Escape to Chenjiagou: home of Chen Taiji

On Fri before needling technique lecture I was asked to write a request for leave with dates, reason and then to state that I was traveling alone and took full responsibility for my own safety.

So here I am after taking bus 101 from Heilingjiang Zhongyiyao Daxue (H province acupuncture herbs uni) to train station, an hour or so in the soft seat (posh) waiting room and a great sleep on my top bunk - only 2 levels and a closed compartment with a couple and a man whose wife packed him off with bags of bing (pancakes), meat, drinks and pot noodles. We're all in our 40s and all on our smart phones!

After 2 big dinners - uni welcome and teacher Liu Ying's husband's banquet - I was happy to go to sleep at 8.30pm after a bag of peanuts and a couple of muffins. I dozed off happily as the other 3 were crunching into chickens feet and sundries.

I awoke to sunrise over dusty wasteland punctuated by industry and high rise.

Felt a bit overdressed in the longjohn queue for the Loo so now I've hung up my jeans and waiting for my co-compartments to finish snoring and rise again.

The woman in my compartment tried to pick out Chinese characters in her girlie magazine for me to learn, such as woman, love, mother. I spent a while in the neighboring compartment with the small children. Yuan yuan (14 months) was v cute a his dad lifted him up to pee through his slit trousers onto the carpet. The two year old in PJs pulled down was lifted up over the bin to pee!!! Hygiene practices are quite different here!

Yuan Yuan's dad is a high school headmaster born the same year as me, a fellow goat. Another teacher was off to Xiian for headmaster training - or so my mandarin and her Chinglish led me to believe. They escorted me to the right bus station and put me on a bus to Wenxian county. It should have taken 2 hours but the driver pulled over for an hour to watch an almighty traffic jam with cars facing the opposite direction trying to extricate themselves from the metallic tangle and huge lorries cutting diagonally across 4 lanes.

When we eventually got to Wenxian he wouldn't let me off the bus and kept saying 'Wait' as the bus pulled into the bus garage, he filled up with petrol and cleaners got on. Then he took me in his little van, stopping at his house before heading off in the dark along a dusty road! By this time I had invented 2 children and a husband looking after them back in london. Luckily my dying China mobile managed to last until I had rung and put him on the phone to my contact in Chenjiagou (Chen village) who told him where to drop me. She insisted that he took 30 yuan (£3) for the lift as he didn't want to charge me.

A boy then walked me to my room and the two Russian roommates followed out of the obscurity of their sword training. Luckily Svetlana not only speaks English but has a packet of loose leaf Earl Grey! The gods are smiling on me!

I recognized Adam (from Chen seminars in London) at breakfast which was far from ghastly as the Russians had made me fear. The international group of around 50 comprises, in terms of diminishing numbers, Japanese, Russian, American, Australian, 2 Brits and 1 of each of the following Bulgarian, Polish, Korean and Hong Kong.

Pic caption:
Chen taiji cat
Man in my compartment tearing off claw from chicken foot
Yuan Yuan and dad
Morning walk around Chen village
First sighting of Grandmaster ChenXiaoWang
Train guards - luckily they have police too as a fight broke out and a young man was locked in the guards room and as when they let him out he smashed the mirror and cut himself! I think he calmed down after that. Nothing like a bit of drama on the Harbin-Zhengzhou express!

2nd Hospital & diplomatic departure to Chen village

There are 3.2 million people in Harbin and 38.2 million in Heilongjiang province.

So our trip to the centre, 20 mins by taxi means that we are actually quite central. I have a map on my wall, but it's in Chinese characters, so apart from the Tiger, train (pictures for Siberian Tiger Zoo & railway station) and the river, it's not much use. I have circled my uni and the neighbouring Lin Da (Wood University) where my pool is.

I'm experiencing the delights and drawbacks of being a visitor of the People's republic of China. We were invited to dinner by the vice president and dean today. Three big tables with a group of Malaysian students and Russian osteopaths from Vladivostok (6 hrs away). Was very loud with endless toasts of bai jiu (white spirit!) and pijiao (beer). I stuck to the sprite!

It's been an epic trying to get my trip to Chenjiagou (Chen village) to train with Grandmaster Chen XiaoWang approved. So I took it to the top, rather waiting for the minions to say no. Yesterday at our introduction to the president of the uni, after all the politenesses and speeches for the video camera they asked us if we had any other questions...I just blurted out, yes, I want to go and see Master Chen! After a few explanations from my teacher and the others, there was no definite yes.

On the bus to the 2nd Affliliated Hospital yesterday the tutor said that if we want to leave Harbin we need to give her contact numbers, travel details, dates etc. I supplied the info, but again today another Confucius Institute director asked me who was going to meet me from the train. Apparently the number I gave them didn't work. I quickly made up something about another tour meeting me there. Then got my Chinese friend to ring the organiser and tell her to lie if the tutor rang her and say I would be met at the train station, and not the truth that I'd make my own way on the bus 2 hours and 15 min taxi journey. It's crazy! But the uni is responsible for my whereabouts here, so I suppose they're just doing their job...

The visit to The 2nd Affiliated Hospital was rather upsetting. We saw some pretty serious cases being treated with acupuncture, electroacupuncture, cupping and warm wax (a new one for me). The rehab floor was rather shocking. A children's ward where cerebral palsy Chinese and Russian babies and children were having needles and tuina (massage). Coma and car crash victims were pretty scary, but the patients' families and staff were so caring and their belief in acupuncture was encouraging.

