A Day Full of Surprises!

by Jan Esteraich

Studies on physical exercise suggest that people who walk 10,000 steps daily will experience health benefits. How about 10,000 steps in China? Perhaps life-changing steps for each of us in some way? The 10,521 steps we took on Sunday, May 17^th in Beijing, China gave my body exercise, but, more so, gave my mind and soul an opportunity to experience and think about life in new, different ways. And, it was SO much fun!

We started the morning by visiting the Temple of Heaven, first the park and then the temple(s). In imperial China, the emperor is considered the son of Heaven. To show respect to the heavenly authority, the emperor built this temple and it’s beautiful park during the Ming dynasty, finishing in 1420, with an expansion during the Qing dynasty. The area of the park and the Temple is 4 times the size of the Forbidden City.

Sunday morning…and the public park was abuzz with people playing:  moving, dancing, singing, bending, stretching. As we entered the park, we saw exercise equipment being used by an older set of folks – hard to guess how old because age doesn’t seem to show on peoples’ faces and bodies like it does back home.

Nate and I saw a group of 4 playing a game similar to hacky sack. We saw an older woman perfectly execute a pass – a behind-the-knee jump pass, with a little foot flare…What?  My grandmother never had those kind of moves. Well, my grandmother never played hacky sack either… Dozens of these informal groups gather everyday in the park (and parks throughout all of China), to partake in whatever is of interest. This is a social event where people use public spaces to build healthy bodies and souls and minds. We spent a couple of hours dancing to music from Northeast China, walking down the long corridor where people gather to play card games. We played paddle ball games with the locals, and spent some time stretching in a yoga session.

Next, on to see the temple buildings. The area is enclosed by a long wall. The northern part of the wall is semicircular symbolizing the heavens and the southern part is square symbolizing the Earth. This follows the ancient Chinese thought of the circle symbolizing heaven, while the square means earth. Also, the northern part is higher than the southern part to show that heaven is higher than earth. Every year on the Winter Solstice, the emperors would spend 3 days praying for an abundant harvest and offer a sacrifice to Heaven.

(Our group in front of the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests)

 Lunch time! Our wonderful tour guide, May, took us to a place that serves “Hot Pots”. Having a hot pot is a dining experience popular among the Chinese. A hot pot is a large bowl of boiling broth in which you add various items to cook:  shavings of beef, bacon, mutton, as well as various types of lettuce, mushrooms, green veggies, noodles. The goodies cook in the hot broth (think fondue for a European reference) until you fish them out and slather them with yummy sauce (I had the peanut sauce that had the consistency of peanut butter). Little did Janae, Sarah, Kelley, Natalie and I know that we were supposed to get ladles to scoop out our cooked food. We used our chopsticks…Imagine us sticking our chopsticks in this boiling pot of broth, trying to find and grab our food. We thought this whole “hot pot” thing was a lot of work…later to find out that we didn’t get ladles!

Our afternoon offered yet more “new” surprises to us. We went back to the hutong, to visit a family and have tea in their home. But instead of walking, we hopped into a rickshaw…Six rickshaws in all, speeding through the narrow streets of the hutong, often clearing the wall by a few centimeters.

The home we visited was owned by a woman who used to live in the home, but now her niece is living there, solo. The home was a long rectangular room, sectioned into a narrow kitchen, dining room, living room, and a bedroom by small wooden room dividers on each side of the wall. This 600 square foot residence is one of four family units, which are all attached, or were attached, by a courtyard in the back. Some of the remaining hutongs are now considered historical places and are protected from development.

The UNL group visiting a home in the hutong (in the living room with the bedroom behind us).

Wait! The excitement is not over yet! We jumped on our bus and Mr. Lee, our bus driver, and May took us to the area of Beijing where the high-end retail stores are. Several people commented the area reminded them of Times Square.  Along a long block there were vendors selling all kinds of “food on a stick”.  Except this was not your typical Iowa State Fair “food on a stick”. This was exotic…grasshoppers, octopus, intestines, spiders (yes, I said spiders). Rich, Nate, Tuyen, Sarah and I decided to live on the edge and try a deep fat fried silk worm.

Rich went first. Watching his reaction as he was chewing, I knew this was going to be an unforgettable experience, for better or worse. I put the fried silk worm in my mouth, bit down, heard the crunch and felt the squirt of goo, and then tasted the “ick”. Repeat: Crunch, squirt, ick. Nope, couldn’t swallow. I went straight for the trash can. The women ended up spitting out the deliciousness, and the men fought through and sent the worm down.

Sarah eating a silkworm.

The next course, scorpion, was much easier to handle. Natalie joined the crew in the taste test, and we all crunched and swallowed. Easy! It tasted like chicken!  Lol.

Scorpion snacks, anyone?

We walked to dinner (won’t go into detail here…food was good, as always) and then Dr. Xia and Dr. Bischoff said they had a final surprise for the group. An acrobatics performance! We watched the performers juggle, balance, flip high in the air, and bend their bodies. It was a perfect ending to a spectacular day.

I am so impressed with the vitality of the people I have seen thus far, especially the older Chinese exercising and socializing in the park. The message that came to me today was about “play”. Enjoying “play” is universal. I like how the Chinese continue to play throughout their lives, being present in the moment to enjoy the fun happening around them, and making it a part of their daily /weekly routine.

-Jan E