Rabid Dogs in the East

by

Bruce Vaughan

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 been 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 Con-stituency 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 dis-credit 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 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 President of the HKMA was the only dis-senting 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 Secre-tary, 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, stopping and starting 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 gazing into the exclusive retailers from New York, Paris, London or Milan. Tourists armed with the essential cameras, desperately looking for the oriental flavor, in a city as western as any in Europe or America. The ever present policemen in dark blue, patrolling the streets; others looking like space-men, astride large Japanese motorcycles, 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 rela-tively 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 Chiroprac-tors’ 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. 

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