This morning we packed up and drove off to “The forbidden City”. The first two things we noticed was the throngs of people (tour group leaders with locator flags) and the smog. Although, several of us have Air Quality Index (AQI) monitor apps on our phones; I don’t think we had any real concept of the true extent of the limited visibility caused by the air particulates. None of us had our masks; AQI high for that day was 362 (hazardous is anything over 100). Please note that all of my photos of the Forbidden City are filtered through this soup. Nevertheless, we went on.
With the crowd of probably several thousand we stumbled into the Forbidden City. There were people everywhere and no ramps for me and my crutch; needless to say I doing a lot of looking at my feet as we climb and descend stairs to get to each new section of this vast place. We are only briefly looking at iron and carved lions and guard “dogs”; plus iron incense burners (one for each province, thirteen total). My favorite was the garden; stone formations create an amazing garden of stone shapes, colors, and textures. I could easily see the emperor walking the garden as a silent meditative place or maybe a late night rendezvous for some staff member. From our Tai Ji perspective decorative stones exemplify “stillness in movement/movement in stillness.”
While I’m taking cautionary steps and reveling in my fantasies, I’m stopped by a young man who wants to know if he can take my photo; his friend subsequently takes our photo. Later two young women come up with the same request and they take turns being photographed with this unknown foreign stranger. I was aware that many Chinese have never seen a black person but something about us periodically during this trip made us all at times photogenic. Where ever we went this curiosity followed us for most of our stay in China. Sometimes we were asked for a photo or asked to be included in a personal photo; on the other hand there were those people who would focus on other objects then surreptitiously snap our photos when we came in range.
Our walk through the Forbidden City took about two hours not including periodic recollecting all of the members of our troop. Often as we gathered there was always some man walking over to be within earshot of our conversation. Initially, this made me paranoid, my fear that we were being monitored but as I thought about it and observed more any kind of separate grouping invited onlookers and our concept of personal space needed to be redefined. In addition, we often stopped to practice in open spaces whether we were on a trail or in a park; hence we were always part of a fishbowl.
Leaving the Forbidden City we “lost” one of our members and Vincent (our guide) became more intent on counting heads before we moved on to our next stop. I tried to explain to Vincent the concept of “herding cats (māo), couldn’t tell whether he didn’t understand the concept or just didn’t find the humor in it.
After lunch at a vegetarian restaurant we met Master Chen at “his” spot in the park. The format of our practice with Master Chen normally lasted about 3 hrs. beginning with a lengthy Qigong set emphasizing the movement of the chi and intent followed by forms practice.
By the second day I had gotten used to the subway, it was efficient with standard bag x-ray security, droves of people, with signs that directed you to your location. If you know where you are going locations were noted in English; if you don’t know where you are going brush up on your Chinese. Negotiating crowds with a crutch required some adjustment on my part. I don’t expect people to move out my way because I’m obviously in-firmed at the same time I’m cautious about accidentally striking people with my crutch.
As we made boarded the subway for our trip back to the hotel we were the last to get on and I was slow to move to into the crowd and got caught in the double doors (to prevent accidental falls on to the tracks there is a permanent outside door and a door on the subway). The double doors slammed on me with terrific force, the subway lurched and I was looking to find a way to brace myself when I was catapulted into the cabin. Panic! Since my accident my greatest fear is falling. As I was projected into the subway car; fearing falling I grasped a support pole with two hands while still clutching my crutch. Jim, who was behind me, yells, “You know they have ‘door jammers’ on the subways in Japan, Dude!”.
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