Holistic Centres for Complementary Health & Jungian Dream Interpretation and Individuation

China Trip Diary 2007

14th April

An uneventful, and long 12 hour flight to Shanghai was peppered with the usual in flight meals as well as by various Jungian discussions with members of the group.

15th April

Arrive Pudong International, Airport, after a quick efficient exit, an awaiting coach took one hour to reach the New Asia Hotel, in central Shanghai, near The Bund, through the usual heavy traffic. Parts of China are in boom highlighted by the 12000 new cars per week onto the roads of Shanghai, many other major cities echo this growth. China’s voracious energy needs are being supplied by a new coal fired power station erected each week. The official population of Shanghai, is 18 million, strained with 4 million economic Chinese migrants seeking a part of the economic miracle and the inevitable and unavoidable pollution.


Pudong

After a slow served, cheapish lunch, in the hotel, the group went to Yuyuan Gardens a very pretty Taoist inspired enclave, a potential oasis of calm and beauty, set up by wealthy Shanghai merchants in the Ming Dynasty, in the 1650’s, now sandwiched in a shopping area but marred by the number of foreign and Chinese tourists. A welcome but expensive Starbucks was available just outside in the frenetic market.


Yuyuan Gardens

16th April

A morning visit to the Jade Buddha Temple now housed in a busy suburb of Shanghai. The prospective peace was spoiled by the amount of mainly foreign tourists interfering with the prayers of devotees. Unfortunately it seemed that the spirit of Buddha had left this place although residues of the numinous could be felt.


Jade Buddha Temple

Then a contrasting outing to the tallest hotel in the world also the tallest building in China, the Jinmao tower 421 metres high. Here we had surprisingly good coffee and a reasonable priced Chinese lunch, western dishes also available, on the 53rd floor drinking in the spectacular views over new and old Shanghai. The upper 35 floors atop the building is the Grand Hyatt Hotel with a spiral shaped atrium that voids the central core of the hotel which is a spectacular draw to the heavens. The Chinese have built a phenomenal 14000 new skyscrapers in 10 years, around 7 a day in Shanghai.



A busy day continued with the recently built ‘Ting’ Museum and its collection of Chinese artefacts, including Ming porcelain, jade, calligraphy, paintings and furniture peppered with Neolithic pottery and sculpture as well as ethnic costumes and curios from around China. One could see the similar influence of the collective unconscious imbued in all cultures mirrored in these objects.



Then we went to a manic shopping centre, with pedlars and persistent touts seeking out tourist buyers, for the ‘designer’ goods and clothes etc. The girls found some good buys, I left quickly.

A welcome sauna closed off the afternoon, oddly communicating, with sign language to the two skilful and attentive attendants who practised martial arts, reflexology and acu-massage, albeit paid a pittance for their knowledgable endeavours.

The excellent evening meal was in an art deco restaurant in the Bund, the European enclave built by Western merchants and bankers in the 1920’s. Before which I took a peek at the Peace Hotel, although closed for refurbishment, one could feel the ghostly remnants haunting the stunning art deco interior, such as the Last Emperor of China jazzing away his empire as well as Wallace Simpson, the bride to be of the future King of England, running her brothel contacts for the wealthy residents of Shanghai. These skills, no doubt, played a part in seducing Edward,  Prince of Wales.



The Bund

17th April

The next day heralded an outing to a ‘water’ village, Zhujiaao, an unusually preserved, for China, Ming dynasty village canalised by a set of waterways, in the heart of the rice growing area of these wetlands on the flood plain of the Yangzi river valley an hour from Shanghai. Also the peasants grow rape seed and vegetables for Shanghai, Nanjing etc. Despite the rain it was interesting to see the faded yet untouched late medieval Chinese architecture with the usual gift shops, although tastefully controlled. A trip on a punt was accompanied, by an eighty year old Erhu, an ancient Chinese stringed instrument, musician with a dried wizened face who played relentlessly his wistful and melancholic airs, albeit in the pouring rain. The highlight was a preserved tea house which could have been lifted from a Chinese martial arts film, with red lacquer tables and chairs and all, giving a definite scent of old China. There was also a preserved early Ching dynasty merchant’s house (1700’s), with small rooms featuring period furniture and a sedan chair, parked near the large manicured garden.



