Going to school - Miscellaneous

These are things that Ah Min finds interesting cos these seemed to be commonplace in BJ.

Old-fashioned Vacuum Flask
The Chinese like to drink hot water, even on very very hot summer days.

Top Model Student
This guy cleans the chalkboard EVERY SINGLE DAY during breaks. He also takes vacuum flasks (photo above) for topup at a nearby block EVERY SINGLE DAY. (*__*) wow!

Nice Volunteers
Trying to concentrate on a sunny mid-summer day in a 36 degree room is unimaginable. How could anyone survive..... (@__@)
Finally, the white chiffon curtains arrived one week after class started and the tallest guy in the class and his buddy volunteered to climb onto a desk to hang them up.

Guy with Tired Leg
This guy had been putting his foot on the back of the previous row of chairs for more than an hour. He might had finished a marathon the day before. Hee hee... (^__^)

More Tired Classmates
Too tired or too comfortable? After we moved to the air-conditioned classroom on Week 3, more and more people fell asleep during class.

Going to school - Food

Canteen food is cheap in China's standards. Buying from the free-selection cai-fan counter is the most flexible. Veggies cost RMB1-2, meat cost RMB1.5-4, staples (rice, porridge, buns) cost RMB1-2. So a meal usually costs less than RMB10.

Students just scan their card (similar to our Ezilink card) to pay for food. I think it's good to use this method as both the sellers and the students won't have to dirty their hands handling money.


The northern people love to take their meals with buns (馒头).

Ah min likes soupy stuff, eg, porridge ^__^

I like this zhajiangmian ( 炸酱面). It costs only RMB6 a bowl. The portion is HUGE. It can feed 2-3 Singaporean girls.

Going to school - Biology class

Ah Min likes biology lessons because what's taught are the tangible parts of the human body. These are more straightforward and easier to grasp than intangible stuff like qi and meridians in TCM >__<

 

 

Going to school - Massage

Massaging and tuina are different things in TCM. Tuina can only be practised by qualified doctors, whereas massage can be practised by anyone (eg, beauticians, blind people). Here, I'll refer to all massaging as tuina cos it sounds more professional ;)

I felt the most connection with tuina teacher, Prof Zhang Jian Bao (张健宝). Know why? Haha... Cos he has a typical Cantonese-Singaporean slang. Whenever he lectures, I feel like giggling, cos he sounds so much like one of my uncles. Eversince I came to China, I've been looking for people that speak with the same slang as I do, but they are really difficult to find. Prof Zhang is the only closest match. He's from Fujian Province, same as my ancestors.

This is Prof Zhang showing us how to "adjust" (搬) a patient's spine. He looks so cool and sporty! ^__<

We were assigned beds for tuina practice. 

In this picture, Ping and I looked as if we were molesting Wei's buttocks.... hahahaha.... :D

Nobody will smile like that when being 'molested'... hehehehe.... (^__^) 

Clockwise from bottom left: Wei, Yi, Ping & Ah Min

Going to school - Ear plastering

I don't know what this is called English. It's not acupuncture cos no needle is used. All you have to stick a special plaster onto your ear reflex point and some part of your body will start to self-heal. So I call it "ear plastering".

The special 7x7mm ear plaster has a tiny hard seed (the size of sesame seeds) embedded underneath to create a localised pressure onto your ear acupoint.

Photo below: Sinseh Min is giving ear-plaster treatment to classmate-patient Xiaoling. Xiaoling is pointing to the rubber dummy ear and telling Sinseh Min which points to use & where they are.

Notice two guys at the back row also studying the rubber dummy ear? This is how it looks like:

This is a demo of the points to use (done by our teacher) on a classmate's ear to help in slimming.

Going to school - Acupuncture

It is amazing how a tiny needle of 0.3mm can create such big effect on the human body. We listened most intently for this topic taught by Prof Ren Xiu Jun （任秀君）.

Hahaha... I regretted letting Prof Ren stick that needle into my hegu (合谷) point.















Junyi (left) and Yi (right) experiencing the most nerve-wrecking moment of their lives with their first acupuncture experience.















The last photo, is not for the faint hearted. Click on "Read more" only if you are as brave as I am ;)

Going to school

The past three weeks passed by very quickly cos Ah Min signed up for a TCM acupuncture and massage summer class at a local university.

Textbooks full of chinese words that looked like encyclopedias, hot classroom with fans that only work 50% of the time, classmates that come from all walks of life, needles, alcohol, cotton balls, real skeletons, preserved bodies, etc, etc... Everything is new to her.

Of course, she can't be a doctor with just a month of training ^^

She will tell you more interesting stories after the class ends next week (Aug 14).