back in nanjing

i'm finally back home. whew! it was a long and very fun 10 day whirl wind tour of China, and even then we only saw the hot spots (terracotta soliders, xiaolin temple, longmen grottos, tiananmen square, Olympic venues, forbidden city, the great wall {see photo to left} ~ and more). myself and the students were wiped out when we pulled in early sunday morning to nanjing. we traveled on overnight trains and then toured around in buses in the respective cities we visited (luoyang, xi'an and beijing).

it's now tues morning and i'm finally back in the swing of nanjing. to start the day i made my first of 10 visits to my new acupuncture doctor. in october, while shamefully eating at a mcdonald's, i met a guy from Portugal who is here studying acupuncture. he has been under the tutelage of one of China's best acupuncture doctors for 2 months now. i was pretty excited to meet him as i've wanted to have some serious acupuncture done on my lower back. (for those who are unaware, i suffered a major injury to my lower back 2 years ago and it's not quite been the same since).

now that life is back in a quiet rhythm i met my new friend Joao this morning and he took me to the clinic. later i learned that the place lines up with people starting about 6:30am. i walked right in and was immediately given a table to lay down on. of course everyone was shocked and awed that i could speak mandarin, so after going through that conversation i tried to explain in my very limited medical chinese vocab the problem. fortunately, there was a female student, Miss Sun, who knows enough medical terms in English that we able to get through the moment.

i then laid face down on the table while the doctor proceeded to insert about 10 needles into my lower back and light up the moxibustion (little burning things on the top or each needle). it didn't hurt, just felt a little weird. while i lay there for a 1/2 hour the whole area heated up but didn't burn. once the needles had been removed, another, younger, doctor came over and gave me a good rub down. after that came the fun part of sucking bamboo cups to my back. they heat them up so a suction effect is created, then release and then re-suctioning them on. it was funky! almost hurt, but not quite.

most of the other waiting patients in the clinic were unabashedly watching the foreigner with her bum 1/2 exposed get the treatment. i found it a lot of fun, especially when they kept asking questions about if one can get this in the states, how much it costs, etc. everyone in china does this for health healing. it's great. most hospitals here have both western and eastern medicine practices available as a standard.

after finishing up (and everyone watching me pull my clothing back together), the doctor told me to come back every other day for 10 times. then he wrote up the bill for 10 times --- it costs a whopping $75! i went to get acupuncture once in the states, and it wasn't even as good as this clinic, and it cost me $65 (which is why i didn't return).

the dr. thinks that within 10 visits i should be as good as new. even after 1 treatment today i feel better and have more energy than i've had in years. it's remarkable. i'm so happy to be in china right now! be assured - he used needles clean from a package ~ that's the special foreigner treatment.