After a cheap yet excellent dinner, £3.50 in a red light district near the hotel, sporting a variety of fish in its window including sharks, I had a £4, hour long, reflexology massage with one of the attentive attendants in the New Asia Hotel.



18th April

A short hour and half long flight from Hongqiao airport, Shanghai, to the heart of China landing at Xianfan country airport being the closest to Wudang giving rise to another hour and a half coach trip through rural China. Where peasants were tirelessly, yet relentlessly tilling the rice and vegetable fields by hand, some with oxen, some oddly spraying agro-chemicals in bare feet. This could be seen along an empty and apparently the most expensive motorway in China, leading to Wudang and its main hotel at the foot of the mountain Temple complex. After a light meal I met Taoist Master Wang Li Shen who agreed to carrying out more martial and chi kung workshops with the group. I also met a former guide who had to be put to one side due his apparent unpopular, behaviour in the area. This was later compounded when I discovered that after I gave him a copy of my book Tai Chi Chuan & The Code of Life in good faith in 2005, he had had it illicitly copied and sold all over Wudang.


Master Wang Li Shen

19th April

In the morning the group was invited by Master Wang to a martial arts festival, starting at 9.00 am, where we were filmed and featured on Chinese TV. There was an excellent musical introduction with symbols and large array of drums giving a dramatic debut to a set of sparring by Wudang students. The matches were a bit scrappy, overseen by Taoist masters, students and local dignitaries.


Martial Arts Festival Wudang Town

At midday we set out for the Tienlu Resort Hotel half way up the Wudang Mountain complex. The new entrance was disappointingly accessed by an airport like mall with computerised ticketing, turnstiles, security guards which led us to eco-LPG buses that shuttle visitors up and down the mountain. All this is designed to handle thousands of tourists per day.


Purple Clouds Monastery

20th April

I went to visit the Purple Clouds Monastery, Zixiao Gong built in 1413 and is located northeast of Tianzhu Feng peak, being only 5 minute walk from the Tien Lu hotel. Still a bit faded but the most stunning Taoist set of buildings in Wudang in a spectacular setting. I noticed a greater number of Taoist nuns than the last time I visited in 2005. I also noticed a pretty young Taoist nun, who seemed sad and I assumed home sick. Here I discovered in a discreetly placed gift shop an illicit copy of my Tai Chi Book, Tai Chi Chuan & The Code of Life: being a flattering paradox. The lady shop owner was very surpirised and evidently embarassed to see the author face to face, hence the hiding of her face.

21st April

Master Wang gave a chi kung workshop accompanied this time by two adept and charming students, one young man and a girl of about eighteen years of age. I had an interesting lunch and discussion with Master Wang.



22nd April

A further workshop with Master Wang was highlighted by an open talk with the Taoist Master where he revealed that his life had been influenced by archetypal dreams, leading him to become the 17th leader of the Taoist Zhen Whu clan of Wudangshan.! This was followed by another informative and informal lunch with Master Wang. Then Master Wang enthusiastically led the group to a Taoist hermit who lived half way up the mountain in a humble, yet reasonably comfortable cave dwelling. The hermit generously offered us biscuits and apples. There we met a young barefoot Taoist who did not wish to speak, featuring his legend around his neck. Here Master Wang signed copies of the hermit’s booklet of philosophy. The old Taoist Master was a warm, kind and deep man with a sun burnt face and dark strong eyes.


The Hermit ( note yin yang grip of his hands)

23rd April

Most of the group, some on foot, set out to the Golden Temple which is the apex of the Wudang Temple complex at 1600 m. built in the early Ming dynasty by 300,000 men under the auspices of a ‘Taoist’ Chinese, emperor Zhen Whu, who later became a Taoist deity, who lived here during the 15th century and there is a statue of him in the impressive Taihe Temple, which is about halfway up Tianzhu Feng Peak. A trek to the top of the mountain takes about 3 hours to the Jinding (Golden Summit) which is located at the top of Tianzhu Feng Peak. Some of the temple walls and buildings are in the fashion of the Forbidden City, Beijing. There is also cable car access, with spectacular views on the way to the Golden Summit. That day was damp and drizzly and I hired an interesting looking ex-army surplus coat, albeit tight but appreciatively warm. Our Chinese guide lost her mobile phone which she left in such a coat. Moreover she had just told me a dream which impressed her as did my interpretation. The dream informed her to focus more on her ‘spiritual’ life, as oppose to rushing about in the new China. It changed her perspective on life.



