Glass domes used in the Chinese healing practice of 'cupping.' From mindbodysoul.tv:Traditionally, the cups are heated with alcohol and flame on the inside to reduce the pressure, then placed over the skin. As the cup cools down, the skin is sucked up inside.
The newest innovation in cupping does away with the dangerous flame and uses a pump action instead. This is also a much more accurate way of gauging the degree of suction and, of course, eliminates the risk of burning.
Doctors of traditional Chinese medicine and practitioners of Japanese shiatsu therapy, place the cups at various positions along the meridian lines. These are the same lines used in acupuncture. There are five meridians on the back and these are usually targeted, particularly the bladder meridian.
Lin's Sister Associates - Chinese healing herbsI recall as a child watching my mother perform kerokan on my father's back when he had a cold. First she would rub Vick's Vaporub into his back then take a quarter and scratch his back in methodical lines until the skin turned red. My dad swore by this treatment in addition to a steaming cup of sekoteng, a drink made from ginger, mungbean flour and palm sugar. My mother often offered to do kerokan to me but it looked too painful. Instead, her rubbing the Vicks on my back and chest was soothing enough. A few years ago my mother came to visit while I was pregnant and I had a bad cough. She offered to rub tiger balm on me (which I now prefer over Vicks). The feel of her soft yet strong hands on my back and the pungent vapours made me feel like a child again, no one had done that for me since I lived at home. It nearly made me cry.
I found this funny and moving account by an Indonesian woman who now lives in Japan about her mother and kerokan, here's an excerpt:
When I moved to New York from Canada for the third time, I lost my job, $600 in savings, was kicked out of the place I was living and ended up depending on my second cousin who lived with her husband and son in Park Slope, Brooklyn. Intending to only stay for a week or two I stayed for six months having no luck with finding a job and developing both pneumonia and asthma simultaneously. This was a big faux pas as far as my mother was concerned. Taking favours was bad enough, taking them from family was verboten. But I was determined to stay in New York and this seemed to be the only way I could. Desperate after antibiotics and an asthma inhaler left me not one iota better, I took my friend's suggestion to visit her acupuncturist on 14th Street in Manhattan. The acupuncturist was a Caucasian dyke with short cropped hair, a skinny boyish body, who spoke and wrote Chinese fluently. Aside from incredibly painful acupuncture treatments she started me on some Chinese herb teas, writing out the prescription in Chinese and sending me with that 'prescription' to Lin's Sister in Chinatown. There I collected my paper bags of mysterious herbs, brought them home to my cousin's house and boiled them for an hour. Strange smells filled their apartment, which to their credit, they never complained about. In fact they were unusually accommodating hosts and had a constant stream of long term guests. I had to drink this intense tea 3x a day for a couple of months. It didn't help. It was only once I found a job and moved out of their apartment into my own place, that all my pneumonia/asthma symptoms disappeared within a couple of days. 15 years later I still use that stainless steel thermos in which I carried my Chinese tea, and despite all the other beverages it has carried since, it still smells like those herbs.Kerokan is rubbing/scratching your body mostly on the back, using coin or spoon with ointment/balsam as the moisture agent. It painful when it done to your body (a traditional belief said, it even more painful if done by your mother, this relate to the pain she bears when delivering you to this world), but when it is done it will give a relief feeling and heal the cold.
Traditionally, kerokan belief to give the way out for the wind/air trapped in your body that cause the cold. While some study says, even it is hardly acceptable by western medical science, kerokan stimulate your body and clear the way for blood circulation. Kerokan also give you warmth from the ointment, which give comfort, heal sore muscle and unblock the stuffy nose.
Hubby never happy when seeing my mother do this to me. He said, it is cruel. Other than my body will turned red on the path of the kerokan (leave me to have the tiger mark all over for the next three days), I usually scream and even set tears to bear the pain when my mother do kerokan on me. It look like someone under torture, only this is the torture that I want, that I need for speedy recovery from the cold.
Oh Mama, I miss you.
Five years later I began treatment for my acne with a friend of a friend (also white) who'd treated his cancer with herbs and and this strange computer that you a sensor that plugged into it and it told you what herbs to take. He wasn't licensed, in fact he was a screenwriter and had nothing to do with the medical field, but he believed in this treatment so strongly, I couldn't help but believe in it and him too. And besides, once again I was desperate. He also had me go off sugar in every form (no fruit, or fruit juices, or sweet vegetables like carrots) for six months. This restricted diet and the herbs seemed to help a little, but then he moved to Los Angeles without a forwarding address or phone number. And the herbs proved to be so strong they started a strange reaction in my skin, which seemed to be eating away at itself. This prompted me to stop the treatment. I still carry a scar from it on my chin.
