July 2nd

The next day, Monday, is when classes started. The day had a few differences from the rest of our days, because we had no Mandarin class the first day, and we had a welcome reception instead of activities. In class we started learning about Eastern medicine from the very start. We talked about the differences between Eastern and Western medicine, in the way they look at disease and what causes disease, how they diagnose and treat various conditions, what areas of conditions is each better at treating, and the terminology they use. We also talked about Integrative medicine, ie the use of both types of medicine to treat an illness for greater effectiveness than either one could bring on their own. That day we talked about the history of Chinese medicine, its main treatment methods (acupuncture, herbs, massage, and Tai Qi), and the principles of Chinese medicine. The main principles are Qi, meridians, yin/yang, balance, and flow. Qi is the energy that runs throughout your body, and meridians are the paths which Qi flows along (like blood and bloods vessels in Western medicine). Yin/Yang theory describes opposing and interdependent phenomena in balance and complement. Flow is that when something is stuck, and isn’t flowing properly it can cause illness. For example when Qi isn’t flowing right it can cause pain. Balance is that everything needs to work together and be in harmony, and in the right proportions for the body to be healthy.

As part of the welcome reception the camp director, Simeon, spoke to all the students, introducing staff members, and telling us what was expected of us, and some general camp rules. Some of the things he told us were that the big no-no’s were being on a hall/in a room of the opposite gender, being out after lights out, and no PDAs (public displays of affection) please, as this is China, not the US, and there are small impressionable children around including Simeon’s own two young daughters. Light out ended up something that was pretty hard for some people to make, so no hall ever made lights out completely for more than three days in a row.

After Simeon’s talk we all headed over to the Lobby and the West auditorium where the reception was being held. There were some musicians playing traditional Chinese instruments, and demonstrations of Tai Qi and Diabolo. Diabolo is Chinese yo-yo, where a thing like a spinning top is spun and twirled around on a string tied to the ends of two sticks. The person playing with the diabolo manipulates the sticks to move the spinning top part.

Throughout camp, but especially in the first few days I met a lot of people. It turned out that Megan was in medicine class with me, so we became pretty good friends. I also got to be friends with a girl named Melissa and guy named Bran, who were both in Mandarin and medicine class with me. Through Melissa I got to know her friend from previous CTY camps, Danny, and his roommate James. Later on in camp I got to know a guy named Ian, and by the end Megan, Melissa, Danny, James, and Ian were my main group of friends, although they were only a few of many friends.

July 3rd

Mandarin class started the second day. All the students at one hour of mandarin class from at the very beginning of the day, from 9 - 10am. Then we went to our main class (ie, Medicine, China-US Relations, etc) from 10am - noon. Lunch was an hour long, and we were back in class at 1pm. Class then lasted until 3pm, when we let out for the afternoons to go do activities and have dinner. Every day each student did two, one hour activities. The were all sorts of things such as Tai Qi, diabolo, duct taping an RA, basketball, Ultimate Frisbee, Chinese song, Chinese tongue twisters, and so on. In general they were pretty fun. I especially enjoyed Tai Qi, which I did every single day so that by the end of camp I was in the advanced Tai Qi group – we were the kids who wanted to learn as much Tai Qi as we could, so we did it every day. 

After activities dinner was at 5:30pm, and study hall started at 7pm. Study hall ended at 9pm, and then we had 45 minutes of social time before we had hall meeting, and then lights out at 10:30. Social time was time to hang out in your room, in the rec room, in the lounge, or in the courtyard and just talk to your friends, putter around, or do whatever you wanted for a little while. I really enjoyed hanging out in the courtyard because it was the only place we could be outside, and there was a koi pond in the middle where it was always fun to watch the fishes swimming around. Study hall we had Sun – Thurs evening, and on Friday and Saturday nights lights out was at 11pm.

That Tuesday in medicine class we learned about the 3 Fluids of Qi, Blood, and Jing, the 6 Pathogens (heat/fire, cold, wind, dryness, dampness, and summer heat), and the differences between homeopathic and allopathic medicine. Qi is energy, Blood moves yin and yang around the body, and Jing is your essence that makes you alive. Illness can be caused by stagnation (blockage) or deficiency (not enough of the fluid) of the Qi and/or Blood. The 6 Pathogens are also sometimes called the 6 Pernicious Influences. In learning about homeopathic and allopathic medicine we also talked about how in some cases poisons can become cures. For example snake venom that causes death by hemorrhaging can be used in tiny amounts to dissolve blood clots. In Mandarin for the first few days the teacher only spoke in Mandarin, but because none of us knew that much Mandarin we could, as a class, usually figure out the general topic of conversation, but never usually exactly what she was asking us.

That evening it was raining off and on, and right before study hall a few of my friends and I were out in the heavy rain, and got pretty wet, but it was warm outside, and fun to just stand in the rain. Another thing that had happened that day is that as kids discovered the koi in the pond, some of them kept trying to feed (catch?) the koi. One of the guys tried to feed the koi by putting whatever he was trying to feed them in a paper cup attached to the end of his lanyard and dangling the cup in the water. However one of the bigger koi tried to swim into the cup, and the cup with the lanyard still attached were jerked down into the water, and there went the guy’s lanyard. The staff were not pleased about this loss of lanyards, so that night one of the notices in the bulletin said “Do not feed the koi. Do not try to catch the koi. DO NOT lose your lanyard in the koi pond.”

