Rachael 2009: Kunming China

Dear loved ones:family, soon to be family (LeeLee’s little bun in the oven), friends, and dogs,

I’m sitting in a local coffee shop waiting for my tutor and friend, Lu Jin, to come meet me and we will walk together through the green lake park, over the bridge with the Tibetan dancers, to a little ally to copy my text books. All of the acupuncture books and theory books I’m using are several hundred US dollars new (almost as much as Bruce’s math books), but you can get them (all 400 pages) photocopied and bound for 3 dollars at this hole in the wall store. Amazing.

I finally feel settled. I have my schedule figured out, know my local vegetable and flower ladies (I always have fresh lilies in my apartment), how to get around town by bike and bus, the closest massage place, swimming pool, and of course the good restaurants. My schedule is wonderful!

I have Chinese class with a really good tutor who teaches at Kunming University. We are able to cover a lesson a day. It’s hard because my listening skills are far better than my speaking, speaking better than reading, and reading better than writing. We are trying to keep it all balanced, but basically I can have a conversation about the news, but can’t read a newspaper. I’m also more interested in talking to people in the park, than sitting in my room and cramming characters in my brain. I’ll do it eventually.

Acupuncture and Traditional Chinese medicine class is fascinating. I’ve covered the basic principles behind the theory. It’s completely different from Western medicine (duh). My lovely father asked me today if I see this healing art in my future and my answer is simple: If I see it work, especially on me (chronic back pain which western medicine has yet to fix) then, Yes! I would want to share this with the world. I agree with the basic holistic concept of prevention and healing the root of disease, rather than suppressing symptoms. The details on how to prevent and treat disease are where it gets fuzzy for me, and I need to see it work first. This is hard because healing in Chinese medicine is a long process and very abstract. I’m keeping an open mind, with a skeptical eye.

I go to clinic twice a week (7:00-9:30pm-doctors are open here much later than in America), wear a white doctors coat with a notebook, and follow one of the best acupuncture doctors in Kunming. Lu Jin comes with me-I’m hardly able to understand medical talk and she also helps me understand the diagnosis process, treatment, etc. 

The doctor works in a huge Traditional Chinese medicine complex. I have to walk through the pharmacy which is a TCM pharmacy-there is nothing in packages or English. It consists of hundreds of tiny little drawers all with a few Chinese characters on the outside, and filled with loose herbs, roots, flowers, fungus, fruits, tea, and animals. Some things I recognize-goji berries, chrysanthemum flowers, sea horses. Everything is dried and it smells like musty tea. When someone gets prescribed something it will be a concoction of some sort that the pharmacists will mix in front of you, package in brown paper, and tell you to make a tea out of it. Everything is in tea form and it looks like potions I used to make in my Valley Oak backyard when I was little. I haven’t studied herbs yet, so I couldn’t tell you too much about it. I know that Goji berries are good for liver fire, which is similar to the antioxidant properties that we believe it to have in America. That’s the only overlap I’ve seen in the two medical systems so far. Goji Berries.

I’m still getting used to the clinic. It’s rather overwhelming, but extremely exciting. It is nothing like acupuncture that I’ve received in America. The needles are literally about three times as thick than what Western Acupuncture doctor’s use, and they are reusable. A little freaky at first, because it’s considered normal for the patients to bleed from the needle and make groans during the needling process. However the more I study, the more I realize that this is what Acupuncture really is, and the West is forced to use a less intimidating version of it because of it’s “alternative nature”. He also uses moxibustion, which is a way to apply heat to the acupuncture points by way of a little burning incense looking cone. It feels rather good (my roommate is an acupuncture doctor and often gives me moxibustion when I’m sore) and gives the clinic a hearty medicinal incense smell.

The doctor treats many patients at once, and at any given time will have 2-20 patients in the office sitting in the chairs or lying in one of the 8 beds. All with needles sticking out of them, blankets covering them, smoke coming from their back, sometimes blood from the needle points, and usually a classic grimace on their face. There is no privacy, and anyone is allowed to stare at any other patients. Often the men in the clinic will be chain-smoking cigarettes and speaking at absurdly load volumes. Also, patients don’t mind telling their personal health stories to everyone and anyone. It’s great for me because I can talk to and watch any patient, feel their pulse, stare at their tongue, talk about their sexual history and they’re more than happy to divulge everything. I’m learning a lot by this, indeed, hands on experience.

