Moments in China

Posted by Thomas Söderholm

on Jun 08, 2015

Moments in China.

While we waited for the group to arrive in Shanghai, Libby and I took in the sights on our own down town. The trip is promising to be a good one and if the city’s skyline looks like this during the day I must come back at night!

It appears that the “new” side of the other side of the river wants to be the hip one wereas the Bund-side of Shanghai has a more mature air and style to it.

The Bund (Shanhai’s riverfront walk) is a popular place to do fashion and wedding shots.

But first - a spot of culture! High up overlooking Shanghai and we had our first tea ceremony. The tea ranged in taste from delicious to five-cigarette-butts-soaking-in-a-potty-for-a-week.

The two tall glasses pictured here contains “Adam & Eve”, a hard ball of dried green tea that - after soaking for a while – opened up and released a red and a yellow flower which also had medicinal properties.

Honour thy Gods. Ceremony is taking place at a temple in central Shanghai. A lot of young people attended. The sacrificial sticks could be bought at the counter hidden in the left corner.

View from a bridge at the same temple. Koi fish has significant meaning in both Chinese and Japanese folklore and the colouring on the fish can make a big difference. A few years ago 2 million dollars was paid by a Japanese businessman for a perfectly white koi with a perfect red dot in the centre of its forehead, - The rising Sun…. Luckily these fish live a long time.

Downtown Shanghai and with every cup a coffee: A free kitten!

The group is finally mustered. There were people from Canada, USA, Australia, Sweden and New Zealand.

Sheila Purves gives us a talk on her experiences as a westerner trying to introduce physiotherapy AND a spot of common sense in China during a few decades now. Could be a frustrating affair at times, as we learned.

I found the Chinese people friendly and helpful in spite the language barrier. But the time I tried to explain the word “Penicillin” to a pharmacist who looked like a big question mark should have been videotaped. A display worthy of Sir Laurence didn’t move me closer to the elusive medicine and it took a granddaughter with a translation app on her phone before we understood each other. By then the little shop was full of people draw in from the street by the crazy-arm-waving-foreigner and everybody applauded. Nice people.

It is said that the meticulously woven protective silk armour worn by the Samurai warriors of Japan stood quite well up against both swords and knives. But then came gunpowder. These are silkworms. You can eat them too.

The result: Stunning.

Where did they go?! The gals are pretty much indistinguishable from the local population in their headgear.

Wholesome fun at the Tiananmen Square. It surprised us how interesting the Chinese people found us Westerners. We posed with them on a regular basis. To bag a Westerner for the photo album is obviously seen as the in-thing.

Chinese medicine was everywhere – but – again – the language barrier made for guesswork if you didn’t happen to have your guide with you.

Mind you – sometimes it worked! We went into this lunch shop and the owner had a piece of paper with the menu translated to English. Problem solved. Dumplings. Tasty, and very cheap.

We did a number of visits to hospitals and got a pretty good insight into the Chinese way of treatment which has strong ties to the traditional.

After the consultation a concoction of herbs is prescribed. This is handed over in a big bag and is normally brought home and bolied down to get to the essence. The leftovers ends up in the bin.

Or you can ask the hospital to do the boiling for you (for a fee). This is all that is left after the herbs have been reduced to a concentrated liguid. The bags all had the names and diagnosis of the person it belonged to and was still piping hot.

Our tour guide John shows us such a bag. A “showbag” in a sense, yes?

The herbal remedies was interesting but when it came to modern medical machinery China (exept Hong Kong and Shanghai) has some catching up to do .

The rehab gym. Quite spartan but a great improvement compared to just a few years ago when they had nothing and rehab was a unknown concept.

The gang is shown the incredible stretchability of silk.

One humble silkworm produces 1000 meter of silk threat during its life and China exportes 58 000 ton of the stuff anually.

Many in our group paticipated in Tai Chi, early in the morning, before the days touring began. The Tai Chi was held in parks everywere and we were allways welcome to join in.

The Forbidden City. Were is Libby?

We were quite lucky to see any pandas at all because of the heavy rain but hunger finally drowe the overzise teddys out in the open.

The grand general is being made-up before the evenings performance. This is done on stage before the show starts and that was quite enough for me who left after I’ve taken my photos.

The smallest section of a monumental master piece.

Juice anyone? The nightmarkets was pulsating with life.

Yes rain threatened to keep the pandas and my lense apart but here’s one.

This brute – on the other hand – doesn’t worry about a bit of rain.

The Terracotta Warions cover an area about the size of a soccer pitch. In the giftshop sat the poor farmer who found the treasure. He is still poor as the gouverment paid him 40 Yuan (!) for his troubles so nowadays he spends his time signing books before tourists hoping for a windfall.

Riven cruice in majestic surroundings on our way to the town Yangshuo.

The “barefoot doctor” handeled a acute case when we visited. These doctorns were forced out from the comfy metropoles by Chairman Mao many years ago to service the people in the provinces. Why they are called Barefoot Doctors nobody knew. I speculated that once the clinic was up and running Mao took away their shoes so the doctors couldn’t leave and go back home again. A theory as good as any.

All the pretty flower maidens gathered on the doctors step.

A pagoda in Guilin is spectacularly lit.

The gym in Yangshuo was on the meager side. I swept the floor for possible weights but still ended upp with a bar-loading category Mr Puniverse. But the UNIVERSE (on the other hand) is wise. Two weeks on seaweed, a pretty bad cold, 100% humidity and in a downpour that again would have sent our panda bears running for their house suddenly made these meager weights juuuust right.

We went to a brilliant show that was made even better when you consider that the participants are only 12-15 years old. After that the kids can’t maintain the flexibility needed apparently.