Greetings Friends!!
Happy New Year!! And Happy New Year of the Snake!!
Gosh, I have sooooo much I desire to share with all of
you, and this will be just a quick update as my Image Medicine studies, qigong
practice, writing work, meal breaks to eat yummy Chinese food, and the
time-consuming task of putting on and taking off multiple layers of MANY
clothes to do my best to stay warm in these frigid Beijing temperatures are
keeping me all quite busy. 🙂 I’ve started writing my next longer update and
will send that out later….
you, and this will be just a quick update as my Image Medicine studies, qigong
practice, writing work, meal breaks to eat yummy Chinese food, and the
time-consuming task of putting on and taking off multiple layers of MANY
clothes to do my best to stay warm in these frigid Beijing temperatures are
keeping me all quite busy. 🙂 I’ve started writing my next longer update and
will send that out later….
So below I have a short video to share with you. We had a
most grand New Year’s Celebration at Kundawell Instutitue in Beijing with
Grandmaster Xu, all our other faculty and all my fellow classmates. Many of my
classmates are from Russian and it turns out that New Years is a much bigger
deal to celebrate than Christmas (Christmas was just another day of work/class
here in Beijing…but New Years is another story! :))…So the week before New
Years, many Russian students were busy preparing hilarious skits, dances,
videos, songs and a whole 2-hour line up of performances for the evening. There
was also the whole “cooking team” who invested a whole day in cooking
tables full of delicious Russian dishes for the night as well….
most grand New Year’s Celebration at Kundawell Instutitue in Beijing with
Grandmaster Xu, all our other faculty and all my fellow classmates. Many of my
classmates are from Russian and it turns out that New Years is a much bigger
deal to celebrate than Christmas (Christmas was just another day of work/class
here in Beijing…but New Years is another story! :))…So the week before New
Years, many Russian students were busy preparing hilarious skits, dances,
videos, songs and a whole 2-hour line up of performances for the evening. There
was also the whole “cooking team” who invested a whole day in cooking
tables full of delicious Russian dishes for the night as well….
Receiving my “Snake” Appointment
So, during prep week last week, a group of Russian women
who were organizing all the various performance pieces came up to me and in
broken English said, “You, Snake…sexy, sexy!” Ha! And then the
promptly handed me a shimmery, slinky dress to wear and said I was to give the
Blessing to the group in Chinese at the end! They instructed me that I was to
have two men carry me in on stage, make a “snake-like” entrance,
receive the candle/fire from Dragon (my new friend, Martin from Slovakia made a
Great Dragon — you can see him in is costume in the video :)) and then give my
Snake Blessing to Grandmaster Xu, his family and the whole group. Well this
sounded like fun, so I went to see my dear friend, Yajun who lives in Beijing
and she helped me find a perfect Chinese “Snake Blessing” on the
internet. 🙂 And I’m happy to report I was able to successfully deliver it w/o
notes or mistakes! Yay! 🙂
who were organizing all the various performance pieces came up to me and in
broken English said, “You, Snake…sexy, sexy!” Ha! And then the
promptly handed me a shimmery, slinky dress to wear and said I was to give the
Blessing to the group in Chinese at the end! They instructed me that I was to
have two men carry me in on stage, make a “snake-like” entrance,
receive the candle/fire from Dragon (my new friend, Martin from Slovakia made a
Great Dragon — you can see him in is costume in the video :)) and then give my
Snake Blessing to Grandmaster Xu, his family and the whole group. Well this
sounded like fun, so I went to see my dear friend, Yajun who lives in Beijing
and she helped me find a perfect Chinese “Snake Blessing” on the
internet. 🙂 And I’m happy to report I was able to successfully deliver it w/o
notes or mistakes! Yay! 🙂
The Snake
Blessing video is below…
Blessing video is below…
And here’s the blessing in Chinese:
元旦到来新年到，过去烦恼随风飘，忧愁往事已忘掉，幸福快乐齐来到，遇事记得常微笑，坚强乐观心情好，万事顺利乐逍遥，蛇年一定会更好！
It basically says that…
“The New Year is here. Any past troubles float away
in the wind; any past worries are let go and forgotten. Prosperity and
happiness are here. When encountering any situation, remember to smile. May you
be healthy, positive and happy in your heart. May all things flow in Grace and
in happy freedom. The year of the Snake will be an even better, Grand
year!” (it sounds a bit awkward in English, but in Chinese, it’s beautiful
and has a wonderful cadence and rhythm :))
in the wind; any past worries are let go and forgotten. Prosperity and
happiness are here. When encountering any situation, remember to smile. May you
be healthy, positive and happy in your heart. May all things flow in Grace and
