January 14th

Mary Wuest

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Megan Landers <megan.landers@plu.edu>
Date: Sun, Jan 16, 2011 at 9:54 PM
Subject: blog - didn't know the other email, sorry!
To: Mary Wuest <wuestmk@plu.edu>

Friday January 14th

 

Today was a busy day for us. We started out the morning with three hours of clinical. All of the group got to see and do some pretty cool stuff. Some groups got to observe acupuncture, moxibustion and cupping on different patients (and sometimes all on the same patient!) and one group got the exciting opportunity to try out some cupping and acupuncture on each other. Courtney Hills was the guinea pig for the cupping and has some pretty impressive marks to show for it.

After our morning clinical we had time to grab some lunch and then we hopped on a bus for a busy afternoon. We first went to a Taoist Monastery. It was really beautiful and we were given a large chunk of time to explore the area. When we went inside Jeff (one of our Chinese professors) told us all to take some of the incense, light it and make a wish. So most of us took a handful of incense and went to light it from the fire. Then there is a huge stone basin full of ashes where everyone places their burning incense and makes a wish or a prayer. That was a neat experience to participate in instead of only watching as we had done previously at other temples. Once we left the monastery there were a lot of street shops that we had some time to wander through. A group of us found a shop where the owner had a cat who had just had kittens! We played with them and held them and they were very adorable. Then we promptly sanitized our hands. After the Taoist Monastery we got back on the bus and went to an area of Chengdu where a lot of art and artisan-type pieces are sold. Jeff took us to a store where we were able to have a stamp made of our Chinese names. Some of the group received Chinese names from a friend they met at the university but Jeff gave most of us our names. He wrote out the Chinese characters for the woman in the store and we should be getting the stamps back on Monday. These stamps, by the way, aren't the normal rubber and ink stamps. These are the kinds of stamps that one commonly sees in red on tapestries of Chinese calligraphy and the like. The stamp is the artist's signature and the characters are carved into the bottom of a stone. We all had the opportunity to choose what kind of stone we wanted and which characters for our name we wanted on it. It will definitely be a very authentic and personal souvenir to bring home.

After this final planned activity for the day we headed to a nice dinner out as a group. After the dinner some people went to the movie theater and saw Tron in 3D. We all had a really good time and enjoyed seeing the movie which none of us had seen previously. Later in the evening a large portion of the group went out to go dancing and experience the night life in Chengdu. From the sounds of it they all had a great time and, for the parents, they were all very safe and got back to the hotel just fine.

Overall it was a great day and we were all very tired and ready for a good nights sleep at the end of it.

-Megan Landers