Sucking Out Bad Spirits

The first part where she's scrapping Laura's skin is called Gua Sha in Chinese. It's PAINFUL as heck even without having a preexisting injury in an area.

Cupping is great. Especially if you have tight shoulders or a sore neck or back, cupping loosens the area really quickly. I have ones at home that twist to cause suction rather than using flame.

Nice choice to put on the front page. *smirk* *wink*

Can't wait for you to get home.

Cupping has been in use in Europe for centuries. As a child, I not only saw it done on others, I had it done to me for chest conditions, flu, etc., and it did help.

I just watched laura get cupped and I've seen this before but I always wondered how did you feel the next day? Did you notice anything different after the cupping?

This method was also used in Central and Eastern Europe. I'm from Poland, and I actually got this treatment a few times in my life from my father during bronchitis - as a measure supplementary to the medicine I got from the doctor. It's called "stawianie baniek". I haven't heard of the treatment being used by people in Poland in the last 15-20 years.

I can't say if it really helps, but it certinally doesn't hurt or anything. Brianjhong - yes, you do feel more relaxed, and more full of energy. Anyway, I'm willing to believe it actually works, and perhaps we're just being unnecessarily stuffed with chemical compounds instead of using natural methods...

Cupping looks like it would just bruise you. Did you feel more relaxed afterward?

When I was in Cambodia, I got really sick and the Cambodian doctors did a similar treatment but using coins in order to create the marks on your back. My whole back was orange from the stain on the quarter shaped coins but in the end it was effective (maybe placebo but who cares I felt better). When we travel to these places strange food, bad water, weird parasites, are a few of the obstacles to face. Mitch and Laura have faced more than their fair share.

Having started out in the alternative TV news and docs business as Anderson Cooper's first producer back in January of 1993, I've seen that a lot attention gets paid to the physical courage of the correspondents. And I can attest that most of them, including Anderson and Laura, who is the head of Vanguard as well a a correspondent and with whom I've worked since July of 1999, are far braver than me. Check out the scene in Haiti's Hotzone where Laura bullies me into driving into Cite de Soleil seconds after UN soldiers have warned us on-camera not to go because there's shooting on the road. But there's another important strength that the best of them have that often gets overlooked: They're extremely hard to embarrass. In this piece, Laura's aim was to make a feature piece, but you see that by putting herself out there, she quickly won the hearts and minds of the Vietnamese people, an ability which is very important in getting people to cooperate if you want to tell more serious stories... In seeing the command that she establishes over the people in the market, you see why she's such a phenomenal journalist.