in happy freedom. The year of the Snake will be an even better, Grand
year!” (it sounds a bit awkward in English, but in Chinese, it’s beautiful
and has a wonderful cadence and rhythm :))
And one more funny story to share in this
shortest-update-ever (for me that is :))….So I had met up with my dear
friend, Zuzana (I’ll tell you more about her in my next longer update) from
Slovakia before the celebration to introduce her to the delicious pleasures of
eating Chinese hot pot with tahini sauce (yum!!!) and to get dressed in our
costumes together in my cozy, little hostel room. So when we were ready, we
took the bus to Kundawell together (since she doesn’t have a bike..I usually
bike here). (Well, on a side note, I looked quite funny on the bus and got a
few wide-eyed stares as I had my shimmery dress on, with my BRIGHT green
jacket, pink hat, and purple sequined scarf, jeans under my dress, my bulky
knee warmers with my leggings bunched up over and around them and boots!! I
would’ve worn more too but I couldn’t get any more layers on and still be able
to move!) So…we took the bus to the party…BUT I didn’t think through as to
how I would get home at the end of the evening. 🙁 Hmmm… So after 1 a.m. when
I decided to leave the party and head home, it dawned on me when I got out onto
the COLD street, that…the buses stopped running at 11 p.m. :(. Oh dear! And,
there were a whole bunch of other Chinese people out on the big boulevard
trying to wave down taxi drivers to get home and warm quickly too.
shortest-update-ever (for me that is :))….So I had met up with my dear
friend, Zuzana (I’ll tell you more about her in my next longer update) from
Slovakia before the celebration to introduce her to the delicious pleasures of
eating Chinese hot pot with tahini sauce (yum!!!) and to get dressed in our
costumes together in my cozy, little hostel room. So when we were ready, we
took the bus to Kundawell together (since she doesn’t have a bike..I usually
bike here). (Well, on a side note, I looked quite funny on the bus and got a
few wide-eyed stares as I had my shimmery dress on, with my BRIGHT green
jacket, pink hat, and purple sequined scarf, jeans under my dress, my bulky
knee warmers with my leggings bunched up over and around them and boots!! I
would’ve worn more too but I couldn’t get any more layers on and still be able
to move!) So…we took the bus to the party…BUT I didn’t think through as to
how I would get home at the end of the evening. 🙁 Hmmm… So after 1 a.m. when
I decided to leave the party and head home, it dawned on me when I got out onto
the COLD street, that…the buses stopped running at 11 p.m. :(. Oh dear! And,
there were a whole bunch of other Chinese people out on the big boulevard
trying to wave down taxi drivers to get home and warm quickly too.
One Rare Exception to the Joys of Being a Foreigner in
China
China
Well, I quickly realized that I found myself in one of the
very few situations where being a foreigner in China was to my disadvantage!
Almost all other situations, it is really to my advantage to be a foreigner as
the Chinese make all sorts of exceptions for foreigners and are really super
sweet to us! :)…Again, that is except for when trying to flag down a taxi! 🙁
For some reason, taxis often go out of their way to avoid foreigners and my
thought is because many foreigners don’t speak Chinese and these drivers don’t
want to bother with the challenge of communicating in broken English or with
some sort of creative sign language. 🙂 So with the combination of most passing
taxis being full, having many other Chinese also on the streets trying to flag
down the few-and-far between empty taxis, and having most taxi drivers look the
other way when they seeing my blond hair (as pretty much everything else was
covered up! That must have been the only give-away that I wasn’t Chinese :)), I
realized I was probably in for a long, cold walk home. Plus I had hurt my foot
so…my walking was a bit slow.
very few situations where being a foreigner in China was to my disadvantage!
Almost all other situations, it is really to my advantage to be a foreigner as
the Chinese make all sorts of exceptions for foreigners and are really super
sweet to us! :)…Again, that is except for when trying to flag down a taxi! 🙁
For some reason, taxis often go out of their way to avoid foreigners and my
thought is because many foreigners don’t speak Chinese and these drivers don’t
want to bother with the challenge of communicating in broken English or with
some sort of creative sign language. 🙂 So with the combination of most passing
taxis being full, having many other Chinese also on the streets trying to flag
down the few-and-far between empty taxis, and having most taxi drivers look the
other way when they seeing my blond hair (as pretty much everything else was
covered up! That must have been the only give-away that I wasn’t Chinese :)), I
realized I was probably in for a long, cold walk home. Plus I had hurt my foot
so…my walking was a bit slow.
