Another garden.. But this time we were shown how a lot of the plants are used in traditional Chinese medicine. We met this doctor who uses a lot of the plants in his own garden to make medicine that can cure anything and even cancer. He swears he cured a terminal cancer patient. Which, we can’t deny if we have no proof either way. But anyways, the garden. It was really cool because we’d be walking along and he would stop and point to some random plant and know what it was used for. We were shown plants that cured things from headaches to cramps to cancer. Some plants we even have in the U.S., though I don’t know the names, they were exactly like what we have yet they cure disease. It’s weird to think that we don’t use them p, maybe the effectiveness is different because of where they are grown.

Today we visited a private museum that is only open to a certain group of people. The chief instructor police man of Xiangtan took us and it was really amazing. They had art pieces that were the only ones in existence worth fortunes. The coolest ones, in my opinion, were the nature scenes they had on different plates and dishes. The artwork was amazing. But they also had a lot of statues of different “deities “, such as the dragon queen I believe. She is thought to be able to control the dragons. We also saw the dragon king and all his children. It was a really fun night. It’s very interesting to see the artwork that is prized. Also it was weird that this collection would be private instead of sharing it with the citizens.

Again at the house of evil. But this time I get to watch another instructional massage showing how cupping is done. The suction cups were shown and we got the option to move them ourselves. It was really cool to finally see what they did to me, even though Jessica actually liked it. I say they weren’t as tough as they were with me, but who knows. Again they explained what the different massage techniques did and how there were various ways to perform the suction cups. It was cool to see the skin puff up and the blood pool at the surface. I have never had this type of technique done in the states so I don’t really know the difference in techniques. But I can say that the treatment has helped quite a few unhealthy individuals who visited the spa, according to the owner. Although I can’t remember much specifically.

Today we celebrated the opening of the tai chi center officially with a large group of people who practiced tai chi. At the ceremony there were a lot of performances by the top students as well as a couple performances with music and a tea ceremony. The tea ceremony was amazing. It was very cool to experience this new culture surrounded by such awesome people. And the tea that was made was delicious to boot. I was very glad to have been apart of this change in history.

We had a lesson on Chinese diet. This was a really cool introduction into dietary medicine because it showed us what the basic doctors base medicine and recovery on. This diet balances all the seasons and uses food color to classify what they help with. Such as white foods or silver are considered part of the metal class and help during winter. These white foods are normally spicy like ginger. They recommend a balanced of all the colors: green, red, yellow, silver, black, and blue in every meal. Also with each season certain colors are more preferred and should have a larger ratio when compared to the other colors. The American diet is just based on quantity of different vitamins and things inside food. It is also not based on season. Although they do recommend a balanced diet it’s less based on the fact it has on the body.

We didn’t just visit the center today but did tai chi. Which I can honestly say I am really bad at. It requires a lot of coordination. But even though I didn’t do everything the instructor did I still felt like I had done a real work out afterwards. In fact most times I have to sit down early because I get too tired. Whenever I do a lot of movement with my knees they tend to hurt a lot, but I think because of the less strenuous exercise my knees didn’t hurt. I loved this because it made me feel like I could really work out. Most exercise I hear about is about pushing yourself until you can’t do more, but with tai chi you don’t need to do that. The workout is still fulfilling even if you aren’t hurting yourself.

We had another acupuncture lesson. During today’s lesson Dr. Flatt’s knee was popped back into place. This was done by Dr. Li during the lesson. When she had gone to the doctors in the U.S. To try and fix her knee, none of the doctors even attempted to touch her knee. They just said to come back in 6 weeks if there was still pain. This is hilarious because western medicine is supposed to be this great thing, when they can’t even fix a knee that was out of place. But within two appointments with Dr. Li her knee was back in place and had a tremendous decrease in pain. I think that is just amazing.

We went back to the spa and Dr. Flatt got to try some massage moves on Victor. It’s really interesting to watch this happen because you don’t see the effort being put into your own massage. You also don’t really understand the techniques in the massage until the technician explains them. It’s a pattern that is followed during the massage. You only move on to the next moves after opening qi and warming the back up. The scraper can’t be used until a certain point either. Which I believe is different than most western massages, which can go in any order really. As far as I know the body does not have to be warmed up to continue on with certain parts of the massage. They explained more about the release of dampness, which can cause all sorts of diseases. They also explained the reason for releasing black blood which can build up in the body. This is bad blood that has no use and must be physically released by puncturing the skin. Also they explained the sugar tea that is given at the end of the massage which helps to increase blood volume so that you don’t pass out after a massage.

Today we went to the spa… Not the fun happy calming spa, but a different evil one. Don’t get me wrong the massage felt amazing, but afterwards not so much. So in traditional Chinese massages to help you become healthy they put pressure on the different meridian points and massage in specific ways. Then they use this scraper thing that is supposed to release the “dampness” that is in your body. And it feels like the back of a comb being pressed and dragged into your back. Fun right? Then for me they did suction cups and dragged them on my skin. Which again was not that fun, but did feel nice. This whole experience left my back bruised, see photo, but I think it made me feel better in the long run. It’s also supposed to be a lot better for you than our normal massages. Most people go to a massage to relax and not feel any pain, but if you don’t feel pain then how do you know you’re fixing the problem? No pain, no gain as they say. Even with the differences and pain involved I do think that this form of massage is better in the long run. Clearing the blocked qi and releasing dampness could be very beneficial.

We met Dr. Li today, who is a traditional Chinese medicine doctor. He explained a little about acupuncture and how it can be used to fix almost any problem in your body. He also did to practices on Hadeel and Dr. Flatt. It was really interesting because for Dr. Flatt she felt almost instant relief from her knee pain when the needles were removed. Whereas for Hadeel the relief wasn’t as great. This difference in acupuncture between traditional and what is mainly used in the U.S. Is depth of the needles. For traditional medicine the needles go however deep is needed until they hit a meridian point. For the majority of acupuncture in the U.S. The needles are only placed superficially. This does not allow the problem to be fixed, which could be why acupuncture is so ineffective in the U.S.