The park is alive with the sound of music!

Those who know me well know that I get up early in the mornings. I love to walk and experience the newness of each day. I think it’s the closest I get to living in the moment, that sense that every day is a new day and all things are possible … I feel such optimism in the early morning and a smile comes easily.

No surprise then, that I find myself walking the streets of Guilin at 6:30 most days. It’s already busy with scooters and the occasional bus, taking people to work, and the beautiful tree lined streets are immaculately clean. The osmanthus trees are just about to blossom and I feel what my heart already knows, I love this place!

I guess it’s part of why we travel… to fall in love again, I’ve just said my first ‘Zao Shang Hao’ of the day to the couple who sell us bean porridge and pumpkin pancakes. They replied ‘Zou’, because as we know I never needed to learn how to say ‘Zao Shang Hao’ in the first place! It’s hard to unlearn something it took me so long to get right, but even if I am a little formal I am delighted to have said something in Mandarin and had a smile and a response…

I’m coming up to a crossing where the green sign tells me how many seconds I’ve got before the light turns red. If I run I can make it. Yep… did it and I’ve got 15 seconds to wait for the crossing to the other side, so I look at the sky and it’s cloudy, not too hot today!

I’ve reduced my lessons to one a week this week because we can’t afford for me to do anymore… I’m a little sad about that but on a practical level it would be quite nice to make it home again 🙂

…I can feel some of the trauma from learning languages as a child melting away, that crippling embarrassment leaving me a little. My willingness to ‘have a go even though I know it’s wrong’ muscles are strengthening… I want another world to open up, and I need to be able to talk to connect more, both on the basic levels of life and then deeper levels if I ever get that far…and for both of those it’s good to have a teacher! To have someone to know what my next step needs to be and to think well about me and the best way for me to learn… following the little random places that I go.

We were reading a children’s story yesterday, for 3 to 6-year-olds. My teachers name is Moulin and she translated it with me and then read it in Mandarin so I can practice. I want to be able to read a story to my five year old cousins when I arrive in Thailand in two weeks time…(I like goals!)

It’s a long road learning a language, and one of the women I have met here is ann anbsolute inspiration. Pam is 68, soon to be 69. She has six kids and fifteen grandchildren, she has spiky hair and a rich American accent. She’s been learning Mandarin for four years online, and after 49 years of marriage, she’s decided to come away for two months to China to study in person, to ‘help her fluency’ she says, because she genuinely wants to be able to speak Mandarin. She is down-to-earth, kind and fun to be with, we played lots of games of backgammon together, and got to know each other a little.

Pam can do it and she makes me feel like I can too…

I open my phone and start listening to some practice conversations as I turn the corner towards the lake.

Is he here today? I’m listening for the young man who practices his flute and sings early in the morning…The first day I heard him  he was practicing  Edelweiss …I heard his flute first and it sounded beautiful echoing off the water. Then he sang in English – he belted it out, everyone around the lake would have heard him, and I absolutely had to sit and listen. He wasn’t always in tune but I admired him so much for his courage. He then sang it in Chinese and the words didn’t scan, it was beautiful, brave and a little bit funny, just what I needed to start the day!

I can’t hear him as I approach the lake, I think it’s a bit early for him right now and so I head round the side towards the Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine.

We went there earlier this week, Rosa and I, with two of CLI’s interns to see if we could get any help for the stomach cramps Rosa has been experiencing since we got into China. The hospital was big, and airy with a polished marble floor, the appointment system was quick and efficient  and we got to see the person recommended by one of CLI’s teachers. Rosa was offered acupuncture or moxabustion (moxa) and Rosa doesn’t like needles so moxa it was. A small wooden box was placed on her tummy and the delicious aroma of moxa filled the room.

I’m not sure exactly how Moxa works, but they set light to dried mugwort herb, put it in the box and it gently warms the area (acupuncture points) it’s placed over… It felt like a gentle hot water bottle to Rosa and she loved it. The Doctor, dressed in a white lab coat and with two students in tow, asked lots of questions, felt Rosa’s tummy and her pulses, had a good look at her tongue and told her to eat only a little sugar and drink a lot more hot water.  She prescribed her two different types of medicine, and told us we needed to do the Moxa every two days for two weeks… little sugar and lots of hot water may be China’s secret for a healthy life – that and everyone over the age of 50 exercising in the park every day!

I’m about halfway to the park now and  I’ve left the busier roads, the streets are still spotlessly clean, the only traffic here is people on electric scooters, mostly without helmets. Theo and I had a go on scooters on Monday and they are so fun, incredibly easy to ride and electric! They cost 35p to rent for an hour and all you have to do is turn the handle to make it go!!

…as I cross at the next intersection I smile at a small child sitting in front of her dad’s scooter on the way to school and she stares back at me.

I’m close now…I took Theo to this park on our wedding anniversary, his gift to me was getting up and my gift to him was showing him the park I’ve fallen in love with. It’s full of people doing fun things, people on the free to use outdoor exercise machines, people singing karaoke at 7.30 in the morning! There are joggers and fast walkers doing laps and two different dance groups, one with over 40 people in it all wearing red tops and white skirts. They seem to be doing a traditional dance of some kind, and the other group everybody is wearing tracksuit bottoms and dancing funky music… We joined in with both groups for one dance and Theo wasn’t the only man!

my highlight of that Monday was watching a much older man hold his own against a much younger man at basketball, he had such s warm smile and very few teeth… It was fun watching them really going for it and cheering both of them on.

I’ve arrived at last and there’s no one doing Tai Chi so I head to the exercise machines and within a couple of minutes two women have started doing some sort of martial art with fans which is great entertainment (how do they flick them like that?). After five minutes, I go over to the area where the small group doing Tai Chi had been the day before, and sure enough they start to arrive. Two of them try to speak to me in Mandarin which doesn’t go well so I’ve decided I’m going to prepare a little speech for them for tomorrow. ‘I am studying Mandarin at CLI and I’ve only been in China for two weeks and my Mandarin isn’t very good. Please forgive me if I don’t understand what you say back to me, but I really love Tai Chi and I’m really pleased to be joining in. My first lesson starts at 8:25 so I can only be here for 15 minutes but it’s better than nothing!’

It will be a sodding miracle if I can get all that learned in one day, but I can write it down and take it with me (or ask Moulin to simplify it into three short sentences :)… I stay a little too long because I love it and so now I’m walking back really fast to try and make sure I’m not late for my lashes (I was speaking this into my phone as I walked and that’s the word it picked up for ‘lessons’ – lashes…interesting!)

I will get up early and come to the park every day now until I leave, making the most of the little experiences I have first thing in the morning, enjoying the company of the older generation committed to their fitness, practicing my Mandarin on the wonderfully smiley Tai Chi ladies, and hoping that I will get to hear Edelweiss, one more time…