Several weeks ago I tried a yoga class with Ariel. I enjoyed it at the time, but I didn't follow up on it - Ariel said the other women in the class felt uncomfortable with me around, since I was the only man there.
However, it turns out that we were mistaken. One of the staff asked Ariel if I would be coming back, and told her that I was perfectly welcome to join. I needed no more prompting than that, and on Monday I went along and signed up for three months - about the same amount of time I have left in China. How time flies.
Originally Mauritte, the new foreign teacher (South African woman, very enthusiastic about just about everything, lovely lady), was going to come too - she'd expressed an interest in yoga - but the class was too far away from where she lived.
Before the class itself, Ariel gave me a quick lesson in Chinese - specifically, the things the instructor would say while we were supposed to have our eyes closed. These are also things that aren't easy to spot just by copying what the instructor is doing, even with your eyes open - things like breath from your belly, not your chest. I forgot most of it almost immediately, of course, and even after doing it for five days straight now I still have to peek occasionally so I know when they get to the neck stretches. However, I am picking up a few words here and there. Soon I'll be able to have entire conversations about the various parts of the body and how to twist them out of recognition, all in Chinese!
The first word I learned in yoga class was "fangsong", pronounced more like "fung soong" for those of you unfamiliar with pinyin. It means "relax", and is repeated very regularly during the class - which is why I remember it so easily. The yoga lessons begin with relaxation and breathing before moving to the stretching that most people associate with yoga, and finish again with relaxation. Unsurprisingly, it's all very relaxing.
That doesn't make it easy, though. Today was the hardest day yet. There are two or three instructors that are rotated through the classes, and the instructor today was beautiful, graceful, and very demanding. All the instructors will correct your posture as needed during the exercises, but today this instructor pushed all of us to our limits - and then some. Most of it was fine with me - there are many stretches that my body can do easily enough, but my arms are not strong enough to pull myself into all the way. Just a little push on my back does wonders.
This one stretch, though, was murder. It stretches the upper thigh and hip, and all week I'd been wondering if I was doing it properly. The instructor would tell us to look at the ceiling, but many of the other students would just look up a little, not straight up. Since I don't actually understand the Chinese instructions, I mostly followed suit. Today, the instructor dispelled any doubts I had about the right way to do it, without saying a word. The problem is that I'm pretty flexible, and the right way for me to do it is not just to look up, but behind as far as I can, all the while pushing down, until the nerves in your hip shout themselves hoarse and finally say: "bugger this, I'm clocking out. See you in an hour." All the other stretches I reach the limit of my flexibility fairly obviously, and even the instructor can't push me further - because my head is touching my legs, or because my legs are flat on the floor, for example. This stretch, not so. The only physical limits it's possible to reach with this one are having your head touch your knee - from the back - and to have your hips actually touch the floor - from a lunge position.
That was the first time I took a break in the middle of an exercise. All the other students did too - she put all of us through this, it's not like she was picking on me or anything. Still, I don't like giving up, but oh god my hips.
Having said all that - afterwards, I felt great. Absolutely amazing. On Wednesday I wasn't going to come, as the first two days had left me stiff and sore, but I went anyway, and was glad for it, since I felt great afterwards. Since then I haven't had similar soreness tempting me not to go, and I always feel good afterwards. Today hurt, but it hurt so good. That's five days. I'll take a break over the weekend - I have to anyway, I have to work all day. Mostly all day - I could, in theory, go to the morning class on Sunday - but I think I'll let myself rest. I don't need to jump straight into yoga by doing seven hours a week. I'll work myself up to it.
I will do some light exercise though. Although I'm flexible enough to do most of the positions without much trouble, I can't hold them for long without shaking, because I'm pretty pathetically weak. My abs and shoulders in particular need to be focused on, so it's crunches and push-ups in the mornings instead of yoga this weekend.
I'll reiterate what I said just before - it makes me feel great. It's not just internal bliss either, the teachers at work have been saying all this week that I look better, too! I can heartily recommend it, even if you aren't flexible to start out with.
Friday, August 29, 2008
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Tianshui
Sorry about the lack of updates here recently! Here's a long one to make up for it.
On Thursday evening I left for Tianshui, a small city in Gansu province, with Linda. Compared to most other places in China, it's close to Xi'an - it only took 4 hours to get there by train.
