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About The Asian reporter. (Portland, Or.) 1991-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 15, 2016)
ASIA / PACIFIC Page 4 n THE ASIAN REPORTER August 15, 2016 Cupping and coining: I did it long before Phelps By Sopheng Cheang The Associated Press HNOM PENH, Cambodia — I sported those purple round welts on my body long before Michael Phelps was born. OK, so Phelps made the world aware of cupping by showing his marked muscular shoulders before diving into the pool at the Rio games. But cupping, and a similar treatment known as coining, has been practiced in East Asia for centuries. I grew up with them. My mother made sure of that. Phelps, the 31-year-old U.S. swimming star, was seen with purple circles dotting his shoulder and back before his first race at the Olympics. The circles were caused by the ancient Chinese treatment, in which he is a great believer. It involves pressing glass or plastic cups to the area of discomfort and either applying heat or suction to create a vacuum. The suction causes the large hickey-like marks. Another similar treatment is coining. The principle is the same: Press a large metal disc with an attached handle on the area of discomfort. While cupping is virtually unknown in much of the world — and dismissed by doctors educated in western medicine as hocus pocus — it is commonplace in China, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Myanmar as a cure for ailments as varied as fever, tuberculosis, rheumatism, and muscular pain. P LONG-RUNNING RABBIT. China’s first moon rover, Jade Rabbit, or Yutu in Chinese, is seen on the lunar surface in the area known as Sinus Iridum (Bay of Rainbows), in this December 15, 2013 file image taken by the on-board camera of the lunar probe Chang’e-3 and made off the screen of the Beijing Aerospace Control Center in Beijing. The Jade Rabbit, which won a large following on social media, has been retired after a record 31 months of collecting data from the moon’s surface, according to state media. (AP Photo/Xinhua, File) China’s Jade Rabbit lunar rover ends mission after 31 months BEIJING (AP) — China’s Jade Rabbit lunar rover, which won a large following on social media, has been retired after a record 31 months of collecting data from the moon’s surface, according to state media. The rover arrived on the moon on December 14, 2013, aboard the Chang’e 3 lunar lander and was designed to operate for just three months. On July 28, Chang’e 3 went into hibernation for the 14-day lunar night and Jade Rabbit ceased operations, state media reported, citing the State Administration for Science, Technology, and Industry for National Defense. Jade Rabbit, or Yutu in Chinese, posted a final farewell on its Twitter-like Weibo microblog, questioning whether it would one day be returned to earth. “I’m a rabbit that has seen the most stars!” the post said. The rover’s 972 operational days far exceeded the 322 chalked up by the former Soviet Union’s Lunohkod 1 in 1970, achieving another milestone in China’s fast-developing space program. Just weeks after it landed, engineers feared they’d lost it when it shut down under abnormal conditions, but it revived and appeared to operate efficiently until its final shutdown. The rover’s cameras, telescopes, and radar made it a key part of the mission. Data it produced offered insights into the geological evolution of the moon. China will attempt to land an unmanned spaceship on the moon next year that would return to earth with samples. Only the United States and Russia have previously carried out such a maneuver successfully. China has also hinted at a possible crewed mission to the moon. China sent its first astronaut into space in 2003 and has powered ahead with a series of methodically timed steps, including deploying an experimental space station. Chang’e is the name of a mythical Chinese goddess said to live on the moon and Yutu was her pet. q Godzilla comes back to Japan, in ways fresh and familiar Continued from page 2 What’s familiar The monster: Godzilla at first looks like a snake or an eel slithering through the cityscape. Nearly an hour into the movie, it stands upright like the Godzilla we know, with protruding scales lining its back and a giant tail lashing uncontrollably. As it was with the way the 1954 original was scripted, Godzilla is more about our anticipation, the night- mare that reflects our deepest fears. The new Godzilla glows red as though embers electrified by atomic power flicker beneath its jagged skin. The destruction: The new film is inspired by the storyline of the 1954 original, more than the rest of Toho’s 28-film series that had Godzilla battling oversized moths, evil robots, and other fantastic creatures. It smashes the same landmarks as all the other Godzillas, such as Tokyo Station, the parliament building, and the Wako department store with the clock tower. And all that the masses of people can do is run from it in sheer terror. The sounds: That same eerie screech, created by scratching contrabass strings, is heard. And this film pays homage to the original music. When the credits roll, with Nomura’s name closing the 329- strong actors’ lineup, it’s the same composition by Akira Ifukube from the original movie that plays, a fitting ending for the Japa- nese comeback Godzilla. Associated Press reporter Sopheng Cheang, who grew up in Cambodia, narrates his lifelong