Barbara & Bruces' Asia Adventures continue (China, Hong Kong and Korea too!!!!)

Happy Dragon Boat Festival !!! Bruce on the subway  While most Chinese had been celebrating the Dragon Boat Festival for several days, we decided to spend the day exploring various settings where we hoped to find 'local' celebrations as we reminded ourselves how to negotiate the subway system. Throwing coins for good luck- Jing An Temple The morning started slowly, after a lovely hotel breakfast-everything from rice noodles, fried rice, dim sum (little filled dumplings), multiple veggies (corn, bok choy, string beans and more), eggs, millet or rice porridge and a special treat that is eaten during the festival-- sticky rice filled with a few yummy goodies such as an egg yolk and small juicy pieces of meat, all wrapped in a leafy package to form a tetrahedron about the size of a large fist.  From there we walked to find the studio where I will be teaching. The walk is about 30 minutes away and passes through small parks and neighborhoods, as well as crosses a lovely...

Motorcycles take over the pedestrian sidewalk Traffic and right-of-way in China is very different from what I am used to e.g. nice, polite, follow-the-rules Minnesota. Instead, my first impression is that it is a free-for-all involving busses, cars, motorbikes, small three wheeled wagons, bicycles and of course people. Plus, there always seems to be traffic- either fewer cars moving more quickly as they change lanes, jockeying for the fastest route (if only for a few seconds), or lots of cars with everyone frenetically trying to move into even the smallest crack of a space. While there are street lights, its not clear when you are actually supposed to follow them and when everyone is agreement about ignoring them. Card playing while waiting to board the train in Beijing I keep trying to figure out who has the right-of- way, but here are my thoughts so far. First, pedestrians seem the most expendable, perhaps because we can always hop out of the way (assuming we have time). ...

While Bruce has been exploring wonderful places in the city, I have been busy teaching. This time I taught two different two-day, intensive courses. One was a required Kinesiology class and the other a new "Integration and Supervision Class'.  Both were wonderful, but also intense, since each day was 8 hours of teaching. (I usually arrived home, exhausted.. though Bruce was usually wanting to go out and explore some, more distant area, beyond the confines of our local 'village community'.) Students in Beijing Class (well except for the lovely skeleton There are many reasons I love working with the students here. First, they are deeply curious about everything and, because they are more advanced students, their questions are  thoughtful, perceptive and also challenging for me to think about my response to. In the anatomy class, there were so many wonderful moments where as I taught, I got glimpses of how the body and healing are viewed from a Tradional Chinese Med...

In the past few days Barbara's been very busy teaching (leaving each day around 8:30 in the morning, and not returning until 7:00), and I (Bruce) have been exploring parts of Beijing on my own.  I'm slowly figuring out where things are--not always easy in a city of 25 million people! We did have some days to explore together before her teaching began, as you could tell from her first entry.  We spent much of a day at a large park full of families, and you'll note in the photo here that she did just fine working around the language barrier when getting a snack (and of course, as we often have, depending on the kindness of strangers). We also had time to visit not only one of the oldest temples in Beijing, but also the oldest mosque, the Niujie Mosque established in the 900's as Islam spread to the east.  As an historic mosque complex, they are used to visitors, and we enjoyed wandering around the complex (in anticipation of our visit, Barbara had covered her hair...

CCTV Building, Beijing - also know as the underpants building We return, once again to China. This time to Beijing, capital and most northern city we have visited. We are here because I (Barbara) am teaching Dance/Movement Therapy courses for interested students here. The sponsoring program is called Inspirees, and in recent years I have taught courses in Guangzhou, Hong Kong and Shanghai on three occasions. I feel extremely honored to be able to be here and learn more about these wonderful students and have time to explore and experience a culture that is so different, in many ways than my own.   Bruce has also been able to join me on this and several other visits, so he will hopefully chime in as well. But here goes! Beijing!! In some ways this city felt to be quite formidable before we arrived. My pre-impressions: huge, polluted, the central heart of a top-down government and perhaps, of all the cities I have taught in, the one with the least interactions with the west. I...