We very nearly missed the train, too. We were having dinner at Ivy's place with Alice, and both of them got mad at us for not telling them when we were leaving when we told them it was that night. I thought we'd already told them that! Alice was mad because Linda got to go away and she had to cover Linda's class. I'm sure they'll both forgive us, though - we brought back peaches. We were talking for a while after dinner, and it was only after the exchange of outrage that we thought to check what time it was, and realised that we only had a short time to get to the train station. I hadn't packed yet, so I ran upstairs, packed, forgot that my camera battery was still in the charger, left the light on (for four days), and then we caught a taxi. We ran to the train station, through the gates, to the right platform and on the train. We had one minute to spare. There isn't much to say about the train; we both caught a bit of sleep. Here's what it looked like from inside:
We arrived at 3am, and took a taxi to Linda's parents' house. I met her parents - both nice people, but they can't speak any English, so I didn't talk with them at all. They were very hospitable, and made me feel right at home. At some later point I met her grandma, too, who is very old, and quite infirm. She only came out of her room - very slowly, leaning against the wall - to eat, and she barely spoke the whole time I was there.
We slept a bit better than we did on the train, and in the morning Linda made me French toast, since that's what I eat most mornings here.
The rest of the day was spent out with Linda and her mum, hopping through a series of shops looking for clothes and shoes. Linda wanted new clothes, partly because she could now dress herself in things her ex-boyfriend didn't like, and partly to re-invent herself, to help get over the ex. This meant dresses and high heels, instead of the jeans and flat shoes she always used to wear. If you're a woman, you know exactly how this expedition would have gone. If you're a man and you've never gone shopping with a woman for clothes - or shoes - before, then let me explain:
I'm sure it's come to your attention just how many women's clothing stores there are in any given shopping location; they are equalled in number by the shoe stores, as well. What you might not have known is that every single store must be visited during a shopping trip, and there are more there than you realised at first, because really, who pays attention to women's clothing stores? Because Linda wasn't the one paying for it, she was very conscious of the price, too - she didn't want her mum to spend too much, so even if she found something she liked, it might not be the right price, so the search would continue. She did eventually find a dress, but the shoe hunt was not so successful - Linda is tall for a Chinese girl, and her feet are one size larger than most stores carry. She did find a pair she liked, in her size, but they were too expensive.
We had local Tianshui food for lunch - chao mien pien, which is made with flat pieces of torn up noodle in a mutton broth. It's not something you can get in Xi'an, and it tasted really good. For dinner that night we had something similar, but with chopped noodles instead of torn, and made by Linda's mum instead of a restaurant, and that was even better. After dinner we watched the opening ceremony for the Olympics, which I don't need to tell you about because you've seen it for yourself. If you haven't, find it on the internet and do so, it was great!
The next day I had more local food, for breakfast this time - something called guagua, and I have no idea what it is or what it's made of. It's some kind of crumbly stuff, mixed together with spicy sauce, and it's very good. People in Gansu province are just as fond of spicy food as the people in Shaanxi, everything here is spicy. For lunch we had the standard fare in China, dishes and rice made by Linda's mum, and then Linda and I went for a wander around town. She took me to Fuxi temple - Fuxi is an old Chinese god, who created the first people. I took a few photos here, but my camera died shortly afterwards, since - as I mentioned above - I left the spare battery in the charger at home, and the one in the camera was almost out.
This is the entrance to the temple grounds:
And this is the temple grounds. You can also see in this photo that Tianshui has a real sky, blue with clouds in it, not like Xi'an's grey blanket.
This was the cutest thing ever:
Linda and me! We didn't go inside the temple proper, which is why there are no photos of it. They charged an entrance fee for that, and I was happy with the grounds around it, they were pretty enough for my liking.
This is from when we left the temple and were just wandering around. This is what downtown Tianshui looks like, and that's Linda in the middle there.
Finally, another shot of downtown Tianshui. It's quite a pretty little city.
For dinner, we had leftover lunch, and then Linda's sister came over. She bought two big boxes of peaches with her, which immediately made her a good and worthy person in my eyes. Linda looks up to her big sister quite a bit, even now they're both adults (and even now that Linda is taller). She always goes on about how beautiful her sister is - which is true, but Linda is just as beautiful.
