Chilling in China.

We're back in Xiamen for the remainder of our time in China (only a few short weeks).

The only classes I'm taking are Chinese painting and Chinese cooking, both of which are fantastic. I have Chinese painting at 10 in the morning. We've been working on calligraphy. It's hard. Much harder than I expected. There are very specific ways to draw each stroke, and some are quite difficult. I haven't quite mastered the whole concept of starting my stroke thin and slowly making it thicker by just pressing down harder. You don't pick up your brush from the paper very much--it's just all about the pressure you apply. Yesterday we moved onto Chinese flowers. Much easier, and more fun if you ask me. So we learned how to paint different types of flowers and how to use color on them (calligraphy is only black ink--no color). Also, with the flowers, you're allowed a little more artistic license, which I appreciate. In calligraphy, there is a very specific way to do things and any other way is wrong. I don't like that when you're doing art. That's not what art is about to me, so the flowers are much more my thing. Next class we're going to work on leaves.

This week I also had cooking in the afternoons with Yili (Dr. Jay's wife--she's Chinese and a GREAT cook). Cooking was seriously the best class I've ever had. Sadly it ended yesterday. It was only four sessions long. I was in a group with Joni, Elyse, and Bryce (a fantastic group) and we cooked for about three hours each day. I've learned that Chinese food is SO easy to make. Love it. As long as you've got rice wine and soy sauce, you're set. We made some great dishes that I can't wait to try when I get back to the States. I am now a stirfry master. Any vegitable tastes that much better stirfryed so I will be doing it all the time. I think the best thing we made were Chinese ribs. I can't even begin to describe how good they were. We also made a great shitake mushroom dish that I loved. Hopefully when I get home, I'll be able to duplicate everything...

Yili is so cool. I'm really glad she taught this segment. She knows a TON about Chinese medicine so any problem you're having, she can tell you what to eat more of and what to eat less of to help solve it. So our cooking classes were interspersed with helpful hints to a healthier life. For example, both romaine lettuce and mushrooms are anti-cancer food. Rose tea is good to drink when you're feeling extra emotional. You should eat red foods right before your period starts (as a girl, the liver is the most important organ so you need to take care of it. When it starts to work in excess, like right before your period, you need to eat red foods, like watermelon, mulberries, and wolf berries, to help calm it). When you have a cough, you need to eat white things to help strengthen your lungs. Purple foods such as eggplant and blueberries are good for your eyes. I seriously think that Yili is going to live to be 150 because she knows cures for any possible disease and how to eat correctly.

So I don't have a ton of classes to keep me busy. Now that cooking is over, classes end for me at 11:30. That's sweet, but a little boring because most of my friends are either taking Chinese II or have a business internship all day long. So I've been doing lots of sudoku (I'm getting pretty good--I'm SO cool, I know) and I downloaded Chinese chess onto my computer so I can work on my chess skillz. Really, I just want to get good enough to totally beat David. We'll see how that goes...

Today we don't have any class. I'm not sure why, but I'm cool with it. So later this afternoon I'm going to get acupuncture with Joni. She has a problem with her foot so she's already gotten it done a couple of times before we left for travel. I don't really have anything wrong with me, but I'm going to have the doctor check me out to see if I have any problems I don't know about (too much yin or yang, or maybe a chi blockage, you know the usual). I've also been getting headaches pretty regularly, so maybe they can do something about those. I'm excited.