China Day 16

It was tricky waking up today, but I made it Qi Gong in time. My concentration is still about where it usually is (meaning I get distracted all the time, especially when my arms start getting tired) but todays Yang absorbing went well.
I actually was fidgeting a lot and then I started going like last night and felt like I had to shut it down. I spoke with Polly about that later and she was surprised it shut it off like that. Maybe it would have been fine, but it didn't feel like the right time.

Today is our last day at Lychee World.. Tomorrow we go back to Hong Kong and go to the Taoist festival til the 24th or 25th. We might be performing a song at the festival if we can get our act together. This has definitely been a point of contention the last few days between Rhonda and the rest of the group. The difficulty started in the airport in Beijing when we were waiting to fly to Shanghai. Shifu and Rhonda were talking about when we were going to have time to practice the Kong form that we had started working on before we came to China. Shifu all of a sudden started saying that that wasn't the form she had wanted us to do, but really she wanted this other, more obscure form that of all the people on the trip, only Rhonda had ever seen (2 summers ago). this was quite the upset and then Shifu refused to help Rhonda remember how the form even went. Rhonda worked on it diligently though and finally got approval for her arrangement. Of course that was only a few days ago and we are supposed to learn a long (10 minute) song in Chinese, a ridiculously complicated charm, and a walk. and put it together like we've been practicing for a year instead of 3 days.

So. It's completely understandable that people would have different opinions about the likelihood of us pulling this feat off with 3 days for practicing when we have unplanned dinners out with visits to tea houses, long-winded conferences about products that most of us aren't really able to use for a few years, and the fact that many people are sick. It's also difficult because so many of us want to learn this ritual and be able to use it ourselves, and want to make Shifu proud of us, and we know how hard Rhonda has been working on this, but we have the equivalent of a few hours to learn this. Plus, the way Shifu has been talking about it makes it sound like she doesn't even plan on letting us go up there anyway. What she's said is that we will be performing Chapter 33, which is a song that most of us have been performing for at least a year and we can't even get that right unless we can play my recording of Jud singing it and follow him. Of all of us, only Rhonda and Zach are really performers.

Anyway. That's the drama of the last few days.
the conference this morning was wrapped up semi-quickly. Before beginning this morning, Master Wei, Drew, Zach, and Ming had a nice little round of push-hands. I think everyone won at least once. It was pretty funny.
Also, I checked out Josh's knee.. that's pretty nuts. I don't know what that guy put on his psoriasis, but it does look a little better.
We had one more lecture from Master Lee and then had our usual many times over group photo-op. We also are going to have another session with later tonight.

After lunch we were given some free time so we culd check out the rest of the gardens and greenhouses. Zach, Val, Bowen, Master Wei, and I ventured off and found some giant bugs and lots of longan trees before finding out that Val is deathly afraid of butterflies. Unfortunately the small one that flew by and then the giant one in the display must have been too much for her as she took off before we even got to the greenhouses. It's definitely because of that, not because we have to be completely packed before 5:30pm.

We were informed that we are not allowed to bring all of our luggage to Hong Kong. Shifu doesn't want to have to arrange special transportation for all of our crap to make it to Hong Kong just to have to bring it back to Shenzhen for our last 3 days in the country. BUT, we're also getting more and more things added that we MUST have with us... gotta have the uniform, dress clothes, shoes, and enough stuff for the next 12 days. all in the smallest bag possible. and then we're not supposed to buy anything more until Shenzhen, when we will be staying at a place called "healthy Hospital for Healthy People".

So the cactus room was pretty cool! There were many different kinds of pinchable succulents and cacti. I was super smart and ran out of batteries right as soon as I got there (and brought no replacements with me). Then halfway through the cactus house Master Wei wanted a picture and it worked! But then I left the polarizer and lens cap there... probably won't have time to get it tomorrow morning before we leave (5:30am!)

So. We got back from sightseeing and got to packing. I got interrupted and had to take plant pics and then hurry and stuff everything into my bag so I could be ready for Master Lee's session.

Right. Master Lee's session. What a crazy experience. I didn't have anything like last night, I wasn't able to get back to anything near a calm place tonight. I was fidgeting and distracted the whole time. Then we had the rest of the people in the group diagnosed and worked on. I got told that I have some kind of female problems that apparently Shifu will be telling me about later.

The craziest thing that happened today was Rhonda's exorcism. I don't know what to say about that other than wow. All my hair still stands up just thinking about it.

After the session we went out to dinner. No one was really sure what was happening with that, but we sat around for a long time while Shifu talked story. There was another bout of push hands challenges with Master Wei before we finally were told to get walking. Cars come out of nowhere and we were shuttled off to another hot pot place after witnessing a strange, tense moment between Ming, Shifu, Master Wei, and the Lychee world guy. this on it's own was a little more than most of us could handle since we didn't get to the place to eat until 9pm (we're supposed to be up and out the door by 6am or something) and then we got dropped off at this other place where they tried to get us to drink tea and watch them roast rice or something at 11pm! This was just too much so after the photo-op, we all headed for the door and finally headed home in time to get our usual 4-5 hours of sleep.