Dinner with my Chinese language teacher tomorrow should be a hoot. Then I'll be on the overnight train at 7.07pm on Saturday 24th to Zhengzhou and Chenjiagou for a week of taijiquan with my master in his home village. Can't wait. Back on the rails two months after leaving England. The holiday continues…

View from the Director's office: north of my uni
(Heilongjiang Traditional Chinese Medical Hospital)

Where are the 38.2 million people of Harbin?

Guye tempted by the sticky toffee
sour cherries and banana (I'm NOT!)



Hospital pharmacy


Dried scorpion, anyone?



Sobering moment at the rehab ward



This patient with 'mian tou' (facial paralysis)
wanted to take a picture of us with her


Train ticket to Chen village (Henan)

The big freeze: visiting the city centre

Woken up by a howling blizzard. They chose our coldest day so far (-18°C) to take down our curtains to wash. The result is pleasant and is the final touch to my hoovered carpet (I bought the hoover!) and bleached walls and now my room is home and perfect for morning qigong - until the ice melts when I can go outside and practice in the Avenue of the Famous Doctors.

After a wonderful Korean lunch with my Chinese buddy, Qiao Yu, a lecturer on our course in London who I used to meet up with to practice Chinese and English, she Luke, Alex and I to Yongzhang Dajie, the touristic centre. The cobbled streets and mishmash of Russian, Chinese and Western architecture gave one the impression of walking down a street in a Hollywood film set where only the facades are real and the rest is interchangeable. Nowhere is the juxtaposition greater that at St Sophia Catholic Church which is overtowered by surrounding skyscrapers.

We kept nipping into shopping centres to thaw before continuing our walk and slide to the river. It was frozen! Apparently in winter (it is now Spring, so thank the lord we didn't come earlier!) cars drive across the river. In the end the boys succumbed to Pizza Hut and I drank my re shuai (hot water) and hung out for our visit to the cafe cake shop.

As soon as we got back to our 'hotel' I rushed into my sauna to thaw out. The showers are hot from 7-8am and 7-10pm, and in the evening I do my handwashing whilst showering. Tonight was the big night where I finally did the washing left over from Bangkok - the 32°C there seems like a the imaginings of a sublimly frozen mind. Then it was Cinema evening in Luke's room - 'The Life Aquatic' - I surprised myself by liking a Bill Murray film!

Tomorrow is forecast to be EVEN COLDER! It's mothering sunday - I'll skype the family who are having Sunday lunch at Jo's and then start in earnest to study. Got to revise points as I have a feeling the Dr Zhao has broken us in slowly and will be testing our knowledge more next week.








Seriously cold!
Ice is removed from the street
by teams men with shovels
who fill truck loads



The frozen Songhua river



Flood victim monument



Ice sculpture pagoda



St Sophia catholic church

Sun and snow in Harbin

Wow! What a delight Harbin is proving to be. It’s as though I’ve stepped out of Asia architecturally and climatically and entered Russia or the Eastern bloc, but there are still the Chinese people, their love of food and the illuminations (my northern classmate feels at home as it rminds him of Blackpool!).

Well, a whole bus from Heilongjiang University of Traditional Chinese Medicine met all 6 of us at Harbin airport and drove us to what is becoming home for the next five and a half months.

We started clinic today, which was a shock and we’re still doing a lot of admin and housemaking. In fact I bought a hoover yesterday. Hygiene is nowhere near the Thai standards and the BAcC (British Acupuncture Council) would see red flags if they witnessed me removing needles from a patient’s head today and putting it upside down in a test tube sitting in the top pocket of a Chinese student’s white doctor’s tunic. You'll be relieved that the test tubes are labelled with the patient's name and the sterilised needles are only used on the same patient.

Guye and I hiked to the swimming pool today in the neighbouring Harbin Forrest University – fantastic! two 50m pools, one for splashing and the other with at least 10 lanes. We were given slippers so the changing rooms were pretty clean and I felt a sense of repugnance followed by relief to discover that the silver trays at the end of each lane were in fact spitoons. (Simone who is braving the pool in Ho Chi Minh would be happier if they had them there too as a lot of throat clearing goes on there!).

Lots to learn and so many experiences (just say no to duck tongues and silk worm larvae - to my peril, I didn't) but got to be in clinic at 8am, so better get some sleep.

University Campus





Outside the hot water room



The canteen






Walk of the famous doctors in our university
(waiting for the thaw before venturing out for morning taiji)





Alex loves the Blackpool bling

Hospital visit, brain hotpot & sites

Through Ah Tao's brother, a medical journalist, we were introduced to Dr Chen at the Guangdong Provincial Hospital fo Traditional Chinese Medicine. She was in London last year speaking at my University!

It was fascinating seeing such a busy hospital and the techniques, including:
- a bee sting for 'bi syndrome' pain
- a man walk out who was carried in by two men 3 hours previously
- rushing to a ward to see 'jing luo' meridians show up white on a young girl
- blood letting cupping
- moxibustion ward.

I met my youngest, richest cousin Wen Ying, who invited me for Sichuan hotpot. Waiting to be cooked at the table were plates of:
- duck blood
- pigs brains
- duck intestines.

Perhaps it was Rachel saying the brain was good for our brains that made me bravehearted. I actually tried the lot! The brain was too creamy and intestine too chewy for my palate!

Then we were chauferred around in a BMW SUV to the oldest daoist and Buddhist temples and old school.