Chinese language class totally blew my mind! We covered a lot in this short period- the basic essentials such as hello, thank you, etc., the Chinese numbers, and we were even taught how to write a few Chinese characters. Very messily, I might add. Then, it was off to lunch!
Again, we didn't have our Chinese students to help us order, so we were on our own. This was our first lunch on campus, so I did my best to order what I could. I totally failed this day and I hated my lunch. I wish I had taken my camera so you could see! The silver lining of that lunch was that it was the only meal I ate on this trip to China where I just hated everything, so that's good. After lunch, we had our daily mid-day break.
After the break, we met our co-students in the library and they took us to our next class- Traditional Chinese Medicine. The first half of this class was rather boring, I must admit. Our teacher taught us the basics of TCM- Yin and Yang, the meridians of the body, and how each body part correlates to another. After this, our teacher began on the practical uses of TCM. When she began the practical uses of TCM, everyone became interested and we even got to experience a few methods.
Noah and I volunteered to demonstrate "cupping," a Traditional Chinese Medicine practice that involves suctioning a cup on the skin to bring the blood to the top.
So, that's what cupping looks like during the process.. Here's the immediate aftermath.
This definitely doesn't look bad at all! But a few days later, our arms had perfectly circular black bruises.
After the cupping demonstration, our teacher discussed other Traditional Chinese Medicine practices. One of which is how rubbing and massaging certain acupoints can relieve other ailments like a sore neck, heat stroke, headaches, and others. My back was hurting from sleeping on an uncomfortable bed, and so she massaged a place on my hand, and my ear. She rubbed my hand so badly I wanted to cry! But surprisingly, my back actually did feel better! I'm not sure if it was just a distraction from getting my hand man-handled or what, but it really did feel better, at least temporarily.
Also, thank you, Dr. Reed for laughing at me and documenting my pain.
Dr. Reed and Kayla also let her torture them.. Here are those pictures as well.
After this class, we met up with our co-students in hope that they would take us to a tasty place for dinner.. And man, did they deliver! They took us to a dumpling restaurant, where we ate copious amounts of dumplings. There were 16 of us, the 10 from JSU, and 6 Chinese students.. And we ordered 250 dumplings. We got several different kinds- pork, beef, cabbage, and celery filled dumplings. Strangely, the celery filled ones were my favorite.
After we ate as many dumplings as we could, Noah decided to entertain us by juggling a few of the leftover dumplings.
Then, stuffed and crying from laughter, the students took us on a walk to see a Buddhist temple. However, it was about a 45 minute walk, in the dark and rain. We endured it anyway, though. The walk was kind of miserable, but I believe it was worth it. Unfortunately, because it was raining and dark, I was unable to get any pictures that are worth looking at.
So, after that adventure, we walked exhausted back to the campus (the short 20 minute route!) and greeted many students from English Corner. The night before, Dr. Garrett invited all of the English Corner students to our hotel to talk to us since we arrived late the night before. Little did we know, their teacher sent ALL of the English students an email and there were probably 60-75 Chinese students there waiting on us. It really was a great experience, though. The Chinese students made us feel like celebrities- they asked us so many questions and begged for pictures.
I'm in a sorority at JSU, Delta Zeta, and I taught some of the Chinese students how to throw our sign!
After they all left, it was time for a MUCH needed rest.
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