Rabid Dogs in the East

Foreword

This book recounts the history of the chiropractic profession in Hong Kong during the past 50 years, from early beginnings to the hard fought campaign for full recognition under the law --now won.

It presents a heart warming tale of how loyalty to your principles and unwavering determination can triumph over the opposition of powerful vested interests. It is also written with unusual clarity, balance, wisdom and humour because the author, Dr. Bruce Vaughan, is not only the founding President of the Hong Kong Chiropractors' Association and Past President of the World Federation of Chiropractic, but also a published writer of fiction with an excellent command of the English language.

It carries my firm recommendation. In these pages you will find history from a knowledgeable historian, and a fascinating tale of struggle and success from a gifted storyteller. The book speaks not only to chiropractors and other stakeholders in the health care system, but to anyone interested in a story about how to set goals and achieve them.

David Chapman-Smith Secretary-General

World Federation of Chiropractic, Toronto.

Preface

The trials and tribulations portrayed in this book represent the struggle that the chiropractic profession has experienced in all parts of the world, not just in Hong Kong. It is a story that needs to be told in the hopes that things will be easier for future generations of both chiropractors and patients.

My thanks go to all the members of the Hong Kong Chiropractors' Association who have stood together against adversary. The author acknowledges the great assistance given by Edward Lee DC and Thomas Wong DC, during the crucial years leading up to the passage of the Chiropractors Registration Ordinance. A great vote of thanks goes to my partners, Benjamin Yip DC and Vincent Lam DC, who held the fort while I was politicking.

There were many people in the Hong Kong community who were there for us. The one who comes to the forefront is Radio Talk Show hostess Aileen Bridgewater who had the courage to defy the establishment and bring the chiropractic story out in the open.

Peter Wells DC, from New Zealand gave us all the submissions from the New Zealand Commission of Inquiry into Chiropractic, which gave us an insight into the conflict to come.

I thank the Canadian Chiropractic Working Group for keeping me up to date with the Lewis Inquest in Toronto, and Paul Carey DC for reading the part of the MS relating to the inquest. Michael Pedigo DC, one of the Chicago Four in the Wilks Case against the AMA, kindly reviewed a part of the MS relevant to the U.S.A.

David Chapman-Smith, Secretary General of the World Federation of Chiropractic, deserves a special mention for his devoted service to the chiropractic profession over the many years since his first involvement in the New Zealand Inquiry in 1979 and since 1988 with the World Federation of Chiropractic.

Chapter 1

Lies and Distortions

Well we won. I said to Edward, as we descended the stairs from the visitors’ gallery. I was excited and certainly relieved by our hard won success and yet there was a definite feeling of anti-climax. We had just been through a twenty-six-year-long dirty war against medicine and the establishment in our struggle to get chiropractic legally recognized in Hong Kong. It was more than that really: we had at times being fighting for our very right to practice. As the profession's representatives, we had just come from the visitors' gallery of the Legislative Council, Hong Kong’s Parliament, after watching the closing scene. It was a rather dreary climax to our monumental struggle. Legislation being enacted can be a boring spectator sport and the legislators went through the process of passing The Chiropractors Registration Bill with the air of excitement usually reserved for funerals. The only opposition had come from two medical doctor councilors, one of whom, Dr. Leong, was the past president of the Hong Kong Medical Association, representing the Medical Constituency in the Council.

I was disgusted, though not surprised, by the typically derogatory last-ditch stand of the medical profession. As usual their argument was based on innuendo, half-truths and lies; we had heard it all, ad nauseam, for the past two decades. Even after all our experience of medical skullduggery, I was not prepared for what had just happened. The other medical councilor, an elected member of the Liberal Party, had stood in the hallowed chamber of Legco, before his Honorable peers and lied. It was a malicious lie, aimed directly at me personally and it was slanderous; but the dishonorable and disreputable man was protected by parliamentary privilege. It was also a stupid lie, as many of his ‘Honorable’ colleagues knew that he was lying. His motive had been to discredit me and through me, my profession; but then, to our surprise, he stated his intention to support the Bill. It was an example of the dangers of party politics. Here was a legislator, who was obviously strongly against the motion in question, but his party, the Liberal Party, had decided to back the Bill and so he had had to back it. Dr. Leong, the Past President of the HKMA, had made a similar, but not personal, attack, with unsubstantiated, illogical claims against chiropractic. He at least had had the courage of his convictions and opposed the Bill.

When someone has to resort to lies and distortion to win, he cannot have a very good case. It is very disturbing to listen to so-called 'Honorable Members' of the Legislative Council, acting in such a dishonorable way. Obviously the last ditch smear campaign did not work. In the end there was a very clear majority in favor of the Bill and the count was done by voice alone. True to his word the medical doctor who had lied did not cast a vote against us and the Past President of the HKMA was the only dissenting voice. Each time there was a call for a vote, as various sections and amendments were passed, just one determined, jaw-jutting voice cried, Nay.

