Written by Kelly Davis

Today during our traditional Chinese medicine course, we were able to test acupuncture ourselves.  A lot of people were really brave and tried it.  Some of us asked the professor, Gao Hong, to do some acupuncture for us.  I had her do it on my ankles for achilles pain.  It isn't really painful, and it actually gets rid of the pain!  The needles stay in anywhere from 2-20 minutes, and they must be rotated every 5.  It tingles and feels kind of rubbery.  

Later, a few people wanted to try cupping.  This ancient technique involves a glass jar.  You light a flame, and put it in the jar to remove all the oxygen and then attach it to the injured/sore part of the body.  It will suction to the skin, sucking it up.  It pulls the bad qi or the toxins out.  It leaves giant circular bruises on your skin, though.  

The third style of traditional Chinese healing we learned is moxibustion.  The herb, moxa, can either be in a cone or a stick.  It is lit on fire and held near the skin on the acupoint.  One of the coolest moxa points we learned is used to turn around a fetus!  The cupping stays on for about 5 minutes.  

The Wushu course today was about the theory behind it.  We learned all the different types and styles, along with cultural implications of Wushu.  Professor Yang had really cool video clips of each type.  

After dinner, we went to an ancient tea house to see the Sichuan Opera.  The building was beautiful, the tea was very good, and they refilled your water for it frequently.  Some of the acts at the opera were Chinese dancers, a musical skit, an entertaining skit where a man did tricks with a flame balanced on his head, shadow puppet presentation, and the mask changing.  The changing of the masks was incredible -- I have no idea where the masks went or how they came off that quickly.