Police Officer Angel
At one point I did happen to successfully flag down a
taxi, but when I told him where I was staying, he said in Chinese, “No,
I’m not going. I’d have to turn around and besides there’s always a bunch of
traffic in that area,” What?! At 1:30 a.m. he’s telling me there’s
traffic?! The streets were empty…except for those of us looking for a taxi of
course! So he sped off on his way and I continued on my slow journey back to my
hostel. Well, I must have looked sad or something, because the next thing I
knew a police officer came up to me and in a friendly voice and a smile said,
“Where are you going?” Oh I was so surprised! I told him where I was
staying and he said he was going that direction on his motor scooter. I could
hop on and he’d take me there! “Oh really?! Gosh that is sooooo
sweet!” I thought. I said thank you profusely and most delightedly and quickly
hopped on. In a matter of minutes I was back to my warm, cozy hostel room ready
to enjoy my first night’s sleep of 2013! 🙂
taxi, but when I told him where I was staying, he said in Chinese, “No,
I’m not going. I’d have to turn around and besides there’s always a bunch of
traffic in that area,” What?! At 1:30 a.m. he’s telling me there’s
traffic?! The streets were empty…except for those of us looking for a taxi of
course! So he sped off on his way and I continued on my slow journey back to my
hostel. Well, I must have looked sad or something, because the next thing I
knew a police officer came up to me and in a friendly voice and a smile said,
“Where are you going?” Oh I was so surprised! I told him where I was
staying and he said he was going that direction on his motor scooter. I could
hop on and he’d take me there! “Oh really?! Gosh that is sooooo
sweet!” I thought. I said thank you profusely and most delightedly and quickly
hopped on. In a matter of minutes I was back to my warm, cozy hostel room ready
to enjoy my first night’s sleep of 2013! 🙂
So, that’s it for this brief update! I have soooo much
more I desire to say…and it is once again my bedtime. I am learning much and
have had many more magical encounters, information given and received and new
dear friends come into my life.
more I desire to say…and it is once again my bedtime. I am learning much and
have had many more magical encounters, information given and received and new
dear friends come into my life.
In addition to the Snake Blessing, here are also a few pics of the party (note the one of Santa Claus is Grandmaster
Mingtang! :)), one of me excitedly hugging the box of chocolates and yummy
snacks my Mom sent to me (see I opened the box under our token Christmas tree
at Kundawell :)), a pic of my friends Richard and Maria eating hot pot :), a
few pics of a most amazing middle aged man we saw jump into the iced-over
Houhai Lake and swim around quite calmly and happily!!, and one silly one of me
(with Zuzana) after class one day all dressed in my face warmer, knee warmers,
leggings, hat, and coat ready to hop on my bike. (The temps are sooo COLD here!
It was 0 degrees Fahrenheit on Christmas eve day! I was actually nervous about
going outside that day, BUT when I saw from my window that morning that
others were already up and out, walking and going about their day normally and
surviving just fine, I too decided to bike to Kundawell! OMG — well I about
froze so I now have a new rule of no biking in temps under 10 degrees
Fahrenheit! :))
Mingtang! :)), one of me excitedly hugging the box of chocolates and yummy
snacks my Mom sent to me (see I opened the box under our token Christmas tree
at Kundawell :)), a pic of my friends Richard and Maria eating hot pot :), a
few pics of a most amazing middle aged man we saw jump into the iced-over
Houhai Lake and swim around quite calmly and happily!!, and one silly one of me
(with Zuzana) after class one day all dressed in my face warmer, knee warmers,
leggings, hat, and coat ready to hop on my bike. (The temps are sooo COLD here!
It was 0 degrees Fahrenheit on Christmas eve day! I was actually nervous about
going outside that day, BUT when I saw from my window that morning that
others were already up and out, walking and going about their day normally and
surviving just fine, I too decided to bike to Kundawell! OMG — well I about
froze so I now have a new rule of no biking in temps under 10 degrees
Fahrenheit! :))
Okay, I’m really going to stop writing now 🙂
I love you all and wish you all a most magnificent New Year,
Year of the Snake!
Year of the Snake!
Happy Happy Happy Happy Happy New Year to you All! 🙂
Much LOVE,
KarenJoy
aka Kailun 凯伦
aka Snake 🙂
