| This thesis examines, through a case study on the development of Chinese medicine (CM) in Hong Kong, the resurgence of indigenous medicines in modern societies. Although the use and practice of CM have a long history in Hong Kong, CM practitioners have never enjoyed the same status as western doctors. Until recent years, local CM practitioners have been given increasing recognition and have begun to gain status. In an attempt to account for this resurgence, it is found that local literature does explain the differential positions of CM and western scientific medicine from the social-historical perspective, but it fails to explain the dynamic process leading to the rise of CM. Recent overseas literature may help to fill this gap by assuming the re-emergence of indigenous medicines in the West as an outcome of social movement. However, due to the social and cultural differences between these societies, it may not be totally appropriate to adopt the dynamic models derived from the West to explain the situation in Hong Kong. In the circumstances, I have adopted the political process model of social movement theories to study the recent resurgence of CM in Hong Kong. It is found that the transition of Hong Kong to 1997 and hence the highly unstable political structures have been conducive to the recent CM revival. To this end, the crisis triggered off by the deletion of the phrase “western and traditional Chinese medicine” from the draft Basic Law had driven the CM societies to believe that they had to do something to establish and promote the CM profession and status. CM movement began to generate and was packaged as a tool for “cultural reunification” and “nationalism” during the transitional period to gain support. The CM movement at that time was, however, short-lived. Fortunately, universities later stepped in to sustain the movement. Coupled with positive responses from the community at large, universities contributed rapidly to the development of CM through the organisation of CM education and researches. Till now, many regulatory apparatus for CM have been finalised, for example, the Chinese Medicine Bill has been passed in the Legislative Council and the Chinese Medicine Council is founded. |
