China Day 14

Today was our first day at Lychee World, the "research garden where they have only organic foods that they grow there on their 5000 acres that reach all the way to the mountains". I have to say that off the bat I'm not impressed. So far all I've seen is a lot of dragonfruit on the walk in last night and a whole lotta longan trees this morning.

We started the morning off with some delicious bread and some kind of vanilla condensed milk sauce (and juk, etc.), I'd like a vat of it outside my door later...

We were instructed to dress up today as we were to attend a special conference set up in Shifu's honor. It was interesting because instead of it being lectures like we thought it was going to be, it was like more infomercials after long gratuitous thanks. Some of the products were interesting but nothing absolutely new, just labels we can't read. The actual lecture was to be by Dr. Steven Sui Shi Wai and could have been interesting if we'd had an interpreter and actually could have had time to go through all of his research and heard his whole talk. It got cut short cause so many people were there to talk to us.

After lunch I walked around the "garden" which is more like a tourist attraction/park a little bit and took some pics.

I really like this statue and big plaque behind it. I have no idea who it is or what it's about, but it's really pretty!

Also after lunch, Rhonda had a dance party with one of the product girls, very funny, and we met Master Lee, the most expensive calligraphist ever and so far interesting guy. He says that what western people call mental illness is caused by spirits attached to people. I'm a little confused about whether he was saying that the spirits attached to the people don't know their missions or if the people they are attached to don't know their missions. Either way he says he can cure mental illness within a minute by communicating with these spirits. It was a very interesting talk and definitely caused my ears to perk up (otherwise the day had been pretty boring). The guy has eyes that go right through you for sure and the audience that wasn't us got fairly riled up during his talk.


Later Shifu told us that we could pay and sign up for a special class with Master Lee. He's saying that he will open our third eyes. He also (according to Shifu who says she's seen it) has a reputation for healing people, balancing them out and what not during these sessions.. something about people losing like 15 lbs during a session. That got a few people's attention and I have to admit that it'd be pretty impressive to see people walk out of the room with their clothes falling off cause they were all of a sudden 5 inches smaller all around.

After the talks and before dinner Shifu, Bowen, Matt, and I were sitting around talking about Master Lee and a story he was telling about Chairman Mao when Master Lee walked up. We had been wondering about how likely it was to have this experience that was being offered. Master Lee said that 30% of adults are able to get it. The price is pretty high for an experience that isn't likely to happen and that carries a heavy responsibility if it does.
As of right now, I don't think I"m going to go for it.