Don Tow's Website

Throughout my life I have been very active on extracurricular activities. The previous
article “Introducing My New Book” in the March 2025 issue of my website describes the first part of my book “The Yin and Yang of the Dragon and the Eagle: Tale of Two Cultures and Two Countries, which I plan to publish later this year in both English and Chinese.” That article discusses the first half of my book. It discusses that my family had to pull up roots multiple times due to the need to escape from wars. It also discusses the period of the 1960s at the University of California at Berkeley during the turpulent times of the Free Speech Movement and the beginning of the worldwide Diaoyutai Student Movement.

The second part of my book describes the many extracurricular activities that I was involved in during my adult life. Most of these activities have centered on injustices and atrocities, especially those injustices and atrocities that were experienced by the Chinese that occurred during WWII. It describes extracurricular activities that involve organization like “The New Jersey Alliance for Learning and Preserving the History of WWII in Asia (NJ-ALPHA)” and “Ten Thousand Cries for Justice (10,000 CFJ).” This current article describes an example of the extracurricular activities that I was involved in during these 50+ years.

Next year will mark the 95th anniversary of the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War: 1931-1945, a war that resulted in approximately 25-30 million Chinese killed, millions of women and girls raped, and millions of innocent civilians slaughtered. Yet, the country that did all of this still has not acknowledged what it did and has been trying to rewrite this part of history. We are reaching the time when all of the people who experienced this tragedy first hand will have passed away. However, many people of different nationalities around the world have not forgotten and are working hard to make sure that we learn the lessons from this part of history so that similar mistakes will not be repeated anywhere else in this world.

Two persons, one a Chinese citizen and one a Japanese citizen, have done the most to lead this movement so that justice can be restored and history will not be forgotten. This article illustrates the activities of these two people, Tong Zeng (童增) of China and Tamaki Matsuoka (松岡環) of Japan.

Trump has been in office as the President of the U.S. for his second term for only two months, he has made numerous political moves, both in domestic policies and in international policies. I don’t think many of these policies are well thought out or follow a certain theoretical framework. His policies, besides reflecting on the characteristics of Trump as a self-centered person whose primary interest is himself, his wealth and reputation, and a narrow view on what is good for the U.S., I don’t think that these policies reflect a well-thought-out domestic or international policy, so when these policies receive critical reviews, Trump would backtrack. Nevertheless, I think politically Trump is very much against China, so his policies always reflect a policy that is critical of China and takes measures that impede the natural growth of China and the accompanying growth of the rest of the world.

This is clear from many perspectives. From his cabinet members who are always been severe critics of China, such as Secretary of State Mario Rubio and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. Although he advocates the Monroe Doctrine that other countries should not have any significant involvement in North America, or even Central America or South America, he is intimately involved in forming alliances in Asia, far from the U.S.’s home base in North America. This includes forming military alliances such as with Japan, South Korea, Philippines, Australia. One also cannot just take his words for granted. One must see what he is doing with his actions. Even though on the surface he seems to be friends to Putin of Russia, but that may be part of his strategy to create more differences between Russia and China, to split Russia and China, to avoid having to face both Russia and China when conflicts arise.

I just finished writing my new book. Its title is The Yin and Yang of the Dragon and the Eagle: Tale of Two Cultures and Two Countries.

This book describes the hardships, challenges, and tragedies faced by the dragons and the eagles as they experience their lives having lived in both China and the U.S.  It is based on the real-life experiences of the Tow family intertwining the cultures of China and the U.S., sometimes exhibiting more of one type than the other, and sometimes spontaneously transforming from one type to another, like yin and yang in Taiji.

The book recollects the unrelenting political chaos and turmoil through two decades of war (the Second Sino-Japanese War, World War II, and China’s Civil War), their family tragedy, and their personal experiences of living the lives of dragons and eagles.  The book begins with my father’s first experience as a not-yet 15-year-old coming to the U.S. as a merchant’s son to attend high school in Providence, Rhode Island,  and then college, first at Brown University in Providence, as a freshman and then the next three years at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Boston.

I had a minor stroke in September 2023, and I have been trying to recover from it in the last year and a half. I had gone through many rounds of physical therapy and accupuncture treatments. I just want to provide the latest update on the progress on my recovery.

During the last year and a half, I have made progress on my recovery, including going through many rounds of physical therapy (PT) and acupuncture treatments (AT) in the sense that I can walk without needing a cane, and basically I can manage my life, although needing to do things carefully and slowly.

Based on my understanding of acupuncture and recovering from strokes, there are two main components. One is that the nerves carrying the neural networks have to be open and those neural networks are able to transport the neural messages back and forth. For example, if we are talking about the lower part of my left legs, the neural networks for controlling that part of my lower left leg have to be open and the neural networks have to be able to transport the messages back and forth. Initially after my stroke, some of the neural networks for that part of my lower left leg might have been damaged and the neural signals might not have been transmitted back and forth. One of the things that my acupuncturist in San Francisco tried to do last December was trying to get those neural networks working again. He told me last December that he was successful in trying to get those neural networks working again. So that was successful.

However, there is also a second component. Besides getting the neural networks to communicate, the muscles controlling that part of my legs have to function properly. And this is more than a yes and no. That is, it takes time and numerous practices for those muscles to get back into shape and function properly. That was why even though my acupuncturist was able to reestablish those neural networks, I couldn’t walk consistently and properly right away, and for an extended period. It took me weeks of practice to build that back. I think I am making progress during the last month, and that progress is going to take more time. I hope that in the next few months, I can continue to make progress.

This is just my understanding of acupuncture and recovery from strokes, and I hope my acupuncture friends and experts can correct or elaborate on my understanding.