My thoughts were mainly positive however on that mild, though rather gray, February morning in 1993. I left the historic, domed building, designed originally by Aston Webb in 1903 as the Supreme Court Building of Hong Kong, but was now the Legislative Council Chambers, and walked the short distance back to my office. Drs. Edward Lee and Thomas Wong had attended the Legco session with me. Edward is a medical doctor, trained in the Philippines, who had then gone to the UK to qualify as a chiropractor. As Vice President of the Hong Kong Chiropractors’ Association, Edward Lee had been involved in all the politicking of the previous few years. Thomas was the Secretary, and together the three of us had come to the Legco building many times during the previous months to meet and lobby councilors, but this time it was different - it was all over, we had won - at least the battle, if not the war.

Chiropractic was now the first alternative health profession to gain legal status in Hong Kong. It was also the first time chiropractic had gained such recognition in Asia. I believe we had every reason to be proud, not just the three of us, but the whole association. We had been through years of struggle, harassment, insults and even arrests before gaining this first step on the road to recognition.

Chater Road, in Hong Kong's business center, was its usual noisy, bustling self. A constant stream of cars, red taxis, huge double-decker buses, rattling trucks and the ever-present mini-vans, stopped and started between lights, emitting their unfriendly fumes. The constant roar of motor vehicles was flanked on either side, by the perpetual, throbbing motion of Hong Kong's diverse and energetic population in a hurry – always in a hurry. Lawyers, bankers, traders, clerks and messengers, were hurrying from somewhere to somewhere. Shoppers were gazing into the exclusive retailers from New York, Paris, London or Milan. Tourists armed with the essential cameras, were desperately looking for the oriental flavor, in a city as western as any in Europe or America. The ever present policemen in dark blue, patrolled the streets; others looking like space-men, astride large Japanese motorcycles, were trying to bring order to the daily traffic chaos and putting fear and a sense of guilt into the more timid drivers. Hong Kong is the most densely populated place on Earth, with its more than six million people packed into a relatively small part of the four hundred and four square miles of British administered territory. For decades, while China embraced ardent communism, colonialist Hong Kong sat like an embarrassing, festering, capitalist sore on the rear-end of China.

We crossed Chater Road at the entrance to the cross-harbor Star Ferry concourse, near the grand and gentlemanly Mandarin Oriental Hotel: now rather diminutive, amongst the giant new comers nearby. The unconventional, controversial, but essentially functional, glass and plumbing, Hong Kong Bank Building and the dramatic, new, angular, stylized, seventy-floor China Bank Building, dwarfed their older, more familiar Central neighbors.

Well we did it, Edward remarked. Is that the end or is it just the beginning?

It’s the end of a chapter, I replied. Now the real work starts.

The real work was about to start - we now had the Chiropractors’ Council to think about. The final decision on who sat on the Council would rest with the Governor, but we would have to put names forward and try to get a sensible team to safeguard the future of our profession.

We have to make sure that the Council represents the entire profession and not just a single group or philosophy. I remarked, as we were approaching the Wing On Central Building, where I had my office. There have been too many cases in the past, where the profession has been badly fragmented and threatened by self interest pressure groups. We must learn by the mistakes of others.

We congratulated each other once more, before going our separate ways. Two English newspapers wanted to hear my reaction and some Chinese newspapers as well as the Chinese TV channel of RTHK wanted to interview Edward. Our twenty-two colleagues would also want to hear the news.

Chapter 2

Early Days

I had been in practice in Hong Kong since graduating from Palmer College of Chiropractic in the summer of 1966 at the age of thirty. No I was not a slow learner. I had done a few rather strange things since leaving school, before finally deciding on chiropractic as a career.

In the mid-fifties I had served my National Service in the British Army. The two years of service in one of the armed forces in England was compulsory in those days. I served with the Royal Artillery and after the basic training in England, I was posted to Hong Kong. Even at the tender age of eighteen I had already done a lot of travelling. In 1948, when I was thirteen, now I've given my age away, I spent a summer holiday in pre-Castro Havana, Cuba. What a beautiful city that was, like a Caribbean outpost of America. Havana had the charm and character of South America, the clear blue sea and sky of the Caribbean as well as all the creature conveniences of an American town. My most vivid memory was of catching a huge silver fish; I really do not know what sort, although barracuda seems to come to mind, from a deep-sea fishing launch. I had been invited out on a deep-sea trawler, a rich man's play thing, not the commercial kind. For a little boy straight out of post-war Britain, to be part of such a group was unbelievable. I say that I caught the fish with tongue in cheek, as the truth is, I happened to be sitting in the seat holding the rod, when the spool started whirling and screaming, as the line played out behind us. I was lifted bodily out of the chair, as one of the grown-ups took over. Nevertheless, I proudly showed the photo of me, standing next to a suspended fish several times larger than I was, to anyone who would look. My tales of how I fought and landed that monster became more and more heroic and further from reality, with the passage of time.