The doctor is really nice, and is going to treat me tomorrow night. I’m scared to receive acupuncture with such large needles, but I’m going to give it a try. He apparently has healed many patients with neck and back pain (probably the most common symptom I’ve witnessed in the clinic). I'm not alone. 

Tai Qi is perhaps my favorite part of the day. I spend three hours every morning at the park in the zoo (across from the monkeys which howl whenever I’m really concentrating) and next to the old men that play traditional Chinese instruments, doing Tai Qi and Qi Gong. My teacher, more like master, is quite a fellow. He’s about 50+, but it’s extremely hard to gauge age in this culture, and feisty as ever. He doesn’t speak a word of English except, “hoe buddy welax-whole body relax, beeth natuarryy-breath naturally) which he repeats quite often. There are two other "lawai" (foreign devils) doing the class with me who are fluent in mandarin and have done martial arts and Tai qi for many years. There are also six elderly Chinese women that join our sessions who are going on thirty years of study. Lu Jin accompanies me and will translate if my master (teacher Yang-Yang laoshi) goes off on a rambling tangent about Qi, the universe, and the importance of health, fighting people, and his view on meditation. 

The class itself is very laid back, and you do what you WANT to do. We usually spend the first hour or so doing some Qi gong, which is basically standing still with your hands in front of your torso as if holding a huge invisible ball, and scanning your body by following the meridians starting at one of the most important points which is on top of your head (bai hui-100 meeting point). It’s a form of mediation, but more focused on relaxing and acknowledging every inch of the body, and less about the mind. It’s also about circulating energy externally and internally. (If you're interested I'd love to teach you when I return). We then stretch, which is like no stretching you’ve ever seen in the western world. It’s very jerky and angles that don’t seem like they feel good. We then do Tai Qi, which I’m sure you’ve all seen. It looks like very slow motion fighting, and essentially the motions are. But it is also so much more. In fact Yang laoshi started out doing martial arts at the age of five. Dropped out of school and has spent all his days fighting. I’ve heard stories of how before he found his new calm self, he would break tables in half at fancy restaurants, and start fights with people twice his size walking down the street. He would always win, and he’s famous throughout Yunnan for his power. Now he does Tai Qi, but will always teach us the corresponding self-defense move that goes with the Yin Yang balancing, Qi cultivating form that we learn. I’m learning first hand how many health benefits this practice has. In fact, it's main purpose is to heal the body. Many people in my class have health problems and say they increase when they stop. Diabetes, heart issues, arthritis, and back pain… I like what I’m learning. I’m half way through the form now. They say it takes many years to really understand, and I’m grateful to have found this at such a young age.

Our Tai Qi class recently went on a trip to Wei Bao Shan, a Taoist mountain, about five hours outside of the city. We stayed in one of the 12 monasteries and practiced Tai qi together, cooked in the outside stove, drank berry wine, and talked. We did Tai qi by starlight in the woods with fireflies surrounding us (my first fire flies!). I especially loved getting to know the older woman in my class who have the patience to teach me and the curiosity to get to know me. They are all such warm grounded people.

Outside of class I’ve been cooking and hanging out with my new Japanese roommate who is such a darling. She didn’t like her high-pressure acupuncturist job in Japan, quit it, and moved to China. She doesn’t speak any Chinese, and her English is very basic. She has guts and we complement each other very well. She treats me when I’m sore or sick and teaches me how to make miso soup. Her uncle lives in Kunming, and took us golfing today. I’m not very good, and think I broke my back trying to drive, but it was still a good laugh. In fact we laugh a lot together, and the language doesn’t stop our communication one bit. We are going to a day spa next weekend which is 15 dollars for an entire day at a fancy spa (massage, scrup, sauna, thermal hot springs, lunch oh ya!)

College applications are all in and now it’s just a waiting game. I applied to Middlebury, Vassar, and Bates. Vassar is my first choice, but I would love to go to any of them. I’m ready to be back in college.

I talk to DJ quite a bit. We will call each other when we are waiting at a bus station, or sick of the amount of second hand smoke we’re inhaling and just chat. It’s really nice to have him a cell phone call away.

Wow, if you’ve made it this far in the letter, you really are a loved one. I’m doing well, healthy and happy. I’m an alien here, but don’t mind it. I’ve figured out a nice balance for my days.

I hope you also have found a good balance and miss you all! I’ll send photos in a week or so once I get some good ones of the people in my Kunming life. Tell me what you all are up to. 

Lots of Love,

Rachael