Sitting on a bench across from mine in a small park outside of my apartment building is an old man. I say "hello," and "the weather is nice today," in my best Chinese, fresh from my first language lesson. He smiles, and gives me a thumbs-up.
Kunming is the largest city I've ever lived in, a hustling-bustling 4-million person population on bicycles, in buses, taxis, cars, and on foot; they share the road with seemingly equal senses of owning the pavement- I suppose that's communism in action, though the pedestrians are, granted, a bit more submissive. The buildings are tall and new, there are garbage cans and trucks that collect them, and I have both a washing machine in my apartment and a shower-head in my bathroom, not just a bucket. If you were to "dub" the city, like a movie, it would look like any stereotypical urban metropolis in the States. But the city isn't dubbed. The city speaks it's own language, the way it always has (almost), and although the scenery gives me a sort of false sense of being at home, I am really a fish out of water.
In some ways, coming to China from India was a step toward the "Western World," being a much more industrialized country, and having just bought the US's debt, China is ever-eager to do whatever it can to join the Big Boys' club of the modern, the first-world: the Western. India felt more foreign in many ways, but when I needed to communicate, I usually could, even considering how limited my Hindi is, English is more or less widespread in the situations I needed it most. This makes some sense seeing as English is one of the national languages in India, but as I was reminded recently, that's because it was a British colony. Oh, yeah- the "Western world."
China, on the other hand, had been one of the most powerful military forces among the ancient empires and has thus been one of the most enduring cultures. Yes, I could argue that that has a lot to do with how much it has integrated with other cultures through trade and conquest, and I recognize that China is chock-full of ethnic minorities, each with their own stories, who have been mostly swallowed into the generalization of "Chinese;" Tibet is the most current such story. BUT, my point is that this empire is not English-speaking, or at least not English-thinking- a contrast to what seems a prerequisite of being considered a "first world," "modern," "western" country. (Yes, even in Europe, English is hugely prevalent.) Many times when I was in India and would try to communicate in Hindi, I would get responses in English, when I would ask how to say something I was often told just to use the English word. I also noticed on a number of occasions when English was the spoken medium for communication that I was the ONLY native English speaker in the room- the only person who THINKS in English; it felt as though English was being used for my benefit and that made me uncomfortable. Why weren't we speaking in Italian, French, German, or Hindi? English was the default, and my being a native speaker and an English-thinker was a huge privilege (...or maybe a disadvantage..)- I didn't have to try so hard to understand. This frustrated me. I clung to the saying, "when in Rome, do as the Romans," and I was determined not to contribute to the colonization of the mind of which the prevalence of English is such a powerful example.
Here, its a whole other story. I have about a pinky-fingernail's worth of Chinese, and when I need to explain something in the market, beyond my pointing and saying "I want this," I use English. Hoping that the tone of my voice and facial expressions will be enough to communicate, the words are really just filler so that it is a more socially acceptable version of charades. The game soon becomes an unrelenting spitfire; each of us unable to understand the other, but if you can imagine this conversation as happening between the two languages themselves and the frame of mind they create and represent, instead of two individuals who speak those languages, it gets interesting.
As a primary force of socialization, language has a reciprocal relationship with the mind; having a word for something gives us the capacity to understand it, think, and talk about it, just as is often the case both in academia and in spirituality, once we have an insight into an idea, we have an irresistible urge to name it (thus the increasing popularity of many Western spiritual-seekers using terms from Indian cosmology or the vocabulary of Chinese spirituality). Each language, in this case, English and Chinese, have their own subtle and not-so-subtle political, spiritual, cosmological, and social implications imbedded within. The experience of the spitfire of English-Chinese-English-Chinese, while frustrating and partly due to the educational level of both of us, it is also a representation of the unrelenting power of both the English and the Chinese LanguageMinds- meaning everything included in the English-thinking mind and the Chinese-thinking mind. It could almost be seen as the power struggle occurring economically/politically between the US and China. All of sudden, I have the most intense desire to learn to speak and understand Chinese well- I do NOT want to be the representation of the English-mind monoculture. BU HAO. (not good)
So, as I embark on yet another spoken language journey, my body is also in for some more learning. While many principles in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and the Yoga/Ayurveda school are very similar, the body is viewed slightly differently. I will write more about this in a later post, but for now, suffice it to say that my Yogasana-trained muscles have some adjustments to make for Taichi. Here's a rough outline of my schedule while I'm in Kunming for the next few months:
9:30-12: 2-3x/week Taichi in a park with Yang laoshi (teacher). I usually start waiting for the bus around 9 because the first one that comes is either empty or completely full, in the latter case, I wait for the next bus around 9:15.
The other 2-3x/week this is Acupuncture class- learning the meridians and the specific points, their functions and clinical application.