24th April

That a day a small group of us went to Sword River Gorge, a picturesque way to the Golden Summit following a shallow river peppered by exotic birds and a monkey colony of macaques. In the gorge is the legendary cave, in a cliff where Chang San Feng, a Tai Chi patriarch at Wudang, had his dream of a snake and a crane fighting. Giving rise to such moves as ‘brush knee’- ‘snake creeps down’ etc.; as well as the Tai Chi maxim, ‘investment in loss’. Also Lao Tse was supposed to have been a hermit in this area as well. Several members of the small group were touched by the peace and beauty of the gorge and maybe its numinous atmosphere, with comments that they had been changed by the experience.


Chang San Feng's Cave

In the evening I had a massage by a blind masseur after hearing of his amazing abilities. He was a feeling, intuitive type adding to the curative manipulation as he was well versed in meridian and chi sciences, making it a firm yet therapeutic experience. There is still a tradition of ‘blind’ masseurs carried on from antiquity in China that has survived.


Zhen Whu

25th April

Most of the group felt, as I did, that to leave this place was a shame having to re-enter the life of plains. I have a feeling that Wudang, although a world heritage site, is changing rapidly into a tourist destination for the 1.5 billion Chinese as well as many foreign tourists. The town and temple complex are being geared up for the increase in visitors, which I consider a shame but inevitable. We went to Wudang town on our way to Xianfan the airport and short flight to Shanghai. Master Wang and three of his students gave a warm send off by coming to see us off at the entrance gates to Wudangshan. A group photo was taken. The night before I had a dream where Master Wang, accompanied by his wife, dressed in a red, two piece suit, came to see me off in a friendly manner from Wudang. (Master and anima, his feminine side).



26th April

Another interesting visit, through heavy traffic the air filled by pollution and constant honking horns, to a silk factory in a suburb of Shanghai which was the start of the silk road, because the damp, sunny Shanghai basin is conducive to the silk worm and its special food of Mulberry trees producing its fine, precious thread. It had been a capital offence to export the silk technology since antiquity even the ancient Greeks and Romans aristocrats desired and wore silk. ‘Here we go round the mulberry bush’ was a nursery rhyme mocking Charles I’s disastrous attempt to try and poach the secret of silk production. The English merchants had taken the wrong gender of Mulberry tree which the silk worms would not consume.



The factory guide took us through the whole process from caterpillar, pupae, cocoon to thread, weaving and the variety of garments and fabrics made of this fine silk. The Tai Chi masters called the spiral movements of the form, ‘silk reeling’, this is probably due to the fact that the ‘silk’ girls would gently, without interruption, ease the thread, up to one km. in length, from the cocoon by circular motions. Synchronistically, the silk pupae releases its silken thread in the cocoon in a figure of eight! The silk thread is relatively stronger than steel.



27th April

We visited a state funded, Chi Kung Institute which taught and practised basic chi kung skills which were not new to the me or the group. Later the group was welcomed at the Yue Yang hospital which specialised in Traditional Chinese Medicine. It was modern and very busy, all based on the concept of chi and the yin yang principles. We were courteously taken around by an English speaking doctor, Dr. Mayijin, who showed treatments for a whole host of complaints, at one point we were introduced to a senior acupuncturist successfully abating the symptoms of Parkinson’s. The hospital treated cancer as well as its palliative care, alzheimer’s, heart disease and its pain, arthritis, rheumatism, eczema etc.



There was a very busy herbal dispensary which only dispensed organic herbs from selected areas such as mountains etc., stressed by the doctor that these herbs were carefully grown and hand picked due to the adverse effects of herbal remedies that are grown in toxic environments. China has the fastest growing industrial economy in the world thus creating many toxic by products. If anybody takes Chinese herbs it is well advised to ensure pure provenance otherwise they can do more harm than good. Professor Sikora, the oncologist at University College Hospital, London did a trial of healing eczema with Chinese herbs. The skin seemed to respond favourably to the herbal treatment but later the doctor discovered that the patients were suffering from liver failure due to the toxins in the herbs!