A weekend spent on a hacienda (ranch) was another lasting memory that was also in stark contrast to my English lower-middle class, immediate post-war life style. I found myself in the rural decadence of the wealthy Cuban landowner at its most lavish. The Spanish style ranch house was straight from Gone with the Wind. While we children cavorted around the pool, the grown-ups lounged, sun-blocked and be-hatted, on submerged metal chairs, in the shallow end, enjoying their pre-lunch cocktails. We later dined in grand fashion, served and generally spoilt by the ever-present black servants.

A friend of the family, who also owned a radio station that had the only English Channel in Havana, owned the hacienda. My mother would occasionally read parts in their radio plays, which were aired, live to the English speaking inhabitants of this Caribbean Americana. I liked to go with her to the studio and make myself useful helping with the sound effects. We never found out what happened to that family when Castro took over Cuba. If they had not been able to escape, their future would have been very dangerous, as they definitely were not Castro supporters.

I had a little excitement on the way back from Cuba to England. The British South American Airways’ converted Lancaster bomber, which passed as a passenger plane, developed engine problems three hours out of the Azores, way out over the Atlantic. After a lot of coughing and spluttering, followed by the ominous appearance of a long column of oil on the wing, the pilot had to shut down two of the engines. Fourteen passengers and a crew of four spent an anxious, white-knuckle period, as we limped on the two remaining engines into the little island of Santa Maria's airport. We seemed to be getting lower and lower, spending the last hour flying so low that I could see the waves, with their white horses cresting in the wind, almost licking the wing tips. Without losing much height we crossed the coast and almost immediately, bounced onto the runway: to be escorted ceremoniously, all the way to the end by the fire trucks and an ambulance.

I had been scheduled to get to London, just in time to catch the school train for Tiverton, in Devon, where I was at ‘prep’ school. A forced delay in the Azores, while they flew out two replacement engines, did not break my heart, although God knows that was a bleak outpost. When they had fitted the engines, the captain invited me to go with the crew for a test flight; now that was better than being at school. Those were the golden years of civilian aviation. Passengers were trusted and treated like people. Children were special passengers and made to feel welcome.

I later spent three summers in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil - I did all this travelling because my step-father worked for British South American Airways (BSAA), that later became part of British Overseas Airways (BOAC), now known as British Airways (BA). A condominium on the Copacabana Beach is really no hardship post, with the constant surf breaking on a fine sand beach that stretches almost to the horizon on either side, not to mention the endless parade of bodies beautiful. Rio was so full of contrasts; the obvious wealth and glamour that abounds along the beachfront is bordered and overlooked by the flavellas. These are the shanty towns that blanket the surrounding hills, peopled by some of the world's poorest, scraping a living from scavenging, begging or petty crime. The flavellas are a nest-bed for superstition, voodoo and witchcraft. It was all so different from anything I had known before.

Abadan in Persia (now Iran) was another interesting interlude. It was also very different from anything I had known before. My stepfather was posted there for a while and I visited for a month before being called up for my National Service. We lived in the oil town, home to the many expats who ran the huge British Petroleum oil refinery. The carefully manicured suburbia, divided by tree lined streets flanked by individual houses with gardens to match, was more like an army housing estate. There were three types of houses, A, B and C houses, issued according to position or rank in the company. Occupants did not fraternize with people from other housing. If an employee was promoted into another grade the entire family had to change friends. It was in Adaban that I learnt that the desert can be damned cold at night.

I made a memorable side trip to Isfahan, an early Capital of ancient Persia. The ornate richness of the blue and gold mosaic domes, which were often surrounded by ruins and poverty, still punctuated the city skyline. Newly made carpets, the product of mainly child labor, lay spread out on the city streets; this was to weather them and seal in the pigments. The day before I was to take the regular biweekly Abadan/Isfahan, Iranair flight - they used aging Dakotas - I met someone who had just returned. Isfahan is situated in a valley, surrounded by high mountains. The approach to the airfield is a little hairy at the best of times. The weather had been poor when his flight was landing, with a strong wind, causing a sandstorm. The pilot had attempted to land and had hit the runway a lot harder than the owners’ manual recommends. One wheel had buckled and the plane had spun off the runway, finally ending up facing the way they had come.

The passengers, still somewhat stunned, had looked for guidance from their crew. The one stewardess was out the rear door the second the plane had stopped spinning. A second later the two pilots ran through the plane, also heading for the rear door. The last out, true to tradition, was the captain. The passengers still somewhat bemused, looked at each other in surprise, in that moment of calm before the panic set in. The captain's head re-appeared for just a moment, as he yelled, Come on, get out of there, before fleeing to a safe distance from the plane.

My landing was not quite so exciting, although it was certainly interesting. We came over the top of the mountain and there directly below us was the airport, just a scratch on the surface of the desert. A few heart-stopping spirals lower we flattened out, and moments later made a remarkably smooth landing.

My first visit to Hong Kong had been in the summer of 1951. It was during another school holiday, this