Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 23, 1994 TAG: 9403220124
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DAVID KOCIENIEWSKI NEWSDAY
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Hadadi was standing in front of a vegetable cart at Canal and Baxter streets in Manhattan, enthusiastically telling 20 people about the "cooling," medicinal benefits of the kohlrabi leaves.
The man behind the vegetable cart appeared to need a little cooling off himself.
"You got to move," he screamed, shaking his arms wildly. "Customer can't get through."
With the grace of a gymnast and the patient smile of a Buddha, Hadadi silently led her group 10 feet from the vegetable stand and resumed the lecture.
"If we weren't meant to be there, I guess it just wasn't meant to be," she reflects.
After a decade of exploring Chinatown's exotic shops, it takes more than a territorial street peddler to stop Hadadi from preaching her Gospel of Chinese herbs.
Hadadi has spent so much time exploring the markets of New York's Asian communities that one Chinese-language newspaper dubbed her "The Best Known Blonde in Chinatown." She's writing a new book, "Chinese Herbal Secrets." She also offers private herb counseling, classes on Herbal Beauty Secrets and frequent lectures at AIDS conferences.
But the core of her missionary work is done one tour at a time. About a dozen Saturdays a year, Hadadi guides 20 people through Chinatown's herb markets, offering a blend of eastern philosophy and ancient remedies. To her dismay, she finds most Americans are more interested in herbal bargain hunting than in-depth homeopathic thought.
"I get a little carried away with the theory sometimes," she says, after being peppered by questions about discounts on ginseng, the recipe for homemade ginko preparation and the best shops for therapeutic peppers. "It's good that people remind me that they also come here for the bargains."
The tour begins, like so many New Age endeavors, with a deep-breathing exercise.
Standing in a classroom at the New York Open Center, a holistic institute in Soho, Hadadi leads the class through a tai'chi stretching routine to focus the mind. She then launches into a half-hour overview of Chinese medicine, offering a series of herbal mantras:
Herbal remedies are considered foods. Every person should seek a balance between between sweet and bitter, hot and cold.
Western medicine tends to treat the illness; herbal doctors treat the patient.
In China (where Hadadi works part of the year at a hospital) most medical facilities use herbal medicine in conjunction with western techniques.
The tongue is the window to the body. Skilled herbalists base their diagnoses on whether it is red or white, moist or dry.
Those premises, unconventional by Western standards, make the medical establishment treat herbal medicine with suspicion. But U.S. pharmaceutical companies are experimenting with extracts of some herbs, such as St. John's wort to treat symptoms of AIDS and kudzu to combat alcohol dependency.
But the U.S. Food and Drug Administration fluctuates between ignoring herbalists and antagonizing them. The uneasy truce between the two allows herb sellers to sidestep the lengthy and prohibitively-expensive testing process, as long as the herbs' packaging doesn't claim any medical benefits. But many of the packages do promise therapeutic results, so federal agents occasionally swoop into Chinatown to remove some products from the herbalists shelves.
Hadadi and many herbalists argue that the medical establishment opposes herbal cures because they are cheaper and harder for drug companies to control.
"Herbs are a threat to big business," she said, "because you can't patent a plant."
Despite the apprehensions of medical regulators, it's estimated that millions of Americans rely on Chinese herbs for everything from head colds and weight loss to infertility and tumors. There are 20 Chinese herbal shops in New York. Hadadi offers private consultation with dozens of patients, and is also working with two U.S. senators to fight legislation that would restrict the sale of herbs.
She is also a testimonial to herbal well-being. Anyone who's ever joked about the anemic-looking clerks at most health food stores would be stunned by Hadadi's bright eyes, vibrant skin and vitality.
"We Hungarian women are vain," she says. "I sometimes joke that I only do this to stay young."
Hadadi's robust appearance is even more impressive when you consider her medical history: she has been diagnosed with "incurable depression" on three occasions.
Hadadi was raised in New Mexico, the daughter of a nuclear-weapons engineer, and warned by her parents "don't get too smart - learn how to cook." She tried the role of dutiful wife and began a career as a singer with a traveling opera company.
But in the mid-'70s, when her marriage ended, Hadadi had an herbal epiphany. She began exploring alternative health care, studied acupuncture in Connecticut and medicine in China and India. When she discovered the "dramatic" improvement in her health, she decided to devote her life to eastern medicine and now spends several months a year working in a Shanghai hospital.
In New York, she now sees her role as an ambassador - between curious Americans, trying to overcome their ignorance of alternative medicine and Chinese herbalists, who are uneasy about opening their customs to the scrutiny of outsiders.
by CNB