Heart & Hands, a Third Space and Community Acupuncture, a Third Culture

ByChristina Chan, R.Ac.

A place that isn’t at home nor is it at work, but another place. Some place in between that is also regularly frequented, where some folks will work, while some folks will hang out in leisure. A fixed location that is neither of the aforementioned places.

In sociology, the Third place (or space) refers to the social surroundings that are separate from the two usual social environments of home (“first place”) and the workplace (“second place”). Examples of third places include churches, cafes, bars, clubs, community centres, public libraries, gyms, bookstores, makerspaces, stoops, parks, theaters, and opera houses, among others. In his book The Great Good Place (1989), Ray Oldenburg argues that third places are important for civil society, democracy, civic engagement and establishing feelings of a sense of place.

Within a Third space is a Third culture.
A culture that has absorbed aspects of our working and social lives into something familiar to both, but also distinctly unique.

Based on this description, Heart & Hands / 2612 Quadra St is also a Third space and my practice of Community Acupuncture is also an expression of my Third culture. As Asian diaspora, 1st gen Hong Konger, Chinese-Canadian, I have an entirely different lived experience from my parents and my culture of origin. I’m neither fully Chinese, nor fully integrated or have been accepted by dominant, white Canadian culture, I am another secret, more complex 3rd thing. Through the process of navigating my ethnic-cultural identity, I have used Community Acupuncture as a bridge between my culture of origin, the culture of where I presently inhabit and a tangible means of sharing my Third culture with my surrounding community.

Furthermore, Heart & Hands also is a living, breathing example of Ikigai, a Japanese concept referring to something that gives a person a sense of purpose, a reason for living. In this specific circumstance, this concept is embodied within our physical location and organizational structure.

This past summer, in the thick of renos, while painting, patching and building the new Quadra Village space, I noticed a distinct difference being in Quadra Village hearing many other languages (rather than English) floating through our clinic door when curious passersby would peek in. And when moving through the neighbourhood, I am delighted by wonderful variety (for Victoria’s standards) of ethnic cuisines. That as a WoC, it felt like a sigh of relief to be back in a diverse neighborhood much like my childhood growing up in Toronto and Southern Ontario, where it is a respite from the onslaught of microaggressions and othering many of us BIPOC experience moving through the world.

Heart & Hands in many diverse ways also models a different way of community care as an expression of a Third space – that North American society is one of “ME”, whereas, many Asian societies are instead a collective culture of “WE”.

Here are a few examples of how as a Third space+culture we RESIST and CHALLENGE the individualist mindset and socioeconomic inequality, while encouraging collective thinking:

  • Our group treatment setting! Being treated in a group is a profound social experience. To be in the quiet presence of others during a treatment reminds us that we are not alone. Reducing isolation can strengthen a person’s resistance to disease and improve mental-emotional well-being. When people receive acupuncture together, our life energies are collectively amplified and the therapeutic value of the treatment increases. Recharging in the company of others where you are encouraged to move mindfully, watch our volume and be aware of our surroundings so that EVERYONE sharing our treatment space can enjoy the peace and quiet.
  • Our sliding scale! It is an open-ended invitation of mutual trust, personal autonomy and socioeconomic justice. We hope that being able to choose what you can afford will help to challenge the stigma of your worth being tied to your income and what you deserve. 
    And on the flip side, it allows individuals who have the financial means to pay higher on our scale, which in turn pays it forward for their fellow acu-nappers with less financial means.
  • We sustain our community and long-term movements for social change! By providing accessible, inclusive and high volume acupuncture, we can provide 4-5x more sessions for our community than the typical private practice. Traditional, individualized care to ease a wide spectrum of ailments, meet socio-economic/personal circumstances and improve quality of life. You cannot create social change if everyone is burnt out and priced out.
  • Providing a space for likeminded healers! The many ways a Community Acupuncture practice can support and inspire others is contagious. Sometimes, what someone needs is a variety of options to support them along their path to healing and well-being, so we aim to build a complementary team of practitioners who can fill in the clinical gaps. We aim to invite likeminded practitioners who share similar values and politics of inclusion, economic justice and innovation for how we engage and deliver care to our community.
    If you’d like to join us, READ HERE.
  • Engaging in mutual aid with like-minded organizations and groups! At H&H, we see ourselves as a hub for connections, which is also another attribute of Third spaces. Connecting seemingly unrelated people, groups and resources, we are a physical location where a variety of things gather, collect and interact. Both in our Quadra Village location and our previous location on Cormorant St., we have hosted numerous events, fundraisers and provided services in countless settings throughout Lekwungen Territories. Our most recent mutual aid project being a non-perishable food drop-off for Community Food Support Victoria!
  • Providing accessible, traditional education! We are also dedicated to decentralizing traditional knowledge through offering Take Home TCM, a series of workshops providing practical, do-it-yourself, home remedy-based knowledge about Traditional Chinese Medicine! Our series is a fun, informative and engaging way to meet more folks from your community who are also interested in looking after their health and well-being. Our workshops are educational, empowering, inclusive and accessible to people of all walks of life.
  • We are part of a cultural lineage! It is our honour to practice, share and teach the traditional knowledge of our respective ancestors of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Balance System Acupuncture, NADA ear acupuncture and Liberation Acupuncture to enrich the health and wellness of this community.
  • We are still a mask mandatory clinical space, because we deeply care about our immunocompromised community members and we prioritize their safety.
    We acknowledge that we do not live in a post-pandemic world and want to model inclusive behaviour, which we elaborate on this through our Joint Masking Statement.
  • Partnering with our sister biz, Green Muse Herbs! We are ultimately stronger together. As two women-run, community-focused, grassroots social enterprises who happen to also share a large overlap in clientele, our joining forces further enriches and expands our holistic, therapeutic and cultural offerings as well as exposing our community to greater possibilities for health, well-being and community care.

It is the constantly evolving synergy of these organic elements that make our little Third space unique, welcoming and supportive. We believe that Community Acupuncture is a tool for social change, a way to honor the ancestral roots of barefoot medicine, a cultural bridge between modern and traditional, a thriving example of mutual aid, community care and economic justice in action as well as an innovative approach that makes acupuncture accessible and inclusive for many.

Heart & Hands contains the multitudes of Third culture attributes and actions that support and cultivate collective thinking and social change. And as a physical Third space, it provides respite, eases physical-emotional-spiritual suffering, decreases social isolation, supports intentional rest and is something larger than ourselves.

Heart & Hands is not quite one thing or the other, but an indescribable alchemy of something else: that secret, more complex 3rd thing…

~Christina Hoi Man Chan, R.Ac. Owner/Operator

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