Dr. Mayijin - Graham Horwood and Dr Li - Yueyang Hospital

At the end of the visit we were ushered to the 20th floor of the hospital where we met Dr Li, a senior consultant. She answered many questions relating to TCM as practiced in her hospital. She informed me that cancer is called zhengjia, translating as chi blocking disease! She was also shocked by the 1:3 cancer rate in the West. It is c. 1:100.000 in China. In Shanghai breast cancer is called rich woman’s disease.

 

This informative day continued with an afternoon visit to the modern Renjii Hospital which pioneered acupuncture anaesthesia in 1969 in clinical conditions. It was founded by English missionaries in 1846.


Graham Horwood - Professor Housheng Lin and Professor Da Jin Sun - Renjii Hospital

Again a warm welcome was offered on our visit to the Renjii where we met the surgical team, headed by Dr Wang, who performed open heart surgery in the BBC documentary introduced by Professor Kathy Sykes from Bristol University, screened in 2006. A young girl with a ‘hole’ in the heart was successfully operated upon with acupuncture anaesthesia using three salient acupuncture points - two near the wrist and one on the upper chest. She recovered faster and went home a great deal sooner than if she had had regular anaesthesia. These methods were proved by the figures and rigorous tests carried out by this modern clinic on a variety of patients. Professor Housheng Lin who pioneered acupuncture anaesthesia in 1969 showed us the empirical data to support his findings. In fluent English the Professor told me how he had been showed and taught by traditional acupuncturists who had passed down these ‘chi’ skills over the millennia from master to pupil. It was Professor Professor Housheng Lin who introduced this remarkable skill and knowledge into mainstream medicine. The Renjii hospital carry out 24000 operation per annum about 10%- 2400- being under acupuncture anaesthesia. Basically acupuncture is the control of chi, by way of needles, being the life force of the body. By adjusting the flow of this energy one can control the body’s organism. Tai Chi and Chi Kung, if taught properly, stimulates, circulates, balances and stores this life force. Please remember it was the same tradition that passed on acupuncture anaesthesia as was the case for Tai Chi & Chi Kung. This is the basis of the mysterious Dim Mak poison hand boxing of the internal martial systems.



Our last evening in China was spent on the 53rd floor of the Jinmao tower enjoying the view and international buffet costing about £25 per head! where we discussed the extraordinary experiences of the last two weeks.

28th April

The closing journey to the airport was by way of the Maglev the fastest train in the world which quietly and smoothly sped us at 454 kph. to Pudong Airport by floating on a cushion of air driven by a linear induction motor- being a type of magnet; paradoxically pioneered at Sussex University, UK, where I worked in the early 1970’s and had been part of the team dealing with the computer programmes.



Yet again uneventful and efficient departure from Shanghai and another 12 hour trip to London-Heathrow where the ordered UK and jet lag awaited, which I abated by doing Tai Chi and Chi Kung internally. Chi is dependent on the solar cycle thus jet lag is caused by the time difference. If chi is re-adjusted by doing chi exercises it will help the body clock re-align with the new solar position and time zone.

email: Graham Horwood


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Original Yang Style Tai Chi Chuan & Chi Kung
From the Taoist Group - (est. 1976)

by founder & Chief Instructor
Graham Horwood
Contact - email Graham Horwood



TAI CHI COURSES
for
Instructors & New Members

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The Taoist Group was founded by Graham Horwood in 1976 in order to promote Tai Chi Chuan, Chi Kung, Complementary Health methods, self awareness and a respect for the environment.

The Taoist Group is now expanding its class structure nationally to allow more people to enjoy the 'The Original Yang Style' Tai Chi Chuan & Chi Kung, in depth, not only to edify people how to be more centered in health and lifestyle, but also to understand their place and the related cultures of the global village.

The Taoist Group is setting up a network of classes in the UK under the guidance and quality assurance of Graham Horwood. Only instructors who are a part of the Taoist Group will be taught and vetted by Graham Horwood personally, and will be able to teach in the classes. The instructors will attend the monthly 'instructor' courses held presently in Central London. Soon the classes & seminars will be held regionally.

All members, beginners, practitioners and beginners will be able to go to any relative class in the UK.

If you interested in joining the Taoist Group whether as a teacher, practitioner or a beginner: please contact Graham Horwood by email for more details and application form.

Contact - email Graham Horwood





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Contact - email Graham Horwood