12 primary school teachers from the UK, who are visiting Shanghai as guests of Xu Hui District’s Education Bureau and the British Consulate’s Cultural and Education Section; yesterday had a chance to taste some traditional Chinese culture and cuisine as part of an event organized by Double Dragon Alliance’s cultural activities programme.
The UK guests, who are in China meeting with their counterparts at their partner schools in Shanghai, arrived on Sunday 5th April and have spent the first few days of their visit sightseeing and getting to know the city.
They’ve also had a chance to observe some lessons at their link schools and experience some of the differences in UK and Chinese education.
DDA were invited by Xu Hui District’s Education Bureau to organize a “fun”, yet instructive cultural activity for the visiting UK teachers, to help them understand more about Chinese culture and have an opportunity to relax and meet some local people.
We started the event at the “Rui Xin Jiao Zi (Dumpling) House” on Lan Xi Rd in Pu Tuo district, (瑞鑫饺子馆，普陀区兰溪路21弄9号) with a delicious meal of traditional Chinese fare of dumplings and specialties from north-east China’s cuisine. The restaurant, which is one of the most famous in Pu Tuo district for North-East Chinese food made the guests very welcome and treated us to some delicious dishes, which everyone agreed were extremely tasty and light on the stomach too!
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After dinner, we attended Dr Li Yong’s Conjoint Health & Advisory Centre, for an introductory talk on Chinese medicine and Tuina, which was followed by a “training” session in some simple Tuina techniques from Dr Li’s Tuina system, designed to tonify and detoxify the body, promote digestion, re-balance the mind and body and help lose weight!
The guests first watched Dr Li demonstrate on a couple of willing volunteers from their party and then got to practice the massage techniques on each other, ably assisted by Mr Wang Ming Bo and Carly Kite, who’s currently learning at Dr Li’s clinic as part of DDA and the clinic’s joint internship programme.
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The teachers had a tremendous time and it was not only informative, but also great fun too! Everyone learned some techniques and ideas that could help not only themselves improve and maintain their health, but would also be useful to aid family members when they return to the UK.
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The evening ended in a question and answer session and with several teachers receiving some acupuncture treatment for some specific ailments and general aches and pains, which to the recipients’ surprise and delight had immediate affect!???
It was a great evening, not only for the guests, but also for the interpreters from the British Council, the Education Bureau and several of Rose Oliver’s students from Shanghai University (who came to act as assistants for the evening and have a chance to practice their English skills). They all also learned a great deal about Chinese medicine and healthy living practices, which for many Chinese people themselves is often an area that is not well understood, and we hope we’ll have the pleasure of everyone’s company again in the near future for another such event.