Today we went up Tianzi mountain. We rode up an elevator to the top of some mountain. The mountain had some amazing views that I was really happy to see. It was awesome to look out and see the background of Avatar and think I am literally here. I don’t know, I think that was one of the “you had to be there” moments. We were supposed to take a cable car down the mountain but it ended up being closed. So we took a taxi back which turned into a awesome adventure around the mountain side. It was really cool to see this rural side of China. What was really interesting about this day was the stores and things that were up on the mountain. You would be hiking for like an hour and run into a couple people with a really nice computer and camera that would take your photo on this backdrop for a price. It’s like a photo studio out in the wild.

We didn’t really have a lesson today because the day was mostly traveling to Zhangjiajie. We took some photos of the bus ride, but we didn’t learn about that many new things. Other than, be prepared for gross bathrooms on the stops.

There was a really big celebration in the park today. It was some anniversary to celebrate tai chi. At least one hundred people were out, all dressed up in tai chi clothes, practicing together and showing off their personal performances. It was a great day to just watch tai chi and meet a lot of people who believe in what this exercise can do. It was really cool to be a part of something so monumental. I believe the Chinese are trying to increase the ages that practice tai chi. Most younger kids who we talked to assumed tai chi was for older people, as many Americans do, which is so narrow minded. This exercise can help anyone of any age. I was very glad to be a part of it.

Dr. Li and the other traditional doctor came to the hotel and explained more about the meridians to us. We were shown all the drawings of the human body and told about the different meridians and points. It was cool to see that a point on the arm could help with stomach pain. Or how a point on the leg helped with clear skin and beauty. I think that some of the points are kind of silly but many can work because of nerves. It’s really hard to physically map nerve points on a body but I believe that is the basis for the meridians. It makes sense why pressing on these spots would hurt, if they are nerves. Also pressing nerves can lead to changes in pain because the firing would be stopped or changed. Also nerves can lead to released hormones which could also explain the pain stopping or feeling better.

Dr. Li showed us some Tuina massage today. We were shown the arm movements and hand placement for just a basic Tuina massage. It seemed closer to what our normal massages are back home. But it also did use pressure to dig into the meridians and release chi. Another difference is that this massage can be done almost anywhere. It can be done with clothes on and no massage oil. Which makes this form very versatile. We also visited a traditional Chinese medicine hospital. Although this was not a traditional hospital, it basically was just a doctors office that also had a pharmacy. We all got to be looked at by the doctor and diagnosed. I don’t know how right he was in what’s wrong with us but it was interesting. We were also shown the different herbs they had and what medicines they would be used for.

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.