Tea House
Hello again. This Stu, your correspondent in China coming to you live (or half-dead) from Beijing. I'm blocked again. I really don't know what criteria are used for blocking whole swaths of web sites. This post concerns primarily a trip which our class took to a tea house in the Fall. Before I get into that, I want to tell you about a few things which have occurred to me lately.
Firstly, throughout the last month, I've allowed the mafan in China to really get to me. Going to relatively mafan-free zones, such as Hong Kong and Japan. Their mafan is different and much less prevalent. It's like the mafan in China accumulated as pain might accumulate from peing poked repeatedly in the same place (Chinese water torture?). Going to the other places was like covering the wound with a bandage but allowing the wound to fester. Once I returned, the bandage was removed and the poking resumed on a wound which was in worse shape than previously. After giving it a lot of thought, and going through a phase with high blood pressure, I understand the situation much better and I'm feeling better now.
One of the things which has been bothering me about China is that the persons here claim to put great stock in certain ideas of community and helping each other, yet almost every individual thinks that he or she is not subject to most of those ideas at arbitrary times of their choosing. Once I penetrated the seeming contradiction, I understood why I was so bothered by my helplessness to explain or overcome this attitude of the general populace. Thus I was able to put things into perspective.
Firstly, throughout the last month, I've allowed the mafan in China to really get to me. Going to relatively mafan-free zones, such as Hong Kong and Japan. Their mafan is different and much less prevalent. It's like the mafan in China accumulated as pain might accumulate from peing poked repeatedly in the same place (Chinese water torture?). Going to the other places was like covering the wound with a bandage but allowing the wound to fester. Once I returned, the bandage was removed and the poking resumed on a wound which was in worse shape than previously. After giving it a lot of thought, and going through a phase with high blood pressure, I understand the situation much better and I'm feeling better now.
One of the things which has been bothering me about China is that the persons here claim to put great stock in certain ideas of community and helping each other, yet almost every individual thinks that he or she is not subject to most of those ideas at arbitrary times of their choosing. Once I penetrated the seeming contradiction, I understood why I was so bothered by my helplessness to explain or overcome this attitude of the general populace. Thus I was able to put things into perspective.
Oh, one last note: before the seven-day-long break for Labour Day (01-07 May) we have eight contiguous days of lectures (23-30 April). 嗨.
Cha Lou
A few days after Cheryl and I returned from our trip to Xi'an, our classes took a previously planned trip to visit Lao3 She3 Cha2 Lou2 (老舍茶楼). Lao She was one of China's most famous authors in the twentieth century. The tea house is located near Tian'an Men Square, which I've still yet to visit. We saw a number of acrobatic and acting performances there, all of which were quite interesting. I took many photos for such a short span of time and I'm happy to share some of them with you here.
Jeanette and me 
Some members of my class, from left to right: Jeanette, Said, Parviz, Zhang Laoshi, Jishun, Maria, Francesca, Listiya, and Reiko.
Opening ceremonies
Opening acrobatics
And in the red corner ...
Kicking bowls onto his head
Mmmmm ... pretzels
Magician and mucisian (whistling)
The Monkey King taking the tar out of 18 monks
posted by Jean-Guy! at 4/05/2007 09:00:00 PM
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