12-2ish: lunch break
2ish-4ish: TCM class- general theory, including Yin/Yang theory and the Five Elements, and the organ systems. 1-2x/week I have Chinese language lessons.
After the first month, I will begin going to the acupuncture clinic for observation and experiential practical application of diagnostic skills, and treatment.
That's all for now! Zaijian!
Kunming is the largest city I've ever lived in, a hustling-bustling 4-million person population on bicycles, in buses, taxis, cars, and on foot; they share the road with seemingly equal senses of owning the pavement- I suppose that's communism in action, though the pedestrians are, granted, a bit more submissive. The buildings are tall and new, there are garbage cans and trucks that collect them, and I have both a washing machine in my apartment and a shower-head in my bathroom, not just a bucket. If you were to "dub" the city, like a movie, it would look like any stereotypical urban metropolis in the States. But the city isn't dubbed. The city speaks it's own language, the way it always has (almost), and although the scenery gives me a sort of false sense of being at home, I am really a fish out of water.
In some ways, coming to China from India was a step toward the "Western World," being a much more industrialized country, and having just bought the US's debt, China is ever-eager to do whatever it can to join the Big Boys' club of the modern, the first-world: the Western. India felt more foreign in many ways, but when I needed to communicate, I usually could, even considering how limited my Hindi is, English is more or less widespread in the situations I needed it most. This makes some sense seeing as English is one of the national languages in India, but as I was reminded recently, that's because it was a British colony. Oh, yeah- the "Western world."
China, on the other hand, had been one of the most powerful military forces among the ancient empires and has thus been one of the most enduring cultures. Yes, I could argue that that has a lot to do with how much it has integrated with other cultures through trade and conquest, and I recognize that China is chock-full of ethnic minorities, each with their own stories, who have been mostly swallowed into the generalization of "Chinese;" Tibet is the most current such story. BUT, my point is that this empire is not English-speaking, or at least not English-thinking- a contrast to what seems a prerequisite of being considered a "first world," "modern," "western" country. (Yes, even in Europe, English is hugely prevalent.) Many times when I was in India and would try to communicate in Hindi, I would get responses in English, when I would ask how to say something I was often told just to use the English word. I also noticed on a number of occasions when English was the spoken medium for communication that I was the ONLY native English speaker in the room- the only person who THINKS in English; it felt as though English was being used for my benefit and that made me uncomfortable. Why weren't we speaking in Italian, French, German, or Hindi? English was the default, and my being a native speaker and an English-thinker was a huge privilege (...or maybe a disadvantage..)- I didn't have to try so hard to understand. This frustrated me. I clung to the saying, "when in Rome, do as the Romans," and I was determined not to contribute to the colonization of the mind of which the prevalence of English is such a powerful example.
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As a primary force of socialization, language has a reciprocal relationship with the mind; having a word for something gives us the capacity to understand it, think, and talk about it, just as is often the case both in academia and in spirituality, once we have an insight into an idea, we have an irresistible urge to name it (thus the increasing popularity of many Western spiritual-seekers using terms from Indian cosmology or the vocabulary of Chinese spirituality). Each language, in this case, English and Chinese, have their own subtle and not-so-subtle political, spiritual, cosmological, and social implications imbedded within. The experience of the spitfire of English-Chinese-English-Chinese, while frustrating and partly due to the educational level of both of us, it is also a representation of the unrelenting power of both the English and the Chinese LanguageMinds- meaning everything included in the English-thinking mind and the Chinese-thinking mind. It could almost be seen as the power struggle occurring economically/politically between the US and China. All of sudden, I have the most intense desire to learn to speak and understand Chinese well- I do NOT want to be the representation of the English-mind monoculture. BU HAO. (not good)
So, as I embark on yet another spoken language journey, my body is also in for some more learning. While many principles in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and the Yoga/Ayurveda school are very similar, the body is viewed slightly differently. I will write more about this in a later post, but for now, suffice it to say that my Yogasana-trained muscles have some adjustments to make for Taichi. Here's a rough outline of my schedule while I'm in Kunming for the next few months:
9:30-12: 2-3x/week Taichi in a park with Yang laoshi (teacher). I usually start waiting for the bus around 9 because the first one that comes is either empty or completely full, in the latter case, I wait for the next bus around 9:15.
The other 2-3x/week this is Acupuncture class- learning the meridians and the specific points, their functions and clinical application.
12-2ish: lunch break
2ish-4ish: TCM class- general theory, including Yin/Yang theory and the Five Elements, and the organ systems. 1-2x/week I have Chinese language lessons.
After the first month, I will begin going to the acupuncture clinic for observation and experiential practical application of diagnostic skills, and treatment.
That's all for now! Zaijian!
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