Information: a subject brought to the world's attention with painful urgency through the recent Japanese nuclear accident. Everybody is looking for clear, accurate, timely and honest information. Yet neither the Japanese government nor TEPCO provides this information. That makes just about everybody on the planet mad. The difference between the nuclear disaster and oriental medicine: there is no NEED to provide any such information pertaining to oriental medicine. Yet the lack thereof may nevertheless cause long-lasting damage. (I refrain here from giving examples related to oriental medicine in a desperate attempt at NOT offending certain people (and I believe, I do not have to discuss the attitude of the Chinese towards information!), but …) A general example. In Germany many (most) people are familiar with "Fujiyama" (Mt. Fuji), but nobody knows "Fujisan" (which is the proper way the Japanese call this mountain). One of THE representative Japanese-German dictionaries available lists also "Fujiyama". (Even the American government has it: http://vulcan.wr.usgs.gov/LivingWith/Historical/LewisClark/Info/summary_mount_st_helens.html) A mistake introduced many decades ago by someone apparently not familiar with Japanese (characters). Again, the "san" in "Fujisan" stems from the character for mountain, but here again somebody with VERY incomplete knowledge of Japanese interpreted this as meaning "Mr. or Mrs.", which is also read "san" in Japanese.) When even general information (which should maybe considered common sense (?)) is full of mistakes, misunderstandings etc., imagine the situation in a field as complex as oriental medicine.