The next day we were going to walk to the hills around the city, and we were going to wake up at 5:30 to do so, to avoid the heat of the day. We didn't wake up then, surprisingly; in fact, we didn't leave the house that day until after eleven. Linda's sister and mum went to wedding receptions for their respective friends, and Linda and I had lunch. Afterwards, we went to help her sister choose her wedding photos. Her sister is getting married in October, and all the photos have already been taken, it was just a matter of choosing which ones to keep. This is a pretty long process as it turns out - first her sister chose all the ones she didn't want, then talked prices with the photo shop, since the agreed price is only for 50 or so photos, and there were many more than that left. This is the way it always work here in China - they show you all the beautiful photos, but the initial price only covers some of them, so you have to pay extra if you want them all. After that, they have to choose which photos will be poster-sized, which will be keyring-sized, and so on. The staff at the shop were openly surprised at Linda and me speaking English together; I think it was mostly that Linda was obviously able to understand and talk to a foreigner that impressed them.
Linda and I didn't stay for the whole thing - we went for a walk, and after much convincing I bought Linda a dress she'd taken a liking to the first day we went shopping - she didn't get it at the time because her mum liked another one better. But now, she has both!
Later on we had barbecue for dinner with her dad, then went to the bridge by the river. She met one of her old friends there, and they talked until nearly midnight. It was a nice spot there by the river, but my camera was dead by then; besides, it was night.
On the last day we went to a kindergarten that Linda's friend works at, and listened to a training session for the new teachers - which wasn't that interesting, since I didn't understand any of it. We went back home and Linda's mum made noodles for lunch - very much like fettucine. The afternoon was spent resting, and for the farewell meal we had wraps, which are very similar to the same food so common in Western countries, but much smaller, and you make them yourself. At the restaurant we had a big plate of pancakes (not the sweet kind) and three different dishes - one of meat, one of vegetables, and one of noodles. You get a pancake, put stuff in it, and roll it up. Like everything else I ate while I was there, it was absolutely delicious.
Then it was time to leave. We took a box of peaches with us, and caught a bus to the train station. We were there in plenty of time this time, which meant a long time standing in line before the train came, and then a lot of pushing and shoving to get on the train. Unlike the trip there, we didn't have a seat for the trip back, so it was 4 and a half hours of trying our best to make ourselves comfortable in the aisle. Needless to say, that part wasn't fun.
Tianshui translates as "sky water", and true to its name it rained just as we left.
On Thursday evening I left for Tianshui, a small city in Gansu province, with Linda. Compared to most other places in China, it's close to Xi'an - it only took 4 hours to get there by train.
We very nearly missed the train, too. We were having dinner at Ivy's place with Alice, and both of them got mad at us for not telling them when we were leaving when we told them it was that night. I thought we'd already told them that! Alice was mad because Linda got to go away and she had to cover Linda's class. I'm sure they'll both forgive us, though - we brought back peaches. We were talking for a while after dinner, and it was only after the exchange of outrage that we thought to check what time it was, and realised that we only had a short time to get to the train station. I hadn't packed yet, so I ran upstairs, packed, forgot that my camera battery was still in the charger, left the light on (for four days), and then we caught a taxi. We ran to the train station, through the gates, to the right platform and on the train. We had one minute to spare. There isn't much to say about the train; we both caught a bit of sleep. Here's what it looked like from inside:
We arrived at 3am, and took a taxi to Linda's parents' house. I met her parents - both nice people, but they can't speak any English, so I didn't talk with them at all. They were very hospitable, and made me feel right at home. At some later point I met her grandma, too, who is very old, and quite infirm. She only came out of her room - very slowly, leaning against the wall - to eat, and she barely spoke the whole time I was there.
We slept a bit better than we did on the train, and in the morning Linda made me French toast, since that's what I eat most mornings here.
The rest of the day was spent out with Linda and her mum, hopping through a series of shops looking for clothes and shoes. Linda wanted new clothes, partly because she could now dress herself in things her ex-boyfriend didn't like, and partly to re-invent herself, to help get over the ex. This meant dresses and high heels, instead of the jeans and flat shoes she always used to wear. If you're a woman, you know exactly how this expedition would have gone. If you're a man and you've never gone shopping with a woman for clothes - or shoes - before, then let me explain:
I'm sure it's come to your attention just how many women's clothing stores there are in any given shopping location; they are equalled in number by the shoe stores, as well. What you might not have known is that every single store must be visited during a shopping trip, and there are more there than you realised at first, because really, who pays attention to women's clothing stores? Because Linda wasn't the one paying for it, she was very conscious of the price, too - she didn't want her mum to spend too much, so even if she found something she liked, it might not be the right price, so the search would continue. She did eventually find a dress, but the shoe hunt was not so successful - Linda is tall for a Chinese girl, and her feet are one size larger than most stores carry. She did find a pair she liked, in her size, but they were too expensive.
