including Chinese medicine

Using anthropology as a tool to remind people that we are ALL ONE FAMILY

Encourage and empower ways to value people, culture and beliefs equally--without hierarchy

Help the UN achieve a more balanced power, reorganize its structures to include voices often suppressed.

Promote sustainable development built upon the marriage of cultural knowledge and resources.

China's new Minister of Health, Dr. Chen Zhu

The head of the WHO Traditional Medicine branch

Adrian Paul (again:) head of PEACE foundation

Dr. Attilio Alberto
Dr. BOB FLAWS
Dr. Hans A Baer
Dr. Edie Turner
Prince Charles
Any of Oheyisa's (Dr. Charles Eastman's)descendants
Dr. Rosita Arvigo
Ms. Souly

and All people really

We have so much to learn from and offer each other.

Go to the People
Live with the People
Learn from the People
Plan with the People
Work with the People
Start with what they know
Build on what they have
Teach by showing, learn by doing
Not a showcase, but a pattern
Not piecemeal, but integrated
Not odds and ends, but a system
Not to conform, but to transform
Not relief, but release
- Yen Yangchu, 20th century community-based development pioneer from Sichuan, China

"The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy." ~Theodore Roosevelt

"Each time someone stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope." ~Robert F. Kennedy

"Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth." ~Mohammed Ali

"No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted." ~Aesop

The soul travels freely- no limits

China-Hunan, Guangdong, Hebei, Jiangxi,Anhui, Hubei, Shanxi, but Hunan, Huaihua is home

Taiwan
Japan
Mexico
US

As an anthropology major, it all interests me, especially culture and health, healing modalities and health disparities, language, etymology, philosophy

Mandarin
Hunan and Jiangxi hua
French- now a little rusty:)
Italian
Spanish
English-now limited
Portuguese
Some Arabic -learning
Read German