BACK IN CHINA

We've been back in China for just over a week now.  We're over jet lag -- thank goodness!  It was a fast recovery this time.  We made sure to get out into the sunshine several times the first few days.  We're convinced that really helps.  One of our first outings was to go up on "Thousand Buddha Mountain".

 
 It was nice to get some exercise, and to see all the Grandparents with their little grand children.  You see that a lot here.  Both parents almost always work, and the little ones are left with the grand parents to raise.

Dave and I both have our teaching assignments for this new semester.  My class assignments is about the same as last semester, and I can use a lot of my lesson plans again.  Dave, on the other hand, has to teach an American Culture class, and has to put together 16 lesson plans.  It's taking a lot of time and effort to get that ready.  

When we returned to our campus, the students hadn't come back from their break.  No laundry was hanging outside the dorm room windows.  The sidewalks were empty as well.  But as the days past, and school was about to start, here's the view we had outside our apartment windows.  They like to hang their comforters out the window to air them out.

     I've been able to go in for some Traditional Chinese Medicine treatments.  After our long plane ride, My neck and back were really sore, so I went across the street to the hospital where I know I can see a good doctor, and I had three treatments.  He does a great massage, and can always find the most tense, knotted areas on my back and work them out for me.  After the massage, he gives me a cupping treatment.  I couldn't figure out how to get a picture of me on the table with the cups on my back.  My Chinese isn't good enough to figure out how to ask anyone else to take the picture either.  So I'll put a picture of someone else getting a cupping treatment.

The practitioner puts a flame inside the cup, real briefly, and then puts the cup on the skin.  The heat causes the cup to stick to your skin.

When the cups are removed, they make these big, red-to purple hickey type marks that last for a week or so.  Most times, a person has ten to twelve cups all over the back. Then, when all the cups are applied, they put a warm, heat lamp on above you and you wait for 10 to 15 minutes -- for it to work it's magic. That's how they did it with me.  The mechanism for the way it works is that somehow, the heat and suction is supposed to re-align the flow of the mediums within you. (Yes, I know, I don't know what I'm talking about.)  But when I had it done before our break, it took my back pain away.  I'm still waiting for the relief this time around though.