We had local Tianshui food for lunch - chao mien pien, which is made with flat pieces of torn up noodle in a mutton broth. It's not something you can get in Xi'an, and it tasted really good. For dinner that night we had something similar, but with chopped noodles instead of torn, and made by Linda's mum instead of a restaurant, and that was even better. After dinner we watched the opening ceremony for the Olympics, which I don't need to tell you about because you've seen it for yourself. If you haven't, find it on the internet and do so, it was great!
The next day I had more local food, for breakfast this time - something called guagua, and I have no idea what it is or what it's made of. It's some kind of crumbly stuff, mixed together with spicy sauce, and it's very good. People in Gansu province are just as fond of spicy food as the people in Shaanxi, everything here is spicy. For lunch we had the standard fare in China, dishes and rice made by Linda's mum, and then Linda and I went for a wander around town. She took me to Fuxi temple - Fuxi is an old Chinese god, who created the first people. I took a few photos here, but my camera died shortly afterwards, since - as I mentioned above - I left the spare battery in the charger at home, and the one in the camera was almost out.
This is the entrance to the temple grounds:
And this is the temple grounds. You can also see in this photo that Tianshui has a real sky, blue with clouds in it, not like Xi'an's grey blanket.
This was the cutest thing ever:
Linda and me! We didn't go inside the temple proper, which is why there are no photos of it. They charged an entrance fee for that, and I was happy with the grounds around it, they were pretty enough for my liking.
This is from when we left the temple and were just wandering around. This is what downtown Tianshui looks like, and that's Linda in the middle there.
Finally, another shot of downtown Tianshui. It's quite a pretty little city.
For dinner, we had leftover lunch, and then Linda's sister came over. She bought two big boxes of peaches with her, which immediately made her a good and worthy person in my eyes. Linda looks up to her big sister quite a bit, even now they're both adults (and even now that Linda is taller). She always goes on about how beautiful her sister is - which is true, but Linda is just as beautiful.
The next day we were going to walk to the hills around the city, and we were going to wake up at 5:30 to do so, to avoid the heat of the day. We didn't wake up then, surprisingly; in fact, we didn't leave the house that day until after eleven. Linda's sister and mum went to wedding receptions for their respective friends, and Linda and I had lunch. Afterwards, we went to help her sister choose her wedding photos. Her sister is getting married in October, and all the photos have already been taken, it was just a matter of choosing which ones to keep. This is a pretty long process as it turns out - first her sister chose all the ones she didn't want, then talked prices with the photo shop, since the agreed price is only for 50 or so photos, and there were many more than that left. This is the way it always work here in China - they show you all the beautiful photos, but the initial price only covers some of them, so you have to pay extra if you want them all. After that, they have to choose which photos will be poster-sized, which will be keyring-sized, and so on. The staff at the shop were openly surprised at Linda and me speaking English together; I think it was mostly that Linda was obviously able to understand and talk to a foreigner that impressed them.
Linda and I didn't stay for the whole thing - we went for a walk, and after much convincing I bought Linda a dress she'd taken a liking to the first day we went shopping - she didn't get it at the time because her mum liked another one better. But now, she has both!
Later on we had barbecue for dinner with her dad, then went to the bridge by the river. She met one of her old friends there, and they talked until nearly midnight. It was a nice spot there by the river, but my camera was dead by then; besides, it was night.
On the last day we went to a kindergarten that Linda's friend works at, and listened to a training session for the new teachers - which wasn't that interesting, since I didn't understand any of it. We went back home and Linda's mum made noodles for lunch - very much like fettucine. The afternoon was spent resting, and for the farewell meal we had wraps, which are very similar to the same food so common in Western countries, but much smaller, and you make them yourself. At the restaurant we had a big plate of pancakes (not the sweet kind) and three different dishes - one of meat, one of vegetables, and one of noodles. You get a pancake, put stuff in it, and roll it up. Like everything else I ate while I was there, it was absolutely delicious.
Then it was time to leave. We took a box of peaches with us, and caught a bus to the train station. We were there in plenty of time this time, which meant a long time standing in line before the train came, and then a lot of pushing and shoving to get on the train. Unlike the trip there, we didn't have a seat for the trip back, so it was 4 and a half hours of trying our best to make ourselves comfortable in the aisle. Needless to say, that part wasn't fun.
Tianshui translates as "sky water", and true to its name it rained just as we left.
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