July 4th

I would have probably managed to completely forget that 4th of July is a holiday if not for the annoying people who kept saying how they hoped there would be American food for dinner, and the RAs who told us that during social time we all had to go to the auditorium. I quite enjoyed the Chinese food the entire time I was in China, and eating with chopsticks was never a problem. Although the quail eggs we had as part of dinner that night really made me wonder why the are supposedly such a wonderful tasting food, as to me they tasted like the yolk of a hard boiled chicken egg that had been cooked in sauce. It turns out that why we needed to be in the auditorium is because the RAs had planned a fireworks display…not real pyrotechnics mind, as this was in China where 4th of July is a normal day just like the 3rd and 5th of July. The “fireworks” consisted of the RAs jumping around with crepe paper streamers making exploding noises. It was ridiculous, but really funny to watch. Then there was also the “fireworks set” of the panda and the yak…that would be two RAs dressed up as a panda and a yak having the epic battle between panda and yak that ended up with them both being scared off stage by “fire.” For the rest of camp and even since then there has been a running joke of panda vs. yak.

In class that day we learned about the other Pernicious Influences, the 6 ones we had studied the day before are the external Pernicious Influences, but there are also some other ones. The Internal Pernicious Influences are unbalanced emotions of joy, grief, anger, fear, and worry (sympathy). Some extremes of emotions are Bi-polar disorder and holding in all emotions. Some other Pernicious Influences are elements of your lifestyle such as diet, drugs/alcohol, exercise, sleep, stress, and trauma. We also learned about Protective and Inside Qi which protect against the Pernicious Influences. Finally, we learned about the 5 Elements of fire, water, wood, metal, and earth. That evening during study hall we had our daily relaxation time, and my friends and I found that underneath the huge table was a really pleasant place for relaxing because it was nice and dark, and gave a feeling of insulation from everything else.

July 5th

The entire day was spent learning about acupressure and acupuncture. Acupressure uses the same locations on the body; you just use your fingers to press on the points instead of needles. We learned five acupressure points that we practiced trying to find on each other, as well as learning the history and basics of acupuncture. In the afternoon Simeon came in, and let himself be the guinea pig while my teacher, Bill, did some acupuncture on him. After that was finished we paired up, and each pair got an orange to try doing acupuncture on. It was pretty fun putting acupuncture needles into an orange.

July 6th

 In class we learned about the different methods of diagnosis. Tongue diagnosis is an important part of Chinese medicine. Different areas of the tongue correspond to different organs, so by looking at the health of the tongue one can see the health of various organs. In diagnosis there are also the 8 Principles of Yin/Yang, Interior/Exterior, Hot/Cold, and Excess/Deficiency in describing what the illness is like. We also started working on our projects that day. The projects were a 30 minute presentation to the class, done with a partner, on any subject related to medicine. Melissa and I ended up doing a presentation on heart murmurs.

That afternoon during activities there was the option to spend one hour “duct taping an RA.” It was REALLY fun. We got to completely (from the neck down) cover an RA in brown packing tape, because apparently it is very hard to come by true gray duct tape in China. The RA we taped up was Chris Ying. He started standing up, but then as we taped his legs together tightly he was having problems staying balanced on his feet. So we picked him up and laid him on his back. Then after a bunch of taping like that we needed him to be standing to finish the taping job, so we picked him up again and propped him against the wall. By the time we finished taping him up we had used at least 6 rolls of tape, Chris could only move his head, and he was literally a tape mummy. His legs and feet were wrapped so tightly in tape that he really had to be propped against the wall because he couldn’t stand on his own. It was really funny to take an RA, cover them in tape, and then have to cut off all the tape so they could eat dinner that evening, all while watching their reactions. Chris looked so silly, and we were all having so much fun (the whole deal was Chris’s idea in the first place) that everyone was laughing and laughing their heads off. I thought it would be fun to let him stay like long enough so that everyone in different activities could see him all wrapped up, but instead we had to cut him lose before dinner started. He made some pretty funny noises and exclamations while we were cutting him lose, especially since swearing was forbidden at camp.

July 6th was the first Friday of camp, and thus the first dance at camp. Dances are held at all CTY camps every Friday night. Instead of study hall from 7-9pm, the dance is from 7-10, and light’s out is 30 minutes later at 11pm.

I found it quite funny to see almost everyone go upstairs right after dinner to get ready for the dance, and not reappear downstairs until the dance. I headed upstairs, changed into what I was planning on wearing, and was back downstairs in less than 10 minutes. So I had a nice 45 minutes that I just sat outside in the courtyard before the dance. There were only about half a dozen other people out there, including my friends Melissa and Danny. I had a nice time talking with them, and then after awhile Melissa went upstairs to get ready, and a bit later Danny’s roommate James came out to talk with us. I had fun talking with Danny and James for another 15 minutes or so until one of the RAs shooed us back upstairs right before the dance, saying that we had to be with our RA groups from then until the dance started.

The music played at CTY dances is pretty much the same sort of stuff that’s played at a regular high school dance. The difference in music choice between CTY and a normal high school dance is that at CTY there is this group of songs known as “canon.” Canon is a group of songs that are played at pretty much every single dance, at every single CTY camp, every single year. The two canon songs that are always played are Stairway to Heaven and American Pie. American Pie is always the last song of the dance, and Stairway to Heaven is usually right before it. Most of the music I didn’t really like, but I did enjoy the canon songs. Because most of the music was stuff I had no interest in dancing to, I didn’t really want to dance when I walked into the dance with my friends. Most of them did want to dance, but it turns out that James also didn’t have much interest in dancing, so we went out into the lobby and talked. Plenty of people didn’t want to dance, so they went and hung out in the lobby or the rec room. Both rooms had places to sit down, and they were quiet enough that you didn’t have to shout to talk. For the first dance James and I ended up talking for almost the entire dance (2 ½ hrs), and every now and then when our friends wanted to take a break from dancing they would come out and talk to us for a few minutes. Then at the end we went in to dance to American Pie. Everybody dances to American Pie all together, every dance.