Today was pretty good and much better than yesterday. It was still raining, so I wore pants for the first time in China. Apparently it has been unusually rainy this year, so on the one hand it's been less hot, but on the other we've been wet and unable to do things. Chinese class was normal and we had lunch as a group with announcements. The announcements were about today's field trip for TCM, the changing of the due date for our Public Health paper from August 31 to August 6 (Monday), and the second cancelling of our herb picking trip. At this point, it's cancelled for good, but there's still hope that we might have the trip at the last minute. I'm saving my jeans.
For TCM, half the group did clinical training in acupuncture and cupping, and my half of the group got some background on the Peking University Health Science Center and watched a movie about a child abuse trial based on the marks from the TCM therapy Gua Sha (scraping). Gua Sha is a home remedy for colds, stomachaches, and the like, so the child's grandfather did it to make a tummy ache go away. The kid then hit his head and was taken to the ER, where they found the marks on his back, and then turned him over to child welfare services. The movie was infuriatingly unrealistic about the legal system and the characters were caricatures, but it got its point across about cultural literacy.
We got back from the field trip just after 5PM, which gave me an hour to get ready for the puppet show. I went with Marissa and Professor Carmichael to the Chinese Shadow Puppet Cultural Club, which was recommended by the Beijinger (a magazine for expats in Beijing). Seeing a Chinese shadow puppet show was something on my list since I learned about the tradition in my puppetry class last February. The puppets are intricately cut, painted so they cast in color on the shadow screen, and have lots of joints that let them move very dynamically. Needless to say, going to this show was something I was VERY excited about.
Well, we left at 6 and took the subway to the appropriate stop then walked in the direction the internet said to walk. We walked the 100 meters, but there was no theater. Then we kept walking, and stayed on one street, but it ended up turning into another street that was not the right street, so we started walking back the way we came. Then it was 6:35, so we hailed a taxi to take us to the address. The taxi driver took us back to the East Gate of Peking University. At that point, it was 6:45, we weren't going to make it to the show, so we walked home with plans to see the puppet show next Tuesday. I'm pretty disappointed that it's taking until the last week to go because it's something I've been wanting and trying to do for a long time, but we have come up with a new plan to get there. I'm sending the website to Marissa and Professor Carmichael and we're all going to look up the characters and directions and take a taxi next Tuesday. This WILL happen.
I ended up doing homework tonight. I read about acupuncture and learned my characters for tomorrow's Chinese test. I'm looking forward to learning acupuncture tomorrow afternoon, and I'm planning on writing my paper on Friday afternoon to get it out of the way. I really hope it stops raining for these last 11 days so I can keep doing things.
Today is awesome because I got a perfect score on my tingxie.
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