experience with coining and cupping. I remember, some 40 years ago (I am 46), when I fell sick, my mother always did coining on me. She would rub coconut oil on my skin and then push the coin all over, leaving rows of welts. It scared me. I would cry and sometimes run away. But my mother would say: “Be patient! It will take only a few minutes to complete and it will hurt just a little bit, like an ant bite.” So I would let her, and it usually helped. In my generation, most people did coining when they had a fever, including my relatives, siblings, and neighbor. Cupping became popular later. Now when I have a fever, flu, headache, or other problems, I go to a neighborhood “cupping spa” and get both done. Not that I don’t trust medicines. But I also believe in cupping and coining. Got it done just last month for my fever, which wasn’t coming down with medicines ANCIENT TREATMENT. A Cambodian man, Sok Pheakdkey, re- ceives a cupping treatment as traditional medicine at a cupping clinic, in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. U.S. Olympian Michael Phelps made the world aware of cupping by showing his marked muscular shoulders before div- ing into the pool at the Rio games recently, but cupping, and a similar treatment known as coining, have been practiced in East Asia for centu- ries. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith) and injections. One session of cupping and the fever was gone. The procedure was done in a well-illuminated room with one small bed and a wall fan. I took off my shirt and lay down on my stomach so the practitioner could work on my back, first by rubbing oil and then using the coin. After 15 minutes or so, she told me to turn over so she could work on my chest. The same procedure was followed with cups as I dozed off. But there’s a rule to coining and cupping — no alcohol or bath for three hours before and five hours after the treatment. It is popular in the countryside because it is cheap and most Cambodians are poor, and not every village has hospitals or clinics. Ironic, since health spas in the U.S. Continued on page 8 Only masters of spin win at Olympic-level table tennis By Foster Klug The Associated Press IO DE JANEIRO — Ask a table tennis player to describe the most important part of the game and you usually get a single word answer: spin. After that it gets more complicated. There’s topspin. Backspin. Sidespin. Side under spin. Side over spin. Heavy under/over/side spin. Light under/ over/side spin. And, perhaps most devious of all, no spin. In the course of a single Olympic match, it may all be there, and almost all of it will go unnoticed by spectators caught up in long, mesmerizing rallies filled with smashes, drop shots, and miraculous defensive saves. Spin is so crucial in table tennis that it’s easy to determine its masters: Just look at the top 10 players in the world. But it’s also a great leveller, allowing older and physically weaker players to hold their own and, sometimes, even beat the world’s best. And while the best players can determine what sort of spin is coming by the speed and angle of the bat’s movement and the rotation and direction of the ball, the mechanics of spin are still something of a mystery. It is ubiquitous but imperfectly understood, sometimes even by the players who use it to perform feats that basement ping-pong players can’t even dream of. Here is a look at the Art of Spin. It’s all in the wrist (and the rubber) Spin — sometimes mind-boggling, post-it-on-YouTube spin — is the backbone of Olympic-level table tennis. But how do they do it? It’s all in the wrist — and the rubber. No wrist movement means no spin. Rotate it like you’re turning a key in a lock or slice it like you’re executing a karate chop, and you’ll make the ball spin, dance even, sometimes in unreturnable ways. In his first- and second-round matches against players half his age, Spaniard Zhiwen “Juanito” He, a 54-year-old left-hander, employed spin constantly, his wrist slicing, swivelling, and rotating, the ball seeming to veer in R TOP-TIER TABLE TENNIS. Ma Long of China serves during a table tennis match at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Bra- zil. In the world of table tennis, it’s all about the spin: Topspin. Backspin. Sidespin. Side under spin. Side over spin. Heavy under/over/side spin. Light under/over/side spin. World No. 1 Ma extended China’s utter domi- nation of table tennis with his 4-0 gold medal win over countryman Zhang Jike, the reigning London champion. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris) midair like a gunshot bird before glancing off the table and screeching off in another direction. He won the first and lost the second match, but his spin continually flummoxed his young opponents. The type of rubber on the bat a player uses also matters. Thick rubber vs. thin. Hard vs. soft. Pimples out vs. pimples in. It all produces different kinds of spin. Spin as zen Executing good spin requires that a tremendous number of different things all go right at the same time. But to do it well, players must largely forget the details and just play. “If you think, you have lost,” said Thomas Weikert, president of the International Table Tennis Federation. The trick to achieving a zen-like level of spin is practice. Lots of practice, for hours a day, every day, for years on end. “I know many athletes at the top of different